Why I Went to Jeju

At the end of my talk [in Seoul, South Korea] on the eve of the Global Day of Action on Military Spending, a young woman introduced herself as Le Hoang Ngan, a Vietnamese student who was studying in Seoul.  She had heard me speak of my experiences in Vietnam and specifically of Agent Orange, so asked if I thought America would ever make restitution for what it had done.  Having just last year visited with Agent Orange victims and their families in the city of Cao Lanh, Vietnam, and having seen dozens of grotesquely damaged children in a Ho Chi Minh City orphanage, and having heard the demands of several prominent Vietnamese Agent Orange victim advocates, I knew I had a lot of emotion invested in the subject.  I could not maintain my composure as I struggled to formulate a hopeful but honest response.  My answer devolved into a broadside.  I submitted that no matter how hideous the crime U.S. assumption of accountability was unlikely lest it be made to answer for all the other outstanding war crimes on the U.S. warrant since WWII.  Hope, I said, can only be found in us activists who see what has been done, conclude that "this cannot stand", and work to bring the truth to others until there are millions of us and the dreamed of 'paradigm shift' we talk about so often is embraced by the critical mass.

 

Fundamentally, the U.S. has it all wrong.  Our foreign policy is governed and shaped by a world-view that sees threats and creates enemies everywhere.  We’re not dedicated to peaceful co-existence and co-operation, but to conflict and aggression.  The dominant interests that determine our policies would seem inarguably to be those of the mega-corporations and militarism would seem all too often the expeditious way of securing them.

 

What is happening on Jeju is reflective of America's world view.  It is consistent with what the U.S. has done in Korea since the end of WWII, is consistent with what we did in Vietnam and with what we continue to do elsewhere on the planet.  What we do (bomb, drone, torture, imprison) is our foreign policy which reflects our world view. 

 

Since the U.S. determined the 38th parallel would separate North and South Korea it has steadfastly made it so.  Rather than participate in talks with North Korea, that is engage in diplomatic relationships, the U.S. has since 1950 refused to do so.  "We don't reward bad behavior."  And so tension has been the status quo ever since, punctuated with periods of "high alert", as is the case today. 

 

As the drama of the horrific bombing at the Boston Marathon plays out, we read and hear that the suspects are immigrants from Chechnya and the "unanswerable" questions are continuously raised.  How could it be?  How could they not embrace all that is good in America?  Why would anyone want to kill innocents?  We won't acknowledge that these same questions are being asked around the globe as our drones and sanctions and torture and imprisonments and bombings and…..  You get the picture.  What we have done since WWII, deliberately and indiscriminately targeting civilians, to protect the privilege of the empire's elite, can hardly be called anything but terrorism.  

 

Our foreign policy is planting the seeds of hatred.  It's very difficult to think anything other than that 'blowback' is inevitable.

 

Referencing the agonies imposed on others by my country--Agent Orange, depleted uranium, nuclear radiation, torture,  assassinations---I enjoined my audience in Seoul to stay the course.  In the talk I had spoken of individuals I'd come to know who had been displaced from their native lands in Greenland, in Diego Garcia, and in the Marshall Islands.  I also spoke of the Vietnamese I'd known as "gooks" during my first visit who had become brothers during and ever since my second and third and fourth return.  And I spoke of the pain now being inflicted on the people of Gangjeong Village.  My few days on Jeju were sufficient to build friendships and to deepen my commitment and responsibility to the "other".  Empathy is an imperative.    

 

One last daybreak at the gate, one last stand in solidarity with the activists as another caravan of cement trucks passed by, and I had to be on my way.  Sunghee, as she had throughout my stay, could not help but mother me.  She lugged one of my bags to the bus stop giving us a last chance to visit.  We spoke again of hope and where we find it. I had raised the subject thinking as the elder I could impart some wisdom, but conversation made clear it's not an issue for her.  Her level of purpose transcends despair.  She is simply "keeping on", relentlessly, stead-fast, damned the consequences.  As has often been my experience here, I was receiving the lesson.  Sunghee's not alone.  There are many in the struggle, each assuming different roles.  They find strength, I think, in each other.  That community of purpose buttressed my hope.

 

At the beginning of my immersion in the Gangjeong struggle I had harbored a concern that the campaign was operating on auto-pilot; that there was not much day-to-day assessment of the effectiveness of strategies.  As the days went by I came to appreciate that there was much going on behind the scenes and that ample communication among the various major players was happening.  Now, as I was leaving I had developed a confidence that the people, in general, have a good sense of where they are in the struggle.  These are not unschooled, inexperienced waifs at the mercy of the powerful forces arrayed against them.  They have a mix of young and old, aggrieved Gangjeong villagers and seasoned citizen-activists from the mainland and beyond who have been in the struggle against the big/little brother joint military empire for years.  I think they can look at the long vision.  Gangjeong may be lost--maybe not; but through the struggle they are educating, educating, educating and they are making incremental gains.  More and more people around the world are noticing.  The seeds are germinating.  There are more who understand the long-range folly of the dark forces who would waste our planet.  More who know of the American civil rights activists, the Polish workers, the Danish resisters.  More who know of the victory in Searsport, Maine.   

 

As I had hoped, my decision to curtail my stay on Jeju offered important experiences and opportunities on the mainland.  Monday in Seoul, the Global Day of Action on Military Spending was observed by a broad spectrum of organizations.  Activists representing Peoples' Solidarity for Participatory Democracy, World Without War, War Resisters International, Peace Network, Weapons Zero, Frontiers, Palestinian Peace & Solidarity, the Society for Peace and Reunification of Korea, and a half dozen others would be coalescing around the issue of militarism.  Father Pat and I joined a couple of dozen others for the early morning press conference in front of the National Assembly building.  The number of journalists and photographers present was well beyond our wildest aspirations in Maine and, in fact, equal to the coverage often seen at our biggest national rallies.  Though I could not understand a word spoken, Pat assured me the issues were well-covered to include Jeju.  Additionally, some effective street theatre played well.  Press TV noticed me as one of the few non-Asians in the crowd and asked for an interview.  I was happy to accommodate them and hopefully connected a few dots while expounding on the inanity of the naval base at Gangjeong.

 

Following the press conference, Pat and I joined a group of the activists for a few hours of pamphleting and tabling at a nearby flower festival that attracted throngs of Koreans and tourists.  More street theatre enabled us to distribute messages that generally don't play any better to the Korean public than to Americans.  Four teletubbies were able to slip our flyers into the hands of the many who could not resist a photo-op.  There was one American in the group who forsook propriety, thinking, "What the hell.  No one knows me anyway."