PSPD in English Archive 2002-08-24   845

Editor’s Note

If there is one policy area that the current government of Korea has singularly failed to address, from our perspective, it is industrial relations. The Korean workers’ frustration surrounding the industrial restructuring program since the Asian financial crisis in 1997/8 has been exacerbated by, among others, the failure of the Tripartite Commission. The incumbent administration’s policy towards workers and trade unionists was perceived by many as grossly biased in favor of the management. The root cause of the workers’ discontent, perceived or otherwise, can be traced to the accumulated effects of the growth-orientated economic policy since the 1970s. At the back of seemingly dazzling economic achievement, however, lies the huge sacrifice the workers had been forced to accept for so long a time. The policy makers and industrial leaders, augmented by generally pro-management lines of the press, simply have not paid necessary attention to the labor issues. One may ask: do workers’ grievances matter if they are given a salary which is increasing? Of course they matter, particularly when you find a growing inequity in income distribution between the top and bottom segments of society, and the increasingly volatile nature of contract employment status as opposed to a secure, life-long employment situation. This is the rationale behind the special feature articles on the labor issue on this edition of the ASQ.

Tae-ju Park’s case study of the privatization of the Power Generation Industry is an apt analysis of this highly publicized industrial dispute. Dr Park is an ideally placed writer for this contribution, to say the least. Having been engaged in the labor movement as a researcher and activist, he studied and observed some of the most hotly discussed issues of industrial restructuring in Britain in the 1990s. His penetrating article, we hope, will bring home the point to readers that one must go beyond the superficial discussion of current affairs as understood in the media in order to get to the heart of the matter. Following Park’s article comes a piece by Yoon Hyo-won who look at the strikes in the ‘three companies’, i.e. the railway, electricity, and gas utilities. This is the so-called main infrastructure of Korea’s industry which has suffered major problems in terms of personnel staffing, mismanagement, hasty privatization and lay-offs. Anyone wanting to get a glimpse of what’s going on inside these sectors should not miss this article.

The great success of the World Cup this year, at least from the Korean spectators’ point of view, has somehow obscured an important human rights issue, i.e. the Anti-terror Bill. Proposed and drafted after the 9/11 attack 2001, the bill was hailed by its main proposer, the National Information Service, as a ‘major weapon against the possible terrorist attacks on occasions like the World Cup games. The news of the incoming anti-terror measure alerted civil society in general and human rights circles in particular. Broad and swift, the bill gave almost unlimited power to the relevant authority to curtail and suspend civil liberties at their discretion. As a result human rights campaigners worked day and night to fight against this new form of draconian measure when the mind of the general public was switched to the ‘football-fever mode’. In the end the bill was put aside quietly, for the time being at least, but the significance of the problem which civil society in Korea attached to it still remains. In this regard it should be interesting to know why and on what ground civil rights activists were opposed to the bill through the account of Ryu Eun-sook, a veteran activist in this field. We have also placed a statement by the Lawyers for a Democratic Society on the occasion of a meeting of the UN Commission on Human Rights this spring.

With the increasing trend of interpreting social problems in terms of human rights it is worthwhile noting that the issue of ‘conscientious objection’ has acquired a rapid profile among the public in recent times. The issue has been around for a long time but never become a prominent agenda in its own right until very recently, the reason being that the problem has been regarded as a religious matter for a specific denomination and that military affairs had been a sort of taboo subject in this divided country. Prof. Han Hong-koo is a well-known specialist in this field who is one of the first to raise this human rights issue to the wider public in this country. His account will be of value to those who want to understand what is going on in the human rights scene in Korea at the moment.

Other issues that this edition of ASQ has covered include an elaboration of the objectives, progress and evolution of the World Social Forum by Choi Seung-min and the full text of a declaration signed by seven hundred people on the occasion of the visit of President Bush to Seoul this year. We believe that this kind of ‘draft of history’ will be of great importance as a way of recording the event from the grass root’s viewpoint. While the declaration is a sort of raw material, Nicole Risse and Peter Kloepping present an excellent summary of what the civic activists actually wanted in their demands on the American president’s visit to Korea. This analytical piece is accompanied by a statement from women activists. Careful readers will find here that the discourse of peace from women’s perspective gives one a richly textured argument distinctive in its robustness. Bush’s visit, itself a negative turning point in the peace dialogue in Korean peninsula, at least on a short term basis, was given an intellectual examination by the well-known peace activist and researcher, Kim Seungkuk.

America dominated the editor’s attention; Lee Tae-ho examines here how the so-called ‘anti-Americanism’ is being formed by looking at the controversy surrounding the purchase of Fighter X. It will give readers a rare opportunity to see through the logic and sentiment Koreans have towards America and her foreign – in this case military trade – policy. Finally the ASQ is pleased to have a chance to introduce the activity of an Indonesian organization, LBH Surabaya, for the first time in Korea. We hope that this exchange of experience and perspective will lead to deeper mutual understanding of civil society activities among Asian peoples. I, as Editor, may take this opportunity to apologize for the delay in the publication of this edition. The unexpected logistical problem means that not only has the publication of this issue been postponed, but we have had to decide to merge the two issue into one, hence this edition’s number appearing as 8/9. As a matter of fact, therefore, we hope that this volume will draw keen attention from the collectors of rare books and periodicals in due course!

Hyo-Je Cho (ASQ Editor’s Board, PSPD)

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