Being
a Korean, the concept of Minjok has
always been a part of me ever since I was young. I was a part of the Great Han
race, a part of the Korean community. It was so natural for me that I never
thought about the legitimacy or the logicality of it; it felt like an innate
property for all people born Korean.
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| The statue of Dangun |
The
concept of Minjok is widely spread in
Korea and only Korea; it is a particular type of nationalism based on the idea
that all Koreans share the same bloodline. Korean history dates back five thousand
years, when the mythical son of god, Dangun, came down from heaven and founded
a nation called Joseon (now called Gojoseon because of a later country of the
same name). And by the concept of Minjok,
all Koreans born ever since are the descendants of Dangun; therefore, they
share the same bloodline and are all connected to each other. Considering that it
is based on a myth, rationally thinking, it is not a very realistic theory to
believe that all Koreans are the descendants of a heavenly being that lived
five thousand years ago, but somehow it is deeply rooted in all Koreans’ minds
as an important part of their existence.
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| The Japanese flag during WWII |
Minjok was first
introduced during the Japanese colonial era, in the first half of the 20th
century, by independence activists like Chae-Ho Shin, as a means to unite the
Koreans to stand up to the violence and coercion of the Japanese soldiers. Back
then, the Japanese committed a number of atrocities. After unjustly violating
the national sovereignty and invading the Korean peninsula, they took
everything—robbing Koreans of all their brassware to use them as materials for
bullets and weapons; forcing people to change their names to Japanese ones; kidnapping
teenage girls and used them as sex slaves for Japanese soldiers. And if people
resisted, they didn’t hesitate to kill them. The independence activists
realized that unless they found a way to unite Koreans and make them all go
against the Japanese, they wouldn’t stand a chance to get out of the Japanese
hands. That’s why they introduced the concept of Minjok, derived from the then-popular European idea of Romantic
Nationalism, a form of nationalism where the unity of people empowers and
justifies the government’s actions. It did serve its purpose pretty well: the
idea that all Koreans are one helped people build up social cohesion and
participate in nationwide movements such as the March First Independence
Movement. This didn’t have much direct effect on kicking the Japanese out of
the country, but did result in the formation of the Provisional Government of
the Republic of Korea and the Korean Liberation Army that later contributed to the
achievement of Korean independence.
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| The 2009 World GDP Rankings |
Later, in the
seventies, the Park Chung-Hee regime of South Korea used the concept of Minjok once again, this time in the
process of industrializing Korea. There had to be a big change of paradigm for
Korea to go through industrialization, which necessitated the sacrifices of a
lot of citizens. For Korea, being industrialized meant a lot of people working
hard in poor environments—many people worked in attics and small enclosed rooms
for over 15 hours a day for small wages. There have been many resistant moves
to this change, including the famous death of Tae-Il Jeon, a worker who burned
himself to death in the middle of a marketplace to remind people how bad an ordinary
worker’s life was. Also, many people were kicked out of their hometowns once it
was decided that new factories and roads would be built there. And when faced
with opposition, the government forced people with military power to comply
with the situation. The Park regime tried to justify all this with the idea of Minjok, that we should sacrifice
ourselves for a bright future for all. We might be working hard for now, but
later, after we make economic growth, there will be better lives for all of us;
since we are on this boat together, we should contribute and make Korea a
better country. Ironically, although the process was brutal for many people,
through this South Korea did successfully become industrialized and made a big leap
in their economic scale, the so-called “Miracle on the Han River.” Now South
Korea is one of the major economic powers, ranked 15th around the
world in GDP in 2009.
In the case of
independence activists, the use of the concept Minjok seems to have been the perfect choice. Without it, they
wouldn’t have been able to encourage people to resist against the Japanese
because without the sense of unification, people would have been scared to do
anything. Some of them might even have turned to the Japanese side and made it
harder for Koreans to keep on with their resistance.
In the case of industrialization
in the seventies, yes, the use of Minjok
would have been a bit harsh on people. They had to do what the government told them
to do just for the abstract idea of “a brighter future for all” without even
knowing how exactly their work contributed to their country’s growth. However,
in the end, it did help Korean industrialization and made Korea a major power. This
rouses the question “Does the end justify the means?” And personally, in this
case I think it does. If it hadn’t been for the Park regime’s use of Minjok and the people’s compliance with
it, South Korea might still have been going through a lot of changes or remained
as an agricultural society, an underdeveloped country. Would the citizens be
happy in that kind of society? Probably not. All countries have to go through
industrialization sometime, and the Park regime did a great job keeping the era
of change short—less than half a century. And the idea of Minjok served a crucial job in the process. Although it was brutal
for many people, this probably was better than any other way which would have
made the change last longer and had more people suffer from it.
So what is this Minjok as a social value? Noam Chomsky,
in his book Necessary Illusions: Thought
Control in Democratic Societies, says that an effective leader of a country
should make “necessary illusions”—“the ways in which thought and understanding
are shaped in the interest of domestic privilege”—in order to divert people
from the real major issue and make them do what the government wants. In the
sense that Korean leaders have spread the concept of Minjok around the country and made people act accordingly, Minjok may be seen as a type of a
necessary illusion. The interesting thing is that because of similar reasons,
ultranationalism of Japan and Nazism of Germany during World War II fall into
the same category.
But does it mean
that Minjok is the same idea as
ultranationalism and Nazism? No, I don’t think so. They may be similar in that
they united people into one and made them follow what the government does,
either voluntarily or forcedly. However, there is a big difference in the
purpose of using the idea. In the case of Japan and Germany, the government
used the ideas in order to make people blindly acquiesce to what they are
doing, whether or not the people knew that it was bad. It wasn’t for the good
of the whole; it was only introduced to the citizens to satisfy the certain
people’s desire for power—especially Hitler’s. Also, they emphasized the
superiority of their race over others, which can be clearly seen through the
Holocaust. On the other hand, Korean leaders used it for the good of the
country: in the first half of the 20th century, to achieve independence
from Japan; in the later half, to assist with the industrialization. And the
concept of Minjok focuses on the part
of uniting Koreans rather than the part of exalting the Korean race over others.
Still now, Minjok helps Korea as a nation. Take the
IMF situation for an example. In 1997, Korea faced a severe foreign-exchange
crisis, with a debt over 30 billion dollars, and ended up getting loans from three
international organizations including the International Monetary Fund. Later
that year, to rescue the country from the crisis, a voluntary nationwide
movement arose among citizens to donate any kind of golden object to the
government. Over three million people participated, giving away their wedding
rings and jewelry, and this resulted in collecting 227 tons of gold.
Considering the fact that the Korean government’s gold holdings before was only
about 10 tons, this was a tremendous amount of gold, collected purely by the
citizens’ will. With the help, Korea could overcome the situation fairly quickly.
The general
opinion about this movement around the world is that it is a unique case for
people to join forces for the nation’s recovery. There have been many cases of
a country going close to bankrupt, but not one time did anything like this
happen. I personally think that the reason is the existence of Minjok in Korea. It gave the people the
notion that the whole country is like a family, which led to people
spontaneously giving away their precious jewelry without hesitating.
Minjok does have a
positive effect of uniting Koreans at hardships for sure, but coming into the
21st century, a new factor called ‘globalization’ comes into the
picture. And the question of ‘Does Minjok
have a positive net effect on Korea in the 21st century?’ is a totally
different story.
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| It's all global now |
The world is going
through a rapid globalization these days. And without exception, Korea is part
of it too. It all started under former president Kim, Young-Sam, under the name
of ‘Segyehwa.’ Unlike the old times, it is now free for all Koreans to travel
to another country and vice versa. There are a lot of immigrants to and from Korea
for various reasons, probably the two most popular among them being work and marriage.
K-Pop is one of the most famous music genres around the world with a massive
fan base, and Psy’s Gangnam Style was
a worldwide sensation with over a billion YouTube views. And in this kind of
environment, Minjok may be an
obstacle for Korean globalization.
While Minjok gives people a sense of
unification, on the other side it implies that people from foreign countries
are not a part of the Korean
community. This is why foreigners and half-Koreans get the feeling of not being
welcomed in Korea. They just don’t fit into the concept of Minjok in Koreans’ perspective. The number of international
marriage between Koreans and people overseas has been steadily increasing, and
the number of foreign workers in Korean factories is too. But the Korean
society just doesn’t seem to be ready for it yet. Those who immigrate to Korea
are ready to become a part of Korea, a Korean citizen, and embrace Korean
culture. However, the society regards them as “people from other countries” or “a
multicultural family” and refuses to take them in. No matter how long the
immigrants have lived in the country, Koreans always get surprised when “foreigners”
speak Korean, eat kimchi, or use chopsticks skillfully.
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| Robert Holley--He's a Korean! |
Take Robert Holley for an example. He is a Californian-born lawyer, but has lived in Busan,
Korea for a long time. He married a Korean woman in 1987 and was naturalized as
a Korean citizen in 1997. In the process of naturalization, he changed his name
to a Korean one, Il Ha, and now has three sons with Korean citizenships and
Korean names. Now, this is more than enough to view him as a Korean. But later,
when he started working as an entertainer and came on television, it became
clear that maybe it isn’t enough. Every time he comes on television, he is
called Robert Holley rather than his Korean name of Il Ha. Many Koreans who see
him for the first time are surprised that he is so fluent in Korean, and even
more at the fact that he can display humor through a nonnative language. And in
fact, one of the most important points of his humor is that he speaks in Busan
dialect. If he was Korean-born, there would be nothing much to laugh about, but
since he speaks the dialect as a naturalized foreigner, people get amazed and
entertained despite the fact that he has been living in Busan for decades.
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| Look! It's a foreigner! |
And that was the
case of one of the most well-known naturalized Korean citizens around the
country. So what would life be like for other foreigners? No matter how long he
lived in Korea, no matter how well he knows about Korea, people everywhere will
regard him as a foreigner, a different race, a different kind of person. Everywhere
he goes, he will face “Look, there’s a white guy!” and “Oh my god, you speak
Korean!” and “Umm… Hi..? Where are you from?” From a Korean’s point of view,
this may be pure curiosity, but many foreigners take offense from these kinds
of reactions. They think of it as disregard and even a chauvinistic behavior
trying to leave them out from the Korean society. And as long as the concept of
Minjok remains deeply rooted in
Koreans’ minds, this phenomenon of regarding all non-Koreans as foreigners will
continue.
In sociology,
the term “global village” refers to “the whole world considered as being
closely connected by modern telecommunications and as being interdependent
economically, socially, and politically” (Dictionary.com). Through
globalization, the world is becoming a global village. If Koreans stick to the
old idea of Minjok and confine
themselves into a society of their own, refusing to embrace people from other
countries as a part of their community, the country wouldn’t stand a chance of
being completely globalized. The key to globalization is opening the minds and
letting other cultures, other races soak into their society. Having the concept
of Minjok has an advantage to it for
sure, of uniting certain people into a big group, but to carry on with it in
the 21st century, it has to change.
What if Korea
extends Minjok to a bigger extent? In
the old times, localizing the idea to their own country was possible, but now
it isn’t. Now there isn’t really a boundary between countries. It is a global village, and living overseas isn’t much
of a barrier to set up close relationships. What if Koreans stop limiting the
idea to themselves and think of the whole humankind as a part of their Minjok instead? All Koreans will be a
part of the bigger community, and there wouldn’t be any “foreigners” left out
from it. This way, it wouldn’t be a problem for the Korean globalization
either. As a part of the Minjok
community, Koreans will let other races and cultures mix with their own, and in
turn fully become a part of the global village.
Now is the time
to change, to adjust Minjok to the
modern society.
