Making of Minjung

The Making of Minjung

The Construction of Minjung

• Regionalism and anti Jeolla

• The internal colony of Jeolla  

• Gwangju uprising changed views of American support in Korea page 51
• Students and intellectuals were viewed to have abandoned the Gwangju movement
• Life and death commitment of individual was required pg. 53
• Arguments over how to call the uprising p. 54
• Minjung Rejection of bourgeois values p.58

Lee described how the history of modern Korea was always defined by failure. Foreign intervention, followed by subjugation under Japanese colonial rule, then post-war division, Civil war, and finally military dictatorship led Korean intellectuals to recognize that their history was marked by failure. It was then important that there be a history that recognized the failure of Korea, so that society would still continue to push towards their emancipation and freedom. Lee discusses the role that false history or memory can have in controlling a society. Thus the scholars of the Minjung movement “began to seek an alternative Korean history,” (p.40)

Anti- Communism and North Korea

• Fear of abandonment led to a stronger anti-Communist policy
• Anti-communism used to force resignations
• America wanted a US style Korea in 1945
• P.78 Yongjawaje

• Punishment of leftists

• Formation of National Security Law
• The emergency of Communism justifying lack of SK human rights
• NSL exists today p.83
• Similarities between SK and US p.85
• Hitler Youth in Korea p. 88

• National Student Defense Corp is

• P. 90 NSDC

Lee further discussed the role of anticommunism and North Korea in the movement. The role that North Korea and anti-communism would play in the minjung movement is significant. As the Minjung movement was re-evaluating its previous history they began to look towards the North as a society that was in many ways superior to their own. They viewed it as an egalitarian alternative to their own oppressive capitalist society. Lee described that the antagonism from the North and the strong anticommunist feelings that emanated from that antagonism provided the state with an effective way to control both social upheaval and enhance state power. Thus there are many instances where the state could simply decry a dissenting voice as “communist” in order to eliminate the threat. Again I believe Lee does an excellent job in this chapter in describing the situation in how the state could use “anticommunism” as a club to defeat any threat real or perceived to the state. This fear of anything “communist” related still seems to hold strong sway in present-day Korea where you can have political rival groups such as the left wing Unified Progressive Party’s leader Lee Seok-ki be arrested and sentenced to prison for North Korean plots.