Anarchist Yondae (Anarchist Solidarity) is an organized coalition of
revolutionary anarchists in South Korea. ---- In recent months they haveorganized study groups, translated key anarchist readings into Korean,
and digitally archived Korean anarchist material. Their members have put
a lot of effort into trying to pass on the lessons that Korean anarchism
has to offer, some of which you will read about in this interview. Read
a detailed and informative interview with Anarchist Yondae below, which
can also be found on her website.
What role do you hope to play in the global anarchist movement?
We know that the global anarchist movement is necessary, but we never
"hoped" to play a specific role in it. We believe that solidarity, as
far as the global anarchist movement is concerned, should not be a
simple statement of solidarity with the anarchists of the world. But it
is also not possible for us anarchists to lead or be led by other
anarchist groups, because we are not some kind of "Communist
International Party". That's why we decided to focus on what we are able
to do now, here, claiming the maximum, conquering freedom in life,
organizing someone close to us, while keeping our eyes on international
movements. And we believe that our role in the global anarchist movement
will naturally be achieved in this process.
As Kropotkin wrote in his work "The Conquest of Bread": "In the world of
production everything is held together these days." Modern capitalist
society is a network of capital where a button pressed today can affect
the food supply of people on the other side of the world tomorrow. And
South Korea is a big part of this international capitalist apparatus,
this network. Thus, we believe that building a society where the masses
can be themselves will naturally contribute to the world libertarian
movement.
Frankly speaking, South Korea is getting rich by exploiting Vietnamese
factory workers, Nepalese construction workers, Chinese cleaning
workers, Cambodian garment workers and so on. South Korean companies,
for example Samsung or LG, build their factories abroad and exploit the
workers in that region. South Korea is obviously an "empire" in terms of
global economic imperialism. Therefore, as anarchists of the Korean
region, we must overthrow the "Korean empire" and participate in
struggles to achieve this. We will fight together with migrant workers.
We will fight against Korean companies that exploit overseas workers
when they start their own struggles. Because lives dependent on the
exploitation of other people's labor can never be independent.
How do you run your organization and who makes the decisions?
We operate our organization based on the principles of our Platform. The
Platform was created with the agreement of each member. Acceptance of
the Platform is required to become a new member of our organization.
However, we do not consider the Platform to be an absolute dogma. If any
member requests any change to the Platform, the organization is obliged
to discuss the change and can change it if everyone agrees.
We make organizational decisions based on the principles of deliberative
democracy and unanimity. Thus, no one makes decisions for anyone, but
Everyone makes decisions for Everyone. Let's take a deeper look at these
two principles.
Deliberative democracy means that before we make any decision we have a
deliberate discussion. Mindful deliberation means that it is not enough
to simply ask for a "Yes" or a "No" to the decision. It is necessary to
explain and discuss a lot about this decision. And the principle of
unanimity certainly represents the principle of collective agreement and
collective responsibility in carrying out the decision.
And fortunately, or unfortunately, as we are a new small organization,
these principles can work within the organization. As the size of our
organization and the possibility of reaching the masses grows, we wonder
how large the organization can become while still maintaining the
operation of these principles. And we believe that it will be a
substantial experiment, while also preparing for the organization of a
new form of society that will soon come.
However, we do not wish to abandon the principles, even if the size of
the organization grows and ends up not being able to keep those
principles in place. We believe this will mean that our organization
size is "too" large. So, if we are going to deal with this (happy)
situation, we have decided that we will split Anarchist Solidarity into
smaller sections so that deliberative democracy and unanimity can work
both within and between sections. We are preparing for it.
Historically, Korean anarchists have collaborated with anarchists from
other countries in the region, such as the Eastern Anarchist Federation
which had members from China, Vietnam and Japan, or the Black Friends
Society which included Japanese anarchists. Are there similar
international ties today, and if not, how might such ties strengthen the
movement?
Unfortunately, there are NO such ties left today. Above all, the
revolutionary anarchist movement on the Korean peninsula disappeared
after the 1930s (or the 70s, if we can count its last breath of life).
Furthermore, we see that the anarchist movements in 3 (4) East Asian
countries (China, Japan, two Koreas) were mostly the same after WWII. In
South Korea, anarchism conspired with nationalism and devolved into
anti-communism. And the self-proclaimed "anarchists" in Korea are still
obsessed with the "National Liberation Movement" tradition of anarchism.
In Japan, social movements as a whole disappeared after the failure of
the Zenkyoto (Joint Struggle Committees of all Universities). In China
and South Korea, pseudo-socialist dictators have worked their magic, and
anarchist movements are disappearing.
But we strongly believe that we need to restore those ties. Above all,
wouldn't it be great to have companions to fight with in the place where
we can fly an hour with a ticket of 80,000KRW (50GBP)? Wouldn't it be
great to have comrades with whom we can meet and talk and announce joint
resolutions?
When this pandemic is over, and when this involuntary national isolation
is over, we would be happy to meet the comrades in East Asia and discuss
what we need to do in order to reorganize this link of solidarity.
Jeong Hwaam (alternatively: Jang-Whan) was radicalized in part by the
plight of Chinese workers. How does the intersection of gender and class
oppression relate to the contemporary struggle in Korea?
First, we see it not as "the intersection of gender and class
oppression," but rather as "the multiple intersections of oppressions
based on class, race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, age group,
etc. etc." We believe that the liberation of the popular masses cannot
be achieved unless we abolish this multiple intersection of hierarchies.
This position will form the premise of our answer below.
To answer your question, we will first describe the terrain of the
Korean labor movement and then tell you about a struggle in 2021, which
Anarchist Solidarity supported with all our might.
After the local economic crisis of 1997, Korean workers had to deal with
extreme job flexibilization. We call flexible working 'irregular
employment'. As Anarchist Solidarity, we see that the harmful effect of
"irregular employment" is concentrated around certain genders, certain
races, certain age groups, certain nationalities, etc. We see that this
multiple intersection of oppression is inevitable in terms of
maintaining hierarchy.
On January 1, 2021, LG, one of Korea's leading companies and one of the
pioneers of international capitalism, fired 80 cleaning workers who had
been cleaning its headquarters building for 10 years. The workers in
question were not paid the appropriate minimum wage, worked overtime and
were bullied by managers. So they formed a union and demanded better
working conditions. And LG responded to their demands by firing them all
"legally". The union and the 20 workers who decided to remain in it
engaged in a persistent struggle, occupying the vestibule of the
building and the main gate. The struggle continued until April 30, and
on the historic day of International May Day, all 20 workers got their
jobs back, with much better conditions. Anarchist Solidarity focused on
the fact that most of these workers are women, illiterate and elderly.
It is true that the workplaces with the worst conditions - the most
difficult, least stable and mostly seen as menial jobs - belong to older
and uneducated female workers. Under these circumstances, neither
insisting on the "working class movement" alone (as Marxists usually do)
nor abandoning the "working class movement" (as a reaction to the
Marxists) can achieve any kind of liberation as a whole. . Anarchist
Solidarity sharpens our revolutionary blade while struggling against the
multiple intersections of hierarchy with voluntary working class
organization.
Members of your group have worked on translating "classic" anarchist
texts, such as those of Kropotkin or Malatesta, into Korean. Which parts
of this tradition do you find commonplace for Korean anarchism and which
would you like to overcome?
We never set out to translate "classic" anarchist texts per se, but as
we look back on what we've translated, we've definitely focused on the
"classics." There were mainly two reasons that led us in this direction.
First of all, we must restore the "anarchist traditions" that
disappeared in the Korean region. As we answered before, there has been
no revolutionary anarchist movement in this area since the 1970s. ).
Therefore, we could not come across any anarchist references, either
'classic' or 'modern'. We have seen so many comrades not sure whether
they are anarchists or not, unable to find anything to help them confirm
that they are anarchists, and finally settling down and becoming social
democratic politicians or Marxist-Leninist ideologues. One of our
members had no choice but to become a fighter of a social democratic
political party or a liberal "youth" political party. He says it was
pure luck that Anarchist Solidarity was founded, otherwise it would have
been just one of the partisans.
Considering these circumstances, it will not be difficult to guess how
much we appreciated the recently translated edition of the book "The
Conquest of Bread." It was pure joy to realize that "I might have been
an anarchist all along!". Therefore, we focus on translating "classic"
anarchist texts in order to enable others to feel the same. We do it to
'transplant' or 'restore' the 'tradition', 'history' or 'foundations' of
anarchism.
These texts were also necessary to resolve the misunderstandings and
mistrust that Korean radical fronts maintain towards anarchism. After
the anarchist movement emerged as the second phalanx of nationalists,
the era of "pseudo-anarchism" came. We have been an open anarchist
organization for just over a year. But we had to deal with several
"self-proclaimed anarchists". They used labels like:
'Anarcho-BitCoinist' - who said that since BitCoin is a non-state
currency, all anarchists should buy DogeCoin or whatever.
"Anarcho-racist" - who claimed that blacks have bigger testicles than
other races, that "they are genetically more violent than any other
race, so the killing of Mr. George Floyd by the police was perfectly
reasonable. Actually, this didn't come from a neo-Nazi, but from an
'anarchist'.
'Anarcho-military' (who believes that abolishing the military has many
side effects, so anarchists should support conscription. If you deny
this, you are a hierarchist-supporter-authoritarian-anarcho-fundamentalist.
These "self-identified anarchists" justify themselves by saying:
"Anarchism is a state without doctrines. So we can be anarchists too."
That's why we had to show the world that there may not be any dogma, but
there are some basic principles that have been accumulated through history.
The second reason why we mainly translated "classic" texts is that we
believe that "modern" anarchist texts should not be translated, but
produced by us, following our own views. We believe that "classic" is a
"tradition" and "modern" is a battle tactic. And we believe that as we
are going to engage in a struggle in the Korean Peninsula region, the
tactical method should reflect the context of the region.
For example, let's look at the housing problem. Korea has been a
nation-state that has traditionally (by "traditionally", we're talking
about the last 500 years or so) held "the state responsible for the
welfare of its people". This does a lot of things differently. In fact,
the possibility of the state owning housing and renting it to the
homeless is being considered politically. Under these circumstances, can
occupation be a meaningful tactic? How about a rent strike? Therefore,
we produce texts that reinterpret the "classics" under our own
socio-economic conditions and the historical context of Korea.
What could people learn from Korean anarchism, both past and present?
What are the most important theories? Do concepts like juche still have
a place in their original conception of an "autonomous, self-regulating
communal life"?
In Korea, there is the term "????". It means that someone who fails can
be a teacher for you, because he teaches you what not to do. This is
what we consider to be the Korean anarchist tradition.
As we said before, the anarchist movement in Korea developed with the
sentiment of "national liberation" in the context of the Japanese empire
that colonized Korea, and reached its peak after national liberation. If
you follow the history of Korean anarchism thoroughly, you can see a
movement with a history of 100 years dramatically destroyed within 15
years. It was not a gradual decline, but a dramatic destruction of the
movement. What we see that people need to learn from Korean anarchism is
how easily anarchism can self-destruct when it colludes with the
horrible mutations of totalitarianism, such as statism or nationalism.
The old Korean anarchists participated in the creation of the
"provisional GOVERNMENT of Korea". They worked with the Nationalist
Party of China or the Chinese Communist Party. After the liberation of
the Korean nation, anarchists formed a political party to aid right-wing
authoritarian governments in the name of anti-Bolshevism. While doing
this, they failed to maintain the connection with the working masses.
Collaborating with totalitarianism to gain power for the time being, or
for convenience, will surely kill anarchism. You can learn this through
Korea.
However, we believe that people can learn a lot from the Korean social
movement. Because we believe that while the "anarchist movement" in
Korea has been destroyed, the social movement as a whole is more
"anarchist" than anywhere else. There is a confederation of trade unions
with 1.1 million members, which are not directed by political parties or
vanguard groups. Workers recognize that self-controlled struggle is
inevitable to achieve their own demands and therefore fight their
bosses. When they realize the solidarity among the working masses under
similar conditions, they organize general strikes of 100K and prepare it
for more than a year. They build community relationships within the
union with colleagues who have worked at the same company for more than
a decade but never knew each other. There are some "revolutionary
socialists", reformists or left-wing nationalists who try to direct
workers' power politically, but most of the working masses are not
interested in this.
Seeing that although Korean Anarchism has been destroyed, the Anarchist
mass is more alive than ever. We believe that people can learn that
anarchism does not exist in some enlightened minds or in some kind of
revolutionary books, but in the living life and action of the masses.
You asked us if "concepts like juche still have a place." It was
confusing. We are native Koreans of several decades. But we have never
used the term "juche" in any other sense than the "jucheism" of the
pseudo-socialist dictatorship of North Korea. The concept of "juche" is
tainted. It no longer means 'autonomous, self-regulating community
life'. But the idea of "autonomous, self-regulating community life"
lives on in the masses.
During the movement for Korean independence from Japan, anarchists had
to deal with challenges arising from a growing nationalist sentiment
both within and outside the movement. Today, there are many outstanding
issues regarding the reunification of the Korean peninsula. How do you
deal with the challenge of nationalism in a modern context?
First of all, did they really face the challenges of nationalist
sentiment? As far as we know, every anarchist of that time, every single
one of them, from the anarcho-syndicalists to the anarcho-nihilists,
agreed with nationalism.
It is impossible to talk about nationalism in today's Korea without
talking about the problem of reunification. We believe that the most
important condition and the only method of reunification is for the
people of North Korea to form their own struggle against the fascist
regime of North Korea, and for the people of South Korea to do so
against the capitalist regime of South Korea. Otherwise, any talk of
reunification, whether it is led by the South Korean government (as
right-wing nationalists claim) or the North Korean government (as
left-wing nationalists claim), will inevitably bring about a horrible
future. But claims of "reunification from below" are but a minority report.
The influence of nationalist forces is so deeply rooted in this region.
Whether 'left' or 'right', 'progressive' or 'conservative', it is
difficult to remain free from nationalist influences. It may not be
possible to scan these influences at this time. But we try not to be
silent about nationalism. We will continue to speak out against
nationalist sentiment. We will wage struggles against the
nationalist-imperialist state of Korea, which is developing into an
economic empire in the Asia-Pacific region. We will criticize the
despotic warlord regime called the "Democratic People's Republic of
Korea", even though it is something like "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named"
among the Korean social movement.
We hope that speaking against nationalism from our own (rather new to
Korean society) perspective will be meaningful, even if we cannot remove
the deep root of nationalism.
More generally, what specific struggles do you face in Korea and how do
you challenge them?
Perhaps a surprising fact: We are not oppressed in any way because we
are anarchists right now. It is true that some of our members are under
government surveillance, have been heavily fined or imprisoned. But this
is not because they are anarchists, but because they are members of a
militant trade union. They were arrested while participating in mass
demonstrations and resisted strongly when the police forcefully stormed
the offices of the trade union confederation and confiscated them. We
really hope that the state, capital or the regime oppresses us, since
the regime does not oppress anyone who is not a threat to the regime.
The fact that we are not oppressed ironically shows how little
revolutionary anarchists pose a threat to the regime.
Therefore, the most painful struggle we have to challenge is the
indifference towards anarchism, and the saddest, the fact that anarchism
has been nothing but a laughing stock for a long time. As we said
earlier, there was an era of pseudo-anarchists - "Anarcho-Bitcoinists",
"Anarcho-Racists", "Anarcho-Draftists" - who proclaimed themselves
"Anarchists". Of course, no one regards anarchism as a serious method of
social transformation.
Some of these "anarchists" in Korea believe that they are under the
oppression and surveillance of the state. Nothing but paranoia, we say.
The ROK state is busy suppressing and monitoring more threatening
groups, such as Marxist-Leninists or left-wing nationalists.
Therefore, we challenge this fight against "indifference" by
participating in as many mass actions as possible. When we do this, we
bring the largest size of our flag we can handle, with the words
"Anarchist Solidarity" written in the largest possible font size. This
is not because we are show-offs. In Korea, mass demonstrations of
10K-100K people take place several times a year. It has been 10 years
since we individually participated in these protests, but we have never
seen any kind of "black flag" there. That is why we hold the big flag.
We are trying to let the world know that anarchists can seriously claim
social transformation. Anarchists can be with the popular masses.'
What tactics do you use when trying to reach audiences?
The members of Anarchist Solidarity are "materialists" who "support
direct struggle in the field of industry and economics" while seeking to
form a "voluntary federation of workers". Thus, it is natural to make
use of the tactics of class struggle. We are talking about the working
masses that we encounter in our daily lives.
There are some members who are university students. They visit the
cleaners and security workers (since most of them have "non-regular"
jobs) and talk about the possible union they can organize themselves.
One of us works for an international trading company. He is visiting
other countries (we won't say which country, for security reasons) on
his work visa and handing out some pamphlets we made about free trade
unions.
One of us is an active member and organizer of a trade union, who always
gives his best to organize the unorganized workers and support their
struggles.
At the same time, we publish some theoretical works to prepare a better
ground for the anarchist movement to come.
We translate some anarchist texts, because we don't want Anarchism to be
an "elitist" or "academic" stream that requires you to be multilingual
to be an anarchist, as there are no texts in the Korean language.
We produce our own texts, because we want to announce that it is
possible to interpret the socio-economic conditions of Korea from an
anarchist perspective.
We publish books about these texts. It is not just because we wish to
distribute anarchist texts. But rather we want to use our "legal
obligation" to "present samples of any printed book to the national
library" as our means of dissemination.
We maintain our own study group. In doing so, we seek to form gatherings
of anarchists where before we existed only as individuals.
We group these individual actions under the name Anarchist Solidarity.
And through grouping, we find it possible to expand them. This is our
"tactic".
If you had any advice for people who want to start a movement like
yours, what would it be?
There will be two tips. First, please don't stay in the online world and
act in the real world instead. We know that the internet can be an
important means of action. It's easy to group people into masses online,
and these popular groups can influence the real world, sure. But the
bottom line is that the influence extends to the "real world." If these
online groups are not trying to influence the "real world," their voice
can be nothing but text. The text can be written, get "Likes", but it
can't be anything else. The influence of texts can only be achieved by
making the text real in the real world.
If you are going to transform any world, the transformative action must
be taken in the targeted world. And we don't want to transform the
internet, but the real world, outside the internet, where we live, where
the masses live with others, working, sweating, communicating and being
oppressed by authorities. We must stand with the masses, analyze the
reality, struggle against the oppressive authorities. The social
revolution will never be made by millions of #SocialRevolution tweets.
The other tip is: please decide what you would like to do with the
organization before you create an organization. An organization is a
means to an end. It should not and cannot be the goal itself. Let's talk
about ourselves as an example. It took six months of discussions about
what to do before the first two members decided to form an organization.
As more members joined the project, it took another three months to
determine what kind of anarchist movement we wanted to create and could
create. It took another six months of work on our Platform. And we
reached the audience after agreeing on the principles. We believe that
this period of discussion and reflection allows us to stand strong when
the struggles of popular movements hit us.
So please don't create an organization, gather people in the
organization and ask people what to do. Please call the people on what
to do and ask them how to do it, then create the organization. People
aren't stupid. They will easily dismiss these goalless organizations.
And this will make anarchism a laughing stock again.
*The interview in English:
https://www.thecommoner.org.uk/an-interview-with-anarchist-yondae /
Credit: Neither God Nor Master
Source: alerta.gr
https://anarchism.espivblogs.net/2024/09/03/mathainontas-apo-tin-apotychia-mia-synenteyxi-me-tin-omada-anarchiki-allileggyi/
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