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The government attack on the debate on conscription

The compulsory military service in Korea is slowly beginning to be challenged, amidst oppression from the government to intercept any attempts to debate on the issue. There have always been some careful discussions on the issue, but not so heated and controversial as was when the government allowed companies to give privileged employment to those who have completed their military service, and now at the attempts of the government to close three websites which had opened up to debate about the pros and cons of the conscription.

Most countries, after the establishment of the modern nation-state, adopted a national conscription system. But as time goes by, the necessity of the system has been under scrutiny and many countries have now changed to a voluntary system, or is in the process of debating on the issue. However, the conscientious refusal of the anti-war activists of the 60's is not a mere memory of the 'good ol' days' but is a solemn reality for many where even the thought of refusal could end a person in jail. This is a reality in Korea. There have always been small groups of activists who completely refused, or partly refused conscription. During the 80's in Korea, some activists refused to go to the military or at least, refused to be posted at the DMZ front. There were also many cases where certain religious groups, such as the Jehovah's Witnesses, refused to go or refused to hold a gun. These young men obviously went to jail. Methods on how to avoid the conscription are always one of the heated topics to be discussed by boys in their late teens, and stories of how a person cut off a toe or registered himself dead to avoid going off to the military decorates the discussions. And then there are the rich, who bribe with unimaginable sums of money, someone related to the military to get their sons to be exempted - the stories of which appear daily in the newspapers.
But as in other countries of the world, Korean young men are comforted with the ideology of patriotism, of the pride of protecting their country from the enemies (the Communists) and of becoming a real man. The military service is seen as a ritual of entering economic, political and social manhood. The political ideology of the patriotic deed of protecting South Korea's 'liberal democracy' from the North (considered to be constantly conspiring to attack the South) is something that is indisputable and absolute, especially in a divided country as Korea. Never was this challenged - any challenges to this sacred and prestigious deed was doomed to be stigmatized, and suppressed with the logic of the 'cold war' on the Korean peninsula.
But the conscription system is now slowly beginning to be challenged. The first challenge came, when the government announced that it will allow private companies to give privilege points to men who have completed their service, in efforts to curve the soaring unemployment rate during the economic crisis. Previously, only those becoming civil servants were given the privilege. This meant that women and disabled people, who were already the 'minority' in the labour market, will not only lag in the ladder of promotion, but will be blocked from employment all together. There are several cases where a woman or a disabled person scored close to the full marks her/his entrance examination, but failed because of the men who were given extra 5 points for completing their military service. Women and the disabled decided to take action. In 1998, several women and disabled filed for suit at the constitutional court, stating that the system of giving privilege points is not a method of compensating for the 'lost years' but is a discrimination against women and the disabled. They won the case, but of course, neither the companies nor the ruling parties of Korea abided with the court's ruling. They were sided by the hundreds of thousands of men, who could not bear the thought of losing their privilege. The debate, in some cases terror at the women who filed suit, gave out the true depth of the ideology of the military service, and its relation to the economic, political and social domination by able-bodied men. The skeletons of violence, brutality and suppression of basic human rights inside the military that were kept hidden inside the cupboard are also being pulled out into the sunlight. And the heated debate also paved the way to slowly crack the taboo against speaking out against the service itself and the right to refuse conscription.

Another turning point came when the police started an investigation, last March, into three websites that were opened up to continue the debate on this matter, on the basis that the websites were organizing and propagating the refusal to conscription, which is considered in Korea, to be a severe anti-social criminal act. The websites were opened by several organizations who have always been against conscription, namely homosexuals and those who, for religious reasons, are not allowed to hold a gun. It was the first attempt by ordinary netizens to trigger a debate on the issue. Some of the themes that were discussed were whether conscription is realistically necessary, alternative methods to maintaining military forces, and the right to conscientiously refuse conscription. Far from being a one-way propagation to stimulate refusal as the police liked to think, the websites contained quite mature opinions on the issue - from philosophical questions of 'what is conscience?', analyzing the UN guidelines on the adequate percentage of the national population to be in the armed forces, economic numeration of the present conscription system and the alternative voluntary system etc..
The branding of the websites by the police on the basis that they are dangerous anti-social sites is nothing more than a suppression of the right to speak out on policies of the state that effect the entire nation (even those who do not go, as we have seen in the case of privilege points) and an attempt to tranquilize the growing criticisms on the violence, brutality and corruption inside the military. The dangers of the communists and the possibility of an invasion by them have been proven to be ideological, to be a mere propaganda. And yet the government does not seize its witch hunt. This becomes even more evident when we look at the fact that the investigations took place at the same time that the new internet censorship laws await to be passed in parliament. The government is planning to revise the laws that 'protect' youths and activate censorship in cyberspace in order to filter out any sites that are morally and politically 'wrong' in the eyes of capitalist 'liberal democracy'. Conscription has always been an effective way of educating young men to be faithful servants of the state and system, and it seems that even a harmless and healthy debate on pros and cons of conscription is threatening to this cause.
Freedom of expression, freedom of speech and freedom to live according to one's conscience is once again sacrificed under the desperate witch-hunt of the government, in its attempt to cover up the chaos and anger brought on by the economic crisis and globalization.