Sungbok Yun
Environmental problems, politics and the environmental movement in Korea
Korea is the country with the highest density population in the world, and, moreover, about 70 percent of the national land consists of mountains. The overpopulation makes Koreans sensitive and competitive to the land use and pollution. Under these conditions, civic experiences of environmental problems which capital and the state have, to a large extent, produced, have been enough to induce militant environmental movements to defend the life-world threatened. The environmental movement can be defined as a set of social reactions seeking reform or transformation of social structures and human activities producing environmental problems.
Environmental problems that people experience are regarded as injustices or as disturbances of life-support activities. The environmental injustices appear as an economic damage, a demographic change, a health problem and an aesthetic and moral concern (Goldblatt. 1996: 28). As environmental problems are embedded in global and/or domestic economic and social structures and processes, their resolutions or the goals of the movement are only by changes of such structures and processes (Dobson. 1990).
Korea has experienced compressive rapid industrialization since the early 1960s. One reason for the success of the compressive rapid industrialization was the state intervention. It was rapidly promoted by the Five-Year Plans of Economic Development under the auspices of the state. The state intervention of the market economy accelerated industrialization through its total mobilization of resources. According to the Economic Plans, labour intensive light industries had been deployed in cities since the early 1960s; capital-technology intensive heavy-chemical industries have been deployed in the newly developed coastal areas or near cities since the early 1970s. Mass production, centering on heavy-chemical industries, has been prevalent in the Korean economy: steel, nonferrous metals, petrochemicals, machinery, shipbuilding and electronics. These industries emit more pollutants, use more energy and deepen more environmental pollution than other industries do (Jungjun Lee. 1994: 321–330; Yongsun Oh. 2008: 150). As the state intervention of the market for rapid economic growth accelerated, environmental problems developed further and quicker, degrading the environmental conditions of life.
The environmental movement from the 1960s to the 1980s
There have been various tendencies of environmentalism against the degradation of the conditions of life in Korea. The collective actions are too diverse to lump together under the name of environmental resistance. It is evident that environmental movements emerge out of a complex combination between the environmental problems, conditions of life and political conditions which vary according to time and space.
Environmental movements were previously regarded as exclusive to rich Western democratic countries, that is, postmaterialism (Inglehart. 1990). However, it is now obvious that environmental movements can emerge during the early stages of industrialization in nondemocratic, poor or developing capitalist countries. In Korea, there has been environmental resistance by peasants, fishermen, the urban poor, labourers and, recently, by urban middle classes. It seems that the source of grassroots environmental resistance is a threat to the right to live. Considering this point, a grassroots environmental movement is characterized by the resistance to environmental injustice.
The grassroots anti-pollution movement1
Pollution is concentrated on the Third World internationally, and it is concentrated on the farmers, fisher men and labourers nationally. The residents, as its unilateral victims, are fatally suffering from it.... As they have been deprived of a living basis of farming and fishery, and suffered from environmental diseases, they are demanding a collective emigration. The collective emigrations have already been launched in Ulsan, Onsan and Yeochun Industrial Complex.
(KRIPP. 1986: 4)
Most grassroots environmental movements start with a protest demanding economic compensation. As factories began to emit black smoke, waste water and industrial wastes, a visible and persistent environmental struggle occurred near the Ulsan Industrial Complex. Farmers, cultivating rice, began to demand compensation for the loss of production incurred in 1969. Since then, they established the pollution countermeasure committee in 1971 and developed the collective actions for compensations regarding economic and health damages as well as subsidies for moving their houses elsewhere. The movement continued for almost 20 years, until 1991, when the Collective Emigration Plan had been finished (KRIPP. 1986; To-wan Ku. 1996; See-Jae Lee. 2000: 143). Until the early 1980s, grassroots organizations developed isolated struggles without outside support.
A typical movement, symbolizing an anti-pollution movement at the grassroots level, emerged from the Onsan Industrial Complex,2 where 12 heavy chemical factories had begun to operate since 1978. The Onsan grassroots movement was similar to the one at the Ulsan Industrial Complex in its early stage; it was ignited by economic constraints, demographic change and health problems. However, the decisive difference between the two lies in a pollution disease, that is, the Onsan disease, or the Korean itai-itai disease. Of course, the residents in Ulsan also experienced many kinds of diseases such as skin diseases, eye diseases, respiratory diseases, the increase of tubercle and other similar afflictions caused by pollutants (KRIPP. 1986: 75–78), whereas the case of Onsan was more serious. Approximately 13,000 residents of 16 villages lived between factories or between factories and the sea, where the government or companies did not purchase land or establish an emigration plan due to the huge amount of purchasing and compensating costs before the operation of factories on the Onsan Industrial Complex district (KRIPP. 1986: 89). As a result, Onsan residents were directly and intensively exposed much more to pollutants.
The residents faced the critical situation that threatened their right to live from the rapid environmental degradation in terms of the factories’ persistent emission of pollutants. They organized themselves, protested and demonstrated about 350 times against authorities and factories from 1979 to 1986 despite the political repression (Sookyoung Lee. 2001: 35). Despite their protests, they had suffered from many kinds of diseases after the establishment of the complex. Their symptoms exacerbated and developed. Their demand of the collective emigration meant that they gave up making their livelihood by farming and fishing, as it was the only method to save their lives and escape pollution. They screamed and appealed for help from the authorities, the companies and the societies, “Although we suffer death, please spare our children their lives” (KRIPP. 1986: 112). Activists of the KRIPP, who had monitored and intervened in Onsan, revealed the Onsan pollution disease in a newspaper despite the government’s surveillance (Hankook Ilbo. January 18, 1985), and consequently, other mass media followed suit. Suddenly, Onsan disease became a national issue. The key issue of Onsan disease was whether or not it was a disease caused by pollution. The KRIPP, activists and mass media demanded the government for a proper examination of this reality. Thus, the Korean Environmental Agency carried out an epidemiological survey for a week under such pressures,3 and announced that the Onsan disease was not a pollution disease. Despite pressures of the KRIPP and mass media, the government did not take a step further and attempted to obscure the reality. With its denial of pollution disease, instead, the government made the collective emigration plan, which the residents had constantly demanded, in a hurry.4 The collective emigration policy was implemented to avoid being exposed to, but not to remove, pollutants. Such efforts of the government worked such that the reality of the Onsan disease increasingly became forgotten in people’s memories.
Environmental movement organization (NGOs) as reflection
In the early 1980s, the Korean environmental movement saw the emergence of radical environmental activists and groups, indicating a departure for environmental politics. The first official environmental movement organization was the KRIPP, established in 1982, which focused on the emission of pollutants threatening people’s subsistence. It was divided into the KRIPP and the Korea Anti-Pollution Movement Association (the KAPMA) in 1988; the collective name was then changed to the Korean Federation for Environmental Movement (the KFEM) in 1993.
Under the repressive political opportunity structures of military regimes, grassroots protests as well as the environmentalists’ activities were rigidly restricted.5 However, as environmental problems deepened in large cities and industrial complex districts, expanding nationally, the activists realized the needs for organizational and systematic responses to environmental problems. At that time, most forces of social movements and progressive academics drew attention to capitalist inequality and non-democracy, but rarely ever to the environmental destruction of industrialization. It was clear that the KRIPP was the first and only social group that paid attention to the potential and possibilities of grassroots environmental mobilization and to the environmental dangerousness of industrialization. With this reflection, its ideological configurations could not help but be radical to the existing systems as its activists saw that environmental problems and injustice would not be resolved under the social structures that gripped people’s lives and the environment. Moreover, they saw the potential environmental resistance had against the environmental injustice at the level of grassroots, possibly leading to a social change. Due to the early environmentalists’ dedicated efforts, the environmental issues that were excluded or alienated by the state and existing social movements formed and developed as a branch of social movements.
The dependent position of Korea on advanced countries, economically Japan and politically and militarily the USA, made it especially vulnerable to the adoption of environmentally damaging practices (Yun. 2001). Most factories attracted from advanced countries were located in industrial complexes like Ulsan, Masan and Onsan Industrial Complex. Some of them were those expelled because of environmental protests, the emission of pollutants and tighter regulations in Japan (KRIPP. 1986: 70; See-jae Lee. 2000). In fact, the governments had, positively and with a plan, attracted and fostered such factories for the rapid achievement of industrialization with loose environmental regulations. The attraction of investment led by the governments acts as the absolute element for the success of capital accumulation in the stages of industrialization in developing countries. For the governments, a tightening of environmental regulations can mean the failure of attracting investment, foreign capital and technology from advanced countries, which may make the rapid achievement of industrialization difficult and lead to their political failure. For these reasons, the governments seldom implemented environmental regulations and tacitly approved the emission of pollutants. The environmental contradiction of industrialization over time was accumulated in most of the Industrial Complexes, especially the Onsan Industrial Complex; and with the political repression of resistance, the grassroots living near them came to suffer from environmental problems. An environmentalist wrote, “Environmental destruction has been deepened as multi-national companies of advanced countries, dictatorship and chaebol have imprudently introduced declining industries in Korea where contradictions of world capitalism have concentrated” (Yol Choi. 1990: 5).
The 1990s environmental movement after 1987
As social movements broke down the military regime in 1987, formal democracy advanced. Relatively open political structures erupted various demands and impacted social movements, resisting the state’s policy rather than the legitimacy of the state power. The threats toward the right to live caused by pollution were increasingly reduced by implementations of environmental policy through social pressures, such as the environmental movement, the 1988 Summer Olympic Games in Seoul, the phenol pollution of the reservoir and tap water in Daegu in 1991 and so on. The gradual tightening of pollution control required a strategy of accumulation different from that of the existing one, which centered on manufacturing.
Industrialization is directly connected to large scale land developments (Sungtae Hong. 2007: 63). In reality, state-led businesses facilitated the development of nature for active mass production, export and logistics. National projects were pushed ahead with little social resistance under the dictatorships, and even during the 1990s, under the necessity for civic life. In particular, the land development related to civil demand was less resistant than others. However, on the other hand, land development was another way of accumulation for capital and the state. It required massive investments through fiscal spending and thus provided opportunities for businesses; for developing related industries like civil engineering and construction, for nuclear industry, for leading economic growth and sometimes for overcoming economic crises such as the New Deal Plan. As these mechanisms sometimes increased the demands for land developments more than need be, environmental destruction was deepened.
The anti-nuclear movement
In Korea, nuclear power stations should be understood in both the contexts of infrastructure supplying electricity, and an atomic bomb and militarism for national security. With the active developments of the anti-pollution movement, massive anti-nuclear movements emerged in Yeongdeok in 1989, Yeonggwang in 1989, Anmyon Island in 1990, Goolup Island in 1994, Buan in 2003 and in Samcheok in 2011 with respect to the policies of nuclear power stations and waste disposal units. It was very difficult for movement organizations and grassroots to tackle these issues under the repressive political structures; nonetheless, most of the organized social movements paid attention to anti-nuclear, anti-war, disarmament and peace issues. Because Korea is a divided nation consisting of North and South Korea, the businesses and policies related to the national security have been exclusively monopolized by the state. The structure of this division explains the difficult nature of raising nuclear issues which have been controlled by the governments. However, paradoxically, the issues in the environmental and peace movements have been dealt with more heavily than other environmental issues, despite the strict control of the governments.
Compensation committees at the level of grassroots formed around nuclear power plants. The grassroots experienced and/or witnessed damages in fishing and tourism, a leak of heavy water, an illegal dump of nuclear wastes, births of deformed babies, cancers, deaths and so forth. The recognition of danger provided enough momentum to turn the compensation movement into an antinuclear movement. For example, anti-nuclear grassroots movement organizations were established in Yeodeok, Yeonggwang, Kwangju, Shinan, Jangheung, Boseong, Goheung and Yeosu after the government announced the proposed sites of nuclear power stations and/or waste disposal units in 1989 (Dongho Shin. 2007).
Most Koreans seemed to have recognized the hazards of nuclear technology. Most anti-nuclear movements have grown to massive scale and attracted national attention. This may be due to the preexisting national awareness of the fatal and/or potential dangers of radioactive materials, of experiences from damages from a nuclear power station, of the explosion of the atomic bomb in 1945 in Japan;6 and of the accident in Chernobyl in the former Soviet Union. Another reason may be overpopulation and the possibility of an outbreak of war.
The anti-nuclear movement came to be suddenly national, beyond the local boundary. Repressed grievances with experiences of damages and the illegal dumping of nuclear wastes erupted at Gori in 1988. The Gori residents’ protests and sit-ins at headquarters at the Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO) in Seoul were beyond the local boundary, and marked the first protests in terms of regional solidarity in Gori and Yeonggwang at the same time. With this as momentum, events like the Citizen’s Rally for Anti-Nuclear Peace (Banhaik Pyongwha Simin Daehoi) occurred in concert with the grassroots organizations around the areas of nuclear power stations, with health and medical organizations and with environmental organizations like the Korea Anti-Pollution Movement Association (the KAPMA) in 1988 in Seoul.
A massive grassroots movement occurred in Yeongdeok, one of the proposed sites for a nuclear waste disposal unit. It was the first anti-nuclear movement that massive participation and militant protests forced the withdrawal of the government plan in 1989. With this as impetus, national organizations, such as the National Anti-Nuclear Power Station Movement Center, were established, and public activities, such as the One Million Signature Movement Center for Anti-Nuclear Power Station and Waste Disposal Unit (http://antinuke.kfem.or.kr/history.htm/HyejungKim), emerged. The tendencies of national organization and the solidarities between the grassroots, civic groups and social movements, professional groups and environmental groups were the results of strong struggles despite the closed structure of nuclear policy, and have acted as a strong deterrent to nuclear policy.
With the Yeongdeok struggle, there have been massive, militant national antinuclear movements in Anmyon Island in 1990, Koolup Island in 1994, Buan in 2003, Gyeongju in 2005 and in Samcheok in 2011. As soon as a proposed site of a nuclear power station or waste disposal unit is announced, anti-nuclear movement forces are organized intensively and publicize nuclear issues nationally, beginning with local and national protests, campaigns, debates, open hearings, media plays and so on. In the case of the Anmyon Island struggle, most of the formal and informal associations in Anmyon Island joined and led the struggle. More than 100 national and local associations outside Anmyon Island supported and allied, including some of the civil associations near Anmyon Island, the grassroots anti-nuclear organizations of nuclear power station sites, and national social and environmental movement organizations such as KAPMA, the National Farmers Union, the Trade Union and Teachers Union and so on (Jaejin Jun. 1993).
The new trends of the environmental movement
With the development of the anti-pollution and anti-nuclear movement led by the Korea Anti-Pollution Movement Association (KAPMA), the configuration of social movements began to increasingly diverge into people’s movement sectors and civil sectors, producing new trends of the environmental movement. The life (or bio)-peace movement, which demanded a transformation of industrial civilization, the CCEJ, which demanded environmental reform within the system 1989, and Green Korea, which demanded the conservation of nature in 1991, emerged with new and different views and approaches to the environment and the society. Accidents, for example, the phenol pollution of the reservoir and tap water by the illegal discharge of an electronics company in 1991 in Daegu, roused national angst, and, consequently, stimulated the urban middle class, induced civil and consumer groups to launch an environmental movement, and contributed to the generation of about 100 environmental movement organizations nationwide (Dongho Shin. 2007).
These kinds of movements began to gain momentum during the collapse of the former socialist state and during a large scale of environmental accidents; it is to be understood in the context of a civil movement rather than a class movement in Korea. Certainly, the changes of the domestic and international political configurations and of the environmental problems contributed to the activation of civil society and to the eruption of its demands and activities. This meant that environmental problems were recognized by most citizens and by the urban middle class in particular, who kept silent during the 1980s, spreading nationwide.
One characteristic of the 1990s environmental movement may be the emergence of an ecocentric movement. In particular, the emergence and development of the life-peace movement has a special significance in the sense that it has inaugurated a new horizon of the Korean environmental movement. Its advocates also came from social movement sectors, mainly the democratization movement and the peasant movement. Certainly, the existence of social movements has contributed to the development of the environmental movement. Its starting point was the criticism of modern industrial civilization, or modernity, suggesting the creation of a new alternative civilization. Its philosophical foundation was based on the life-reverence thought which may agree to intrinsic values of all beings, networks and interdependence between them, and the significance of the land (soil) and farming in particular. Advocates argue that the modern industrial civilization collapses global ecosystems and forces all forms of life to eventually die, and that a fundamental transformation of modernity is required in order to resolve the crisis of death. They criticize the political struggle of the environmental movement based on class interests, and, instead, prefer cultural struggles to detour the state.
The life-peace movement is sallim7 (below living) with respect to killing. It includes all activities of mosim (worship and service) and dolbom (care) which respect, serve and care for all lives. It transforms the industrial civilization, the economic order and cultural mode of living in a direction toward helping overcome environmental crises. Its environmental movement has a meaning of living, reviving all lives (Jiha Kim. 2003: 13–15).
Its recognition of social conditions is similar to that of other environmental movements, but its action strategy differs. It suggests that the crisis the modern industrial civilization faces appears as symptoms with which most environmental movements share: (1) a nuclear threat; (2) the destruction of the natural environment; (3) resource depletion and population bomb; (4) diseases of civilization and schizophrenic social phenomena; (5) structural contradictions of the economy and their vicious cycle; (6) the control and domination of the centralized technocratic system; and (7) the old mechanic world view (Hansallim, 1990: 9–11).
However, its action strategy is based on a person’s spiritual and ecological enlightenment. Only enlightenment can change people’s conventional action in structures or institutions. A great transformation of a world comes from our mind in which we serve a cosmic life (Hansallim. 1990: 3) or a holistic life. The important thing concerning its action strategy is the emphasis on a personal change of lifestyle based on nonviolence and pacificism for a good life and coexistence, rather than on a structural opposition and struggle based on material interests, that is, nonviolent and peaceful individual practices as new movement methods. The methods have led to eco-friendly production and green consumerism. It has concentrated its efforts on the organic farming movement, organizing Hansallim, a kind of cooperative, which connects the organic farmers to the urban consumers and ultimately constructs a rural–urban community. Hansallim has currently developed into a community which consists of 232,000 households of urban consumers and 2,000 households of farmers with an annual sales of $150,000,000,000 (www.hansalim.or.kr/_board/20).
The life-peac e movement has developed further, cooperating with religions. Initially, it was based on Donghak (Eastern Learn) and Korean traditional thoughts. Religions like Buddhism, Catholicism, Protestantism and Won Buddhism have combined their own life-peace thought with their environmental movement in the name of the life-peace movement. The combination has contributed to the activation of the Korean environmental movement.
The basis of the 1990s environmental movement may be its connection with the urban middle class. Most environmental movement organizations have been based on the membership of the urban middle class. They have to, to some extent, deal with environmental issues related to its well-being such as clean air, fresh water, healthy food, health and amenities; hence, they become reformists. The environmental movement has strengthened its solidarity with the urban middle class. Therefore it becomes a cross-class environmental movement, currently centering on the urban middle class. The comment that it is non-political is sometimes received, however, this does not indicate a failure of the perspective of the grassroots (class) environmental movement.
The 2000s environmental movement
The 1997 financial crisis in Korea gave birth to a social polarization, intensified the survival competition between individuals and lowered economic growth, all of which Koreans had not experienced before. The consequences of these changes of economic and social structures resulted in the increase of income in equality, the flexibility of the labour market, the collapse of the middle class, the increase of unemployment and irregular works, and in a spread of social grievances.
Along with the social fragmentations, there has been the advent of the information age since the early 1990s. The use of personal computers and mobile phones has been rapidly routinized, and has created and networked a numerous amount of small new communities connecting individuals, centering on the younger generation in particular. Informationalization makes a circulation of information possible beyond social, temporal and spatial limits. The access to information influences a person’s action.
Most social and civil movement groups have exploited the abilities of the cyber movement, utilizing the internet for their intervention and solidarity of global issues, for support for policies and for new areas of the civil movement. They also were increasing their political and social influences in most areas of society. However, the increase of influence may not necessarily mean the development or activation of a movement.
The information age seems to change the conditions of the movement. Generally, the encroachment of material or environmental bases and the insecurity of life in social classes tend to raise conflicts and resistance on the one hand, and individualization, political indifference and cynicism on the other hand. Traditionally, social movements are connected to and try to mobilize the former altogether. However, the information age creates new conditions for the movement.
Utilizing the internet and mobile phone creates a new pattern of the movement. The new pattern of the movement and its development have not been able to be predicted by anybody. Some citizens have become audiences, reporters or journalists and/or activists in the social movement fields, using their computers and/or mobile phones. Korea has experienced and witnessed a series of great new dramatic and novel events in the 2000s. Movement organizations traditionally organize, mobilize and lead their members, information, and demonstrations and protests, respectively. This is their usual business.
In June 2002, two middle-school girls were run over and killed by a US armored vehicle. This accident could have been solved very simply if the related US drivers took legal responsibility. However, the US Forces Korea (USFK) did not take such legal action, and, rather, tried to conceal its truth. The Countermeasure Committee was established and began to declaim against a series of USFK’s actions and Korean authorities. Koreans began to increasingly think that their deaths were unjust. There had been a small scale of protests and demonstrations as usual, which involved tens or hundreds of protestors and some civic groups for five months until the two drivers were found innocent of the charges by the US military court in November 2002. After acquitting, the case raised huge anti-American protests.
With protests of the movement organizations online and offline, related information was rapidly circulated, produced and debated; and the sentiment of unfairness and public rage were rapidly spread through the internet. This can be called the online movement, which is not yet connected to the offline movement. In such a process, netizens came to realize the reality of the two girls’ death, which was unjust, and the structural problem caused by the inequality of the SOFA (Status of Forces Agreement between Korea and the USA).8
A netizen, declaiming against the verdict, suggested a candle demonstration at Gwanghwamun Plaza via the internet. It got into a new phase quite different from its previous aspects, connecting the online movement to the offline movement. Citizens voluntarily came together, declaimed, discussed agendas and issues of the movement, and promised to meet the next day at the plaza. The events of the candle demonstration continued over a period of 100 days. The citizens’ volunteerism, autonomy and initiative had an impact on the content, form and path of the anti-war and peace movement.
Its characteristics may be as follows. (1) Participants ranged from hundreds to tens of thousands a day for about 100 days. (2) The candle demonstration was a national movement which joined 64 cities (or towns) in Korea. (3) It was also held by Korean residents in 16 countries abroad. Related to (2), it was the movement beyond national and local boundaries. (4) Social characteristics of voluntary participants through the internet varied, including children, housewives, white collar workers, internet communities and the elderly, and was based on mainly the middle classes and the young generations who had been relatively indifferent to social and political issues. (5) The candle demonstration was a movement in which 700 civil movement groups or organizations joined beyond their special movement areas, such as religious groups, cultural/artist groups, lawyers, teachers, Trade Unions, social movement organizations and so on. (6) Citizens, who were on the sidelines in the past, became a positive and subjective participant if motivations for participation were provided. (7) The candle demonstration was a cross- class, cross- region, cross- generation and cross-gender solidarity movement. (8) These characteristics of the candle demonstration are possible in the information age. (9) Contemporary Korean society tends to make the middle class radical. (10) A computer and a mobile phone play a role of the amplifier of the movement
These characteristics appeared to be reiterated in subsequent candle demonstrations; in particular, the mad cow disease candle demonstration in 2008 was a much more amplified form of the candle demonstration.
Environmental movement organizations and activists keep the traditional movement methods and activities to organize and mobilize resources and to attract public participation, with utilizing the internet and the mobile phone. In the process of the movement, movement methods are developed and renovated, raising great public concerns. The methods include the Three Steps, One Bow (a Buddhist pilgrimage walk) and hunger strikes. The methods allow a few activists to amplify the effect of an environmental movement on society.
The Saemangeum Reclamation Project and the Korea Train Express Project had been launched since the early 1990s. The Saemangeum Reclamation Project was designed to convert about 40,000 ha of mudflats by building a 34 km seawall off the coast. The construction of the seawall finished in 2010. According to the Korea Train Express Project, the 13 km tunneling work through Mount Cheong-seong was launched in 2002 and ended in 2008. Environmentalists have objected to the Saemangeum Project, but did not object the Korea Train Express Project, demanding an environmental impact assessment at some areas instead.
The Saemangeum Project was controversial from its initiation and environmental movements for the protection of mudflats and the fisherman’s right to live have developed fiercely at the local, national and international levels. Amidst the movements, protests, legal actions, lobbies and lawsuit for future generations (at first in Korea), four activists decided to take the ascetic action of the Three Steps, One Bow for the saving of the Saemangeum mudflats for 65 days and for 305 km long, starting from Buan, via towns and cities, to Seoul in 2003.
There had been environmental movements against the tunneling works at Mount Geumjung and Mount Cheongseong. Jiyul, a Buddhist nun in Mount Cheonseong, started protests and a lawsuit concerning Salamanders (who become the plaintiff at first in Korea). She also underwent the four-times hunger strikes, risking her life, with the collaborations of environmental groups, demanding the government to suspend the tunneling works that would endanger rare animals and swamps. She demanded strongly the temporary stop of excavation and the new joint research of the EIA in particular. Her last fast continued to be over 100 days at the front of the Blue House. The government, fearing her possible death from the fast, accepted her demands for the new joint research team of the EIA and for the temporary halt of the tunnelling work (Jiyul. 2005).
Although the cases of the above failed ultimately to solve the related problems, they imply important significances in the history of the Korean environmental movement. Their performances of resistance are based on their authenticity which rouses the great public interest and sympathy. Their messages are transmitted to the public via this authenticity. Their performances create great movement scenes, which attract media attentions that engage the public interest and represent repressed civic desires, organizing citizens to join up with movement forces and occupy cyber space in particular.
Here, the most important thing for the social movement is that the citizen’s initiative and the activists’ (or movement’s) authenticity represent, sympathize with and weave together the numerous civic grievances, repressed desires and conflicts which neoliberal society has produced, and ultimately create the powerful social solidarity. Conflicts and grievances are ubiquitous, and are ready to mobilize and be expressed voluntarily and/or negatively. The hold and stitching together of the civic grievances and desires is the imperative of all social movements and a source of solidarity for emancipation.
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