Y'day evening/night the Solidarity Against Disability Discrimination held a Solidarity Party at Seoul's Korea University to support jailed disabled activists, i.e. raise money for their fines.
Here just some impressions from the event:
Related article:
☞ Disabled activists denied dignity in jail (Hankyoreh, 8.10)
The S. Korean Hankyoreh newspaper and Asia Times (HK) published last week almost simultaneously the following readable/interesting article:
North Korea and Disneyland/Kim Jong-eun's Mickey Mouse world
When North Korean leader Kim Jong Un recently watched a concert that included Disney figures like Mickey Mouse, it was big news. Foreign analysts rushed to the conclusion that the young leader was presiding over a shift in Pyongyang’s attitudes about the West. After all, Mickey Mouse is a symbol of American imperialism and Western penetration almost as potent as McDonald’s.
But the worlds of Walt Disney and Kim Il Sung are actually not that far apart.
The world of Disney is the closest thing to totalitarianism that the entertainment-industrial complex has ever produced. The founder, Walt Disney, created a saccharine, air-brushed utopia that has been a dystopic reality for so many who have worked in the many enterprises of the Disney universe. The affinity between Disneyworld and the world of North Korea goes beyond any taste for Western-style entertainment that Kim Jong Un might have picked up during his Swiss education.
Walt Disney, born in 1901, created an empire of cartoons, movies, and theme parks, first in the United States and then throughout the world. He is described today in the Disney materials much as North Korean literature describes Kim Il Sung. “One hundred years ago, Walt Disney was born. And the world changed forever,” reads the Disney website. “We all hold a special place for the magical legacy of this one man.”
You can buy a book called “Walt’s Famous Quotes,” published by the Disney company, in which the founder gives his insights about the world. Disney himself maintained tight control of the company when he was alive, engaging in his own form of “one the spot guidance” to ensure that the Disney brand remained consistent.
Maintaining tight control has allowed Disney to penetrate the minds of children everywhere. Disney’s successors, like Michael Eisner, worked hard to maintain the founder’s vision. "It was Eisner's dream that the typical consumer would patronize Disney movies, watch Disney TV shows, buy Disney videos, spend money at Disney stores, vacation on Disney cruise lines, take his or her kids to Disney theme parks - all the while becoming completely enveloped in the Disney subculture," according to Peter Bart of Variety.
Disney, in other words, is not simply a choice among many. Disney is intended to be all-encompassing.
The novelist Robert Harris, who has written books about Nazi Germany, has analyzed the totalitarian nature of Disney and critiqued its project of rewriting history and myths in order to produce its own version of the truth. He points out that Disney, like all totalitarian leaders, focuses on children, employing “that classic totalitarian technique of preaching family values while subverting the family structure, appealing over the heads of parents directly to their children.”
Disney was not content to create theme parks. He also wanted to build entire cities. The town of Celebration, Florida, is Disney-built and Disney-maintained. It looks like the set of a Disney movie depicting the 1950s: manicured lawns, white picket fences, kids on bicycles. The company even controls the weather, organizing fake snowfalls in December. Behind the scenes, however, Celebration has suffered the same problems as the rest of America: a high rate of foreclosure, suicide, and even murder.
Then there’s Disney’s approach to labor regimentation and surveillance, which rival that of North Korea. Those who aspire to work at Disney Land, for instance, go through a training period in which they are instructed to look “all-American.” In other words, according to one such aspirant, “Men were not allowed piercings, visible tattoos, or unkempt facial hair; we could wear one ring on the left hand if we wanted. Women were given an ‘appropriate’ range of hair length and amount of skin showing.” Trainees and workers are closely watched to make sure that they never violate any of the rules of Disney.
And those who manage to get a job with the company discover that, after all the deductions, they barely make enough to survive. Some employees have to rely on church donations and government assistance to get by.
Disneyland presents one face to the world: cheerful, child-like. But the reality behind Disneyland is grim.
The world of Walt Disney is the kind of social engineering that the North Korean regime has aspired to create. North Korea, too, has a founder who serves as a substitute father for all children, who established a governing template that his successors religiously maintain, and whose wisdom continues to be celebrated through word and image. North Korea projects a utopian vision of smiling, hard-working people that turns out to be very different in reality. The government attempts to maintain strict social control, particularly in Pyongyang, the showcase capital.
And both Walt Disney and Kim Il Sung realized the power of film to capture and shape the imagination, particularly of children. They realized that if you change the minds of children, you can change the future. In North Korea, children imprint on Kim Il Sung, much as baby ducklings will imprint on the first face they see and much as children all over the world imprint on Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck.
Kim Jong Un may turn out to be a Gorbachev-style reformer in North Korea who moves his country in the direction of the West. But the evidence for this belief is rather thin. He studied in the West and, it turns out, has a very pretty wife who is a stylish dresser. But then, Bashar al-Assad in Syria also studied in Europe and has a stylish wife, and that hasn’t prevented him from launching large-scale repression in his country.
As for Kim Jong Un’s embrace of Mickey Mouse, it may just reflect a deeper affinity between North Korea and Disneyland. The sons of Kim Jong Il have all reportedly visited Disneyland in Japan, with Kim Jong Nam deported from Narita airport in 2001 after trying to use a fake passport to gain access to his favorite destination. Portrayed as temporary escapes from their rigidly controlled country, these visits were nothing of the sort. At Disneyland, Kim Jong Un and his brothers must have felt right at home.
http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_editorial/545001.html
The workers in S. Korea "struggle with a reality in which brutality against labor still exists, and the Ssangyong Motors dispute exposed the most gruesome aspect of this reality. In 2009, when management tried to lay off 2,646 workers, 36% of the total workforce, the labor union responded with a strike. Eventually, this incident ended when labor and management reached an agreement. They agreed to give 461 workers, who were scheduled to be laid off, an unpaid leave of absence and to reinstate them a year later. However, management has yet to fulfill their promise of reinstatement..." (Kyunghyang Shinmun, 8.07)
Now, exactly three years later, laid off Ssangyong workers and their supporters are - once again - demanding the then promised re-employment...
Since y'day morning activists are besieging the HQ of Saenuri-dang(the ruling New Frontier Party, formerly known as Grand National Party/Hanara-dang) in Yeouido for 72 hours to reinforce the promised re-employment...
While y'day, until the late afternoon, almost everthing went - more or less - smoothly...
...in the late evening the 'authorities' decided that "The party is over!":
Source of the pics: Jombbae Jum
But, believe it or not...
THE STRUGGLE GOES ON!!
July 27: In the early morning, hundreds of helmeted, club- and steel pipe-wielding "employees" of a private "security" company raided striking unionists of SJM, a car parts maker in Ansan, south of Seoul, leaving about 30 workers injured, some seriously... (an related report you can check out here)
Right after breaking up the sit-in, the SJM management locked the factory unilaterally.
And as you can see here, until now the situation hasn't changed, i.e. all the workers are still locked-out:
Photos by Comrade CaKon(aka 'Kon Ca')
Today's Kyunghyang Shinmun published the following editorial:
3 Years after the Ssangyong Motors Clash and the Real Labor Environment
The Republic of Korea is a sports powerhouse that sweeps medals along with the world's super powers such as the U.S. and China at every Olympic Games, and is also an
economic power boasting, at every chance, of an economy ranking in the world's top 10. Just looking at these external factors, we could say that Korea is an advanced
nation.
However, if we turn our eyes to labor issues, the Korean society is still far from international standards and common sense. This is because Korea is still a country where a female worker has to risk her life and stage a sit-down atop a gigantic steel crane for a year, four seasons, just to put the breaks on layoffs.
It is also a country where service-providing gangsters hired by the management violently swing their clubs and iron pipes at the workers on strike, a country where
governmental authority overlooks and acts as accessories to this serviced violence.
The workers in this country struggle with a reality in which brutality against labor still exists, and the Ssangyong Motors dispute exposed the most gruesome aspect of this
reality. In 2009, when management tried to lay off 2,646 workers, 36% of the total workforce, the labor union responded with a strike.
Eventually, this incident ended when labor and management reached an agreement. They agreed to give 461 workers, who were scheduled to be laid off, an unpaid leave of
absence and to reinstate them a year later. However, management has yet to fulfill their promise of reinstatement, claiming that plant operations have not fully recovered.
The bigger tragedy lies in the fact that laid-off workers who chose to resign from the company are wandering about as temporary day-workers being labeled as ex-
Ssangyong Motors workers. And this has led to the death of many workers and their family.
The wife of a retired worker died while he went to earn money, and his twelve-year-old daughter spent the night by her mother's body holding her five-year-old sibling.
There have been many workers and family who have taken their own lives due to the injuries and psychological pain from the violent suppression of the workers. Thus the
number of people who have practically been "killed by society" has reached 22 so far.
Yesterday marked the third anniversary of the agreement that settled the Ssangyong Motors clash. Han Sang-kyun, the former head of the Ssangyong Motors chapter of the
Korean Metal Workers' Union who led the strike at the time, was released after 3 years in prison.
He claimed, "Many workers and their family died after the strike because they could not see hope in the despair that the company, Ssangyong Motors, locked them in, and
also because society did not care and turned away from them. I couldn't read the domestic news section in the newspaper for a while because I was afraid I'd read of another death."
Ssangyong Motors should carry out the details of the agreement with its workers and stop attempts to break up the labor union. Furthermore, they should give a sincere
apology for causing serious physical and psychological damage to the workers and willingly provide alternatives to help cure them.
The political circle, which formed a special committee on the Ssangyong Motors incident, should investigate the details of the anti-labor policies that the Lee Myung-bak
government has made and hold them responsible.
Most importantly, we must reach out to the workers with hands of solidarity saying, "No matter what, never lose hope, and let us share the suffering." We cannot let another
victim be added to the existing 22.
http://english.khan.co.kr/khan_art_view.html?artid=201208071356027&code=790101
Pyeongtaek, summer 2009: Thousands of workers at the SsangYong Motor Company production line took action to stop the planned mass layoff. The workers, mainly organized in the Korean Metal Workers Union (KMWU, SsangYong branch) occupied parts of the factory and held out for 77 days against repeated assaults/terror attacks by large units of the riot cops, incl. SWAT. (*)
Dozens of workers were jailed afterwards, many others lost their jobs and some later killed themselves...
Han Sang-kyun, the secretary of the local KMWU chapter originally received four years jail. Last Saturday night, after serving three years in prison, comrade Han Sang-kyun was released!!
In front of Hwaseong Prison at midnight upon his release, he joined the "Solidarity & Welcome Rally":
And today in the morning(KST), after a short break with his family, he visited the SsangYong Memorial Site in downtown Seoul:
Related articles (by NewsCham, 8.06):
☞ 77일 쌍용차 파업이끈 한상균 전 지부장 3년 만기출소
☞ 쌍용차 분향소 영정 앞에 선 한상균
☞ (Interview) 한상균, “‘미안하다’던 편지가 가장 기억에 남아”
* Related reports you can check out here:
http://blog.jinbo.net/CINA/1872
http://blog.jinbo.net/CINA/1891
http://blog.jinbo.net/CINA/1892
http://blog.jinbo.net/CINA/1893
http://blog.jinbo.net/CINA/1898
http://blog.jinbo.net/CINA/1899
http://blog.jinbo.net/CINA/1903
http://blog.jinbo.net/CINA/1905
"GANGJEONG GRAND PEACE MARCH"
[8.04] Grand March ended its finale with a great success...
It was around 3pm that the two teams joined by the Peace Cruise team who came from the nationwide(*) could finally meet in the Jeju City.
It was not precedent that such long lines of parade have ever occurred in the Jeju City and Island. The media reported that about 2,000 people marched the city on the day but when people gathered in the Tapdong square for the evening peace concert, more and more people joined. The event operation team estimated that about 3,500 people filled the square...
Any of the photos cannot really describe the energy and heat... The people had walked about 290km (East team: 147km, West team 140 km) for five nights six days, breaking through strong sun light and storm... (report by Choi Sung-hee)
*****
The PEACE MARCH ended y'day afternoon with a powerful demo through Jeju City...
...and, in the night, with a colourful closing concert
* Here activists from KCTU(Hanjin, SsangYong...), Yongsan Struggle Collective etc. participated (a video with interviews you can watch here!).
Related reports:
☞ 강정 평화대행진 대미...“우리는 이미 이겼다” (NewsCham, 8.04)
☞ 제주땅 290km에 새긴 외침은 “해군기지 NO” (VOJ, 8.04)
☞ 노란색 구럼비의 여름, 강정 희망을 노래하다 (VOJ, 8.04)
☞ “폭우도, 폭염도 평화 향한 열망 뚫지 못했다” (VOP, 8.05)
☞ 5박6일 대행진... 수천명이 외친 '제주의 평화' (OMN, 8.05)
The Hankyoreh published two days ago the following video about the fascinating folk-punk duo "Mukimukimanmansu":
Source: http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_entertainment/545172.html
Well, in the past I met them several times, resp. I was able to enjoy their great performances...
2011.6.25/26 @Duriban:
2011.9.17 (Solidarity concert during the struggle against the "redevelopment" in Myeong-dong):
2012.5.01 ("Mayday General Strike" in Seoul):
"GANGJEONG GRAND PEACE MARCH"
Starting in the early morning, the "West Team" walked about 30km from Hamo beach to Hallim...
Even under the hot sun, the march was being continued with joyful songs. Marchers who had endured hot sunlight and heating cement roads were cheered by the 119 emergency unit members who spread water to them, making all laughing. A villager elder says, “By this hard working, we can save the peace of our village. We so thank to all the people who came here upon the news." A boy says, “I am not tired. I am OK. I can even run at my best.” A man says, “The way we are hard-walking is not a [recreational] olle but it is a way of Peace.” Because of anticipated typhoon, Damrey, people slept at the floor of a big sports hall. Dinner after long walk is always welcome! A long day passed again... (report by Choi Sung-hee)
Here just some impressions from yesterday's 3rd stage:
A new video report with impressions from y'day you can watch here.
"GANGJEONG GRAND PEACE MARCH"
Impressions from yesterday's 2nd stage (at least 300 people participated):
A new video ("Gangjeong Royal Kitchen Story") with impressions from yesterday you can watch here. And finally here you can see some impressive pics from Monday's first stage of the "Gangjeong Grand Peace March".
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