[Feature] Interviews for Another, New 25 Years
The Quarterly Changbi 200, Summer 2023
Abstract
Keeping in mind the not-too-distant future, when we’ll celebrate the 300th issue of Changbi, we offer interviews under the theme “For Another, New 25 Years.” Focusing on eight agendas--the rights of the disabled, platform work, information technology, regions and agriculture, the climate crisis, the media, Korean politics, and peace in Northeast Asia--the interviews include lively voices from major fields in Korean society.
We conduct a lively conversation with Ms. Kim Jiwoo, a disabled woman who produces the YouTube channel “Rolling GURU.” Discussing her life frankly, as a disabled person and a disabled woman in Korea, while also addressing the right of movement of the disabled, an issue that has emerged lately, she emphasizes that Korean society needs to expand universal civil rights outside the framework of “welfare.”
Director Park Jeong Hoon of the organizing department of “Rider Union,” a union of delivery workers, enlightens us with an in-depth story about platform work, from the “inconvenient” truths about its reality to the time-worn desire of capital. His story focuses on two concepts: a new kind of solidarity formed among platform workers through the organization of a labor union and their citizenship as workers.
In his interview, IT specialist Park Taewoong discusses the shock from the rapid advances in artificial intelligence, such as Chat-GPT, and further changes to come. Although he predicts a rather gloomy future that may be brought about by technological development unsupported by the communal understanding and the reflection of humanities, he also argues that what really matters is politics, and emphasizes the importance of civic activism, such as the recovery of the public sphere and a movement claiming party members’ ownership of a political party.
We also present an interview with female farmer Goo Jeom-sook about the present and future of regions and the countryside. Based on years of experience in struggles, on various levels, such as the gap between cities and the countryside, the pressures of neoliberal agricultural administration, and gender discrimination in the countryside, she asserts that the future of Korean society hinges on the revitalization of the countryside. One of her concrete proposals that we should build the regional food circulation system is also noteworthy.
Today, when the climate crisis is growing more dire by the day, activist Gim Hyeonji, of Youth Climate Emergency Action, introduces us to the present state of climate activism, which is led by the younger generations. We hear lively voices from the field, such as protests against coal-fired powerplant exports and the Sept. 24 Climate Justice March, and are deeply moved by their urgent appeal for our future.
In the field of media, we meet Reporter Hong Yeo Jin of the Newstapa, a medium that has continued to prove the value of investigative journalism, since its establishment in 2012. While broadly outlining the possibilities of independent journalism and the problems in the current state of Korean media, she shares her thoughts, both passionate and agonizing, about what the media should do to recover public trust and to contribute to the building of a better Korean society.
National Assembly member Yong Hye-in, of the Basic Income Party, recounts stories of her various experiences as a first-term national assembly member, problems of politics monopolized by the two big parties, and ways to fight the regression of the Yoon administration. While arguing that basic income is a philosophy that honors human dignity, she presents concrete and bold alternatives, such as the “invention of a country investing in the future” and the “co-ownership-based basic income.”
Japanese historian Wada Haruki discusses the challenges for Japan and Korea in a rapidly changing world, as well as the possibility of civic collaboration for peace in Northeast Asia. Regarding the Ukraine War, he argues that it should be immediately suspended, citing the example of the Korean War. Further, he argues that, in order to decrease the danger of another global war and to achieve peace in Northeast Asia, Korea should make diplomatic efforts to lower tensions in relationships between the DPRK and the US and between the DPRK and Japan, while Japan should continue to maintain Article 9 of the Constitution, which explicitly outlaws wars fought by Japan.