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--></style><title>Re: [KS] South Korea's Rollback of Democratic
Rights</title></head><body>
<div>Dear All:</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>A few thoughts about Scott's very valid point of political
involvement (in any form, including journalistic or academic
activities) by non-Koreans in Korea:</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>05/10/2009, J.Scott Burgeson wrote:</div>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>How long must one live within another
culture before one is allowed to have an "autonomous" voice
that is able to engage within local discourses and debates? Doesn't
the South Korean government itself claim to welcome the development of
contemporary South Korea as a "multicultural society"? (...)
If one is a "white American male" who has lived in Korea for
15 or 30 years, does a different set of standards apply when defining
what "multicultural Korea" means? Well, let's turn the
tables around and ask if a "South Korean male" who has lived
in the US for 15 or 30 years is also to be denied a voice there for
the very same reasons?</blockquote>
<div><br></div>
<div>Discussing that question might provide us with tracks leading us
to the greater picture of political culture and globalization in
Korea. If we follow the argumentative strings of Braudel, Wallerstein,
Negri and Hardt, and even Richard Sennett on this new period of
flexible capitalism, I think it all comes down to our concept of
"citizen" and "citizenship." These terms seem now
to have reached the end of their life cycle, as we say in software
development: no further upgrades or support will be offered. Yet, we
continue to perform logistical operations with such outdated code on
our global and local hard drives, thereby running into serious
incompatibility problems. Some argue that it was the French Revolution
which first transformed subjects into citizens. I would even start
earlier and look at late medieval guilds and city states. The
difference between these two is of course that the "citizenship"
as it was created by the French Revolution also defined itself through
cultural nationalism, simply because that group of "free
citizens" was now far too large to find significant other
communalities. In any case, the concept of citizenship only works
through inclusion and exclusion; same as in any other group valuable
privileges are given to citizens and denied to non-citizens (e.g.
benefits and participation in the welfare state, nationalist rituals,
elections and government). I do not tell you anything new when
pointing out that from the nation-state's point of view citizenship
became an instrument (and that starting right after the French
Revolution) for obscuring a great variety of conflicts -- class
conflicts, ethnicity/race conflicts, religious struggles, gender
issues, etc. -- actually the most essential instrument of the nation
building process! The problem, and here I come back to Scott's
observation, is who to include into one's "citizenship"
group and who not, and for what reasons. Including *all* will not
work: the concept itself is build upon inclusion and exclusion.
Including all would result in the loss of privileges for members, and
if one extends that logic the result is the loss of the nation-state
concept as such. (Are we there in the age of globalization? How does
one define globalization<i> in Korea</i>?) I would argue that the
criteria for inclusion and exclusion are mostly irrational, arbitrary,
and also not following any linear historical development (which does
not mean that they cannot be explained -- they sure can).</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>In between Scott's quoted mail and this reply we just got another
list thread on "Bullying in ROK Public Schools." Is that not
a wonderful example of this same citizenship conflict? The U.S. and
Canada have adopted a<i> jus soli</i> policy: be born in the country
and you have the right to become a U.S. or Canadian citizen,<i>
but</i> not your parents. In this case the parents will likely get
deported. Exclusion is a necessity to make the concept of citizenship
work, although it leads to many ambiguities and paradoxes -- exactly
because of the arbitrariness of inclusion criteria. Citizenship is one
thing, citizen's rights and discrimination another. The
"affirmative action" programs (there comes your Berkeley,
Scott) can be seen as an attempt to find a (partial) institutional
solution to undo institutional marginalization. Because of the
pre-dominant liberalism these integration programs worked well, better
than in any other country I know -- of course, only for
"citizens." That American form of liberalism is essential
like a closed system with its circular logic and constant
self-affirmations. But closed systems do work as long as their is no
interference from without. And in Korea? Neither European nor Asian
countries ever had the momentum to institutionalize liberalism. Let's
not forget that the new American liberalism, the revised 1968 version
of it, is as new and as fragile as in most other parts of the world.
My all time heroine since I was eleven, the stunningly elegant Black
Jewish dancer and singer Josephine Baker, attracted the largest
imaginable crowds as well as the top intellectuals in Berlin and
Paris, performing -- stark naked, of course -- in her erotic-grotesque
dance shows. Yet, visiting New York in 1936 she was not even allowed
to enter her hotel there through the front gate. Not even Catholics
were granted complete and full privileges as citizens, not until the
1950s ... you will know even today if you keep your senses sharpened
while strolling around in certain parts of Boston, Cambridge, and
Somerville. And in a country like Switzerland, one of the oldest
picture book democracies of the world, women were denied to
participate in political elections till 1971. These are all cases
were, in spite of citizenship, full privileges were denied -- or, if
you want to put it differently, were there were sub-groups within
citizenship. South Korea had less than twenty years to build a
democracy, and there was hardly any middle class until the 1980s, and
other than U.S. Military personal there was no significant group of
non-Koreans living in Korea. To be<i> inclusive</i> towards
non-Koreans as regards to the group of citizens with their political
rights while at the same time still being busy to catch up in terms of
nation building and trying to "look globalized" is juggling
just too many eggs at once. Liberalism & citizenship is already a
conceptional paradox in the so-called old and new world democracies.
Why should and how could Korea have a better solution? (By the way,
Sheila Miyoshi Jager's book<i> Narratives of Nation Building in
Korea</i> has some good texts discussing such paradoxes.)</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Coda:</div>
<div>Two years ago, while in Seoul, Min Paek told me about a
conference she had just participated in. "They all shouted
'segyehwa manse!'" she said, "isn't that so ironic?!"
"Segyehwa" is then most obviously not the same as
"globalization." No wonder then, this year's conference uses
the slogan "han'guk ûi segyehwa wa segye ûi han'gukhwa."
Well, well, ... have to run now, see my therapist to explain this.
</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Frank</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><br></div>
<div><br></div>
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</pre></x-sigsep>
<div>--------------------------------------<br>
Frank Hoffmann<br>
http://koreaweb.ws</div>
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