Three English abstracts of works by Professor Kwon Hyuk Beom (Daejon University, South Korea) [->HOMEPAGE<-] 1) Anti-Communism of Korea - Semantic System and Its Political and Social Function 2)  Examining the Circuit of Anti-Communism - Meaning of Anti-Communism in South Korea and Its Political and Social Functions 3) Slide: - What do the anti-Communist slogans on the streets try to tell us? Anti-Communism of Korea -Semantic System and Its Political and Social Function Hyuk-Bum Kwon (Political Science and Diplomacy, Taejon University) This study investigates how and in what form the anti-Communist ideology exists in our everyday thinking, so as to examine further how the anti-Communist paradigm, that is at work in everyday life or during the crisis, has affected political and social functions of the South Korean society in 1990s. The ultimate purpose of the study is to elucidate how the anti-Communist ideology has functioned in the social integration of the South and the North. This research necessitates the analysis of education, press, public relations, and personal communication that affect the formation and continuance of the anti-Communist ideology. The resources of the analysis will be the relevant parts of the moral education and the ethics textbooks, newspaper articles about North Korea and anti-Communism, anti-Communist slogans, interviews on anti-Communist problems, and the result of the survey. Anti-Communism purports hostile logic or sentiment against Communism. Especially the concept in South Korea, stipulates the North Korean political system or the administrative authority as an absolute 'evil' and threat. The underlying assumption created here is the necessity of its exclusive elimination or collapse, naturally entailing hostile repression towards leftist inclinations within the South Korean society. The range of anti-Communism in 1990s, however, has narrowed in South Korea due to the collapses of the Soviet Union and Eastern European socialism, in tandem with the growing economic gap between the South and the North Korean society. The contents of moral education textbooks has changed from burning anti-Communist sentiment to emphasis on cooperation and peace. This does not mean, however, that anti-Communism has completely disappeared from the dominant paradigm. Such ideology can still be witnessed in military training textbooks. The contradicting contents between different textbooks reveal that the core of anti-Communist ideology has never changed, although the surface of it is covered with rational and objective understanding and criticism. Anti-Communist slogans you easily encounter in everyday life, clearly show the semantic system of anti-Communism. The slogans lay stress on the necessity of the anti-Communism by presenting possible North Korean aggression and the loss and gain anti-Communism can entail. Additionally, those slogans urge people to be precautious about spies and leftists for the sake of the realization of anti-Communism. Through this mechanism, criticism towards the existing system, the state, anti-Communism, and ideology, become targets of "pro-Communist" suspicion. What would be the political and social functions of the anti-Communist paradigm? First, anti-Communism severely represses the room for critical questions to emerge, by returning all critical thoughts and movements to the sphere of "leftist" or "impurity," closing up the formation of basic conditions required for the emergence of democracy. Second, anti-Communism has been deeply embedded into the South Korean people's way of thinking under the tension rooted in divided systems, which has lasted for about 40 years. Anti-Communism often converts to a practical power. It refreshes group consciousness of solidarity, emerging from the everyday consciousness upon the political, economic, and cultural crisis of the South Korean government. The circuit formed by the anti-Communist paradigm also gives rise to such ways of thinking at homes, schools, and in public sphere, outside of the political and security boundary. The anti-Communist paradigm has been reproduced through converting both the older generations' direct experience of the War and its interpretations into the 'first-hand experience' of the others by education, public relations, and personal communication, and also by emphasizing the conflicts among political powers of the South and the North that continuously took place in the 50s. As long as Communism actually exists in the Korean peninsula, anti-Communism cannot but last as well, and any individual who tries to challenge this ideology will likely be isolated from the society and be shackled. The penetration of anti-Communism in everyday life has settled a nationalistic way of thinking, which aims to subordinate various values of human society under the theory of national security. It also slowed down the formation of the political culture in favor of the protection of modern human rights. The lack of this political culture hindered the development of participative democracy in Korean society, by strengthening the black and white theory in Korean society, fostering hatred towards the intended 'target,' and promoting violence as a means to resolve dispute and conflict in all fields. Today, these aspects work as critical obstacles in social and cultural integration, two basic premises of the desired peaceful unification, of the two Koreas. Examining the Circuit of Anti-Communism Meaning of Anti-Communism in South Korea and Its Political and Social Functions Hyuk-Bum Kwon The topic of the study is to elucidate the semantic system of anti-Communism and its political and social functions in the South Korean society. In doing so, anti-Communist slogans will be used as major data. The meaning of anti-Communism has weakened in the 1990s South Korean reality, whereas cooperation and peaceful co-existence of the South and the North have been emphasized. Anti-Communism, however, did not disappear completely, but has just retreated from the surface of the dominant paradigm. The North Korea and Communism in the 1990s South Korea were recognized multiplely, multi-layeredly and contradictively. Traditional anti-Communism is on the decline. The problem is, however, the wide-range spread of anti-Communism. Anti-Communism extended its boundary from the field of politics, military, and security to the common ways of thinking, resulting in the embeddedness of anti-Communism. This extended meaning of anti-Communism forms a kind of circuit that voluntarily and automatically induces particular political and social thoughts and actions, through the internalization process of the anti-Communist world view. Political and social thoughts and actions mentioned above are as follows: uniformity and certainty, propensity to mobilize military, exclusive monitoring attitude, anti-political monistic order(반정치적 일원주의), and moralism. All critical thoughts go through the transformation process in the circuit. The immediate mechanism of association connects the following charges: unsound charge -> impurity charge -> leftist charge -> pro-Communist / pro-North charge -> spy charge. This burden keeps the members of the society on track, demanding them to be ideologically certain and sound, but not opaque or impure. This mechanism can further charge whoever is against established order or practise with impurity suspicion. This is an effective way to conceal internal problems by externalizing them. However, what is more important than this intended strategy is wide-spread self-monitoring and self-guarding tendency embedded in people's mind in the form of anti-communism. South Koreans' mentality to report impure members of the society has got even stronger than that in the past. This fact blocks the formation of basic conditions required for the development of democracy by depriving the weak of their rights to raise critical arguments. The circuit, created by the dichotomy of dividing pro and anti-Communism, together with nation-wide anti-Communism, forces people to think in a uniform way, putting stress on the extension of meanings, and consolidation. The ordinary substance of anti-Communism is not antonym of Communism. It is rather an agreement with orders, fundamental principles, security, consolidation, prosperity, and power, which automatically creates the opposite sentiment towards the chaos, crisis, disorder, and disunion. It calls for the rebuilding of orders and authority, resulting in the reproduction of the military order system. Through this anti-Communistic circuit, common thinking system, which is at work in everyday life, is restricted; the mechanism of monitoring and punishment forces to fit political, social and cultural imagination, in a small frame. The advent of multiple-faceted people, required in the transitional process towards the open and pluralistic democratic society, is hindered as well. Anti-Communism is no longer a denial or criticism against Communism. It is an effective rhetorical means that justifies, protects, and reproduces repressive and unequal order. Not only as a political symbol, which instigates nationalistic sentiment such as "patriotism", "national security", " and "the elimination of pro-North leftist," but as a material of the circuit board that monitors and punishes the Communism, anti-Communism works as a part of everyday life belief system that conceals social resistance and conflict deriving from sex, class, and region inequality, reproducing profit-securing structure of the ruling elite. In Korea, the anti-Communist ideology has been mobilized as a means to maintain its divided system. It can be called as "regulation of the divided country." It is hard to deny that the utilization of this anti-Communist ideology once has contributed to maintaining the identity of the Republic of Korea. Such ideology, however, functions as a repression to the members of the society today. Slide: - What do the anti-Communist slogans on the streets try to tell us? Hyuk-Bum Kown This slide show was made as a supplementary material of the research paper 'The Semantic System of Korean Anti-Communism and Its Socio-Political Function' ({The Korean Unification Studies} 2(2), pp.7-42, 1998), which was a part of project. Thus whoevers want to use this material, I recommend that person to read papers on anti-Communism before referring to this slide. This slide show mainly presents anti-Communist slogans shoot in streets with the sub-title explaining political and social meanings and implications of them. The following is the major points of the script. ----------------------------------------------------------------- "Although it has been over ten years since South Korea democratized, anti-Communism of the cold war era is still at work around us. Everywhere in the Republic of Korea, one cannot but face the tenacious demand of anti-Communist slogans. There are anti-Communist texts in subways (the second line of the Seoul metropolitan subway), restroom (Cheju airport), bath houses (Chungju), and by the roads (Kangwon-do). Those texts silently force people not to trust anyone, to always be aware and to monitor, not to loosen their tension, and not to harm national security-centered orders. It is natural to exhort spies to self-surrender, or to request people to turn spies in, under the divided system. Who can complain about to nationalistic and materialistic moral obligations, telling people: let's be patriotic and win the prize by reporting hidden spies. Though it is hard to recognize spy, you must report to 112 or 113 when you really recognize them. Recently, it became even more convenient to report spies due to the new collect call report service system (Kyungbu Express Highway). It is also interesting to think about the little boy who cried out that he hated both spies and Communists after the Korean War (Lee Syung-bok Memorial). However, are slogans on streets solely aim to catch spies and spread proper attitudes towards the North? It is necessary to critically examine whether or not those slogans aim to give general citizens particular political and social influence. According to those slogans, all critical words and actions are instantly linked to 'leftist,' 'impurity,' 'pro-Communism,' and 'pro-North' suspicions. Suspicious people and criticizers are hardly differentiated from 'impure leftists' or 'spies.' Those slogans warn people that leftist tendency, not to mention leftist words and actions, are no different from the crime on national scale in the South Korean society. Therefore, anti-Communism allows suspicions towards all kinds of 'words and actions' that do not adhere to the dominant order or law, by telling people that 'there are spies around you even at this very moment.' Whoever witnesses a seceder, he automatically doubt whether that person is 'from North' or is a 'Commi.' The obsession of suspicion and reporting is deeply penetrated inside South Koreans. They encounter checkpoints everywhere! They constantly have uneasy feelings though not guilty of anything!!! They are requested to be cautious, suspicious, and aware, and to report! Here, totalitarian mobilization structure to make all the people reporting agents can be seen. In this respect, there exists no big difference between the South and the North. In the South, the pressure urges people even to suspect democratic words and actions. The atmosphere constraining democracy has already gained its justification. Dichotomic ideological dispute aims at the same kind of effect that has already been mentioned. Under such atmosphere, everybody self-monitors oneself, since he is afraid of being named as 'pro-Communist.' 'Contamination of thoughts' seems really formidable when the degree reaches at this point. Do only persecution maniacs become timid coming across with these sorts of slogans? Or is it rather because when one is named as a 'pro-Communist,' unimaginable damages comes not only to oneself, but also to his family. What is really restricted under this mechanism is not only activities of spies or 'leftists' but all forms of words and actions against ruling orders. Under such oppression, is it possible for human rights and democracy, which should have liberty as an axis, to exist unharmed? However, anti-Communism doesn't only cause oppression towards particular words and actions in political and security sphere. It creates hostile feelings towards chaos, disunion, slackening, incautiousness, anxiety, and strife in general sphere. It is because these concepts are instantly identified with rebellious maneuver, North Korea's misjudgement and agitation, security crisis, and social unrest. This identification naturally extends political and social feelings to everyday lives of people, automatically calling for and strengthening the importance of harmony, order, stability, solidarity, and prosperity. Anti-Communism is no longer an antonym of Communism or North Korean political power. How much are we afraid of disunity and incautiousness? Who profits from such a mechanism? For whom do we strive for stability? This frantic symptom of 'disunion fear' has internalized in people's hearts and minds as 'Korean sentiment.' Such a symptom forms political culture promoting adaptability towards the existing system, and justifies unequal hierarchical orders. This symptom suddenly emerges from inner consciousness at the time of crisis in the South Korean society, placing priority on unity and on national security, and stitches up the cleavage. Finally, it dismantles the power and the justification working against the ruling structure. I once took a picture of a anti-Communist slogan in the subway. At that time, I unconsciously got nervous and felt all the eyes turning upon me after I took the picture. Accordingly, I ended up taking several irrelevant pictures of other advertisement. Only after taking irrelevant pictures, people went back to their own business, and I was relived. However, I am not sure whether those suspicious eyes really turned upon me, or they were just the result of my pathological phenomenon. Will there possibly be unification when the wire entanglement still exists inside myself or ourselves? What kind of unification would it be, then? Can we now laugh wholeheartedly like a child in a happy picture? Produced and Edited by: Hyuk-Bum Kwon Graphic Works by: Young-ku Lee This Slide Show has been produced as a part of the Project, sponsored by the Korea Research Foundation (November 15th, 1999).