Minjok : flawed, but undeniable

 

Minjok : flawed, but undeniable

The flag of Han-peninsula
= North Korea + South Korea

While watching the soccer game, the broadcaster often says, ‘Let’s show the power of Koreans, the power of Hanminjok to them!’ The middle school ethics textbooks tell us that unification is necessary because we are the same Hanminjok. What on earth is MINJOK? The dictionary definition of Minjok, ethnicity or ethnic group is a group of people who have lived in the same region for centuries, and sharing common cultural heritage, ancestry, history, language, series of thoughts and possibly other aspects such as religion, cuisine, dressing style, physical appearance, and so on. However, Minjok does not simply comply with the concept of a nation, nor does it mean the same to the dictionary definition in the reality. Considering the specialty of Korea, minjok means even more than that.

 

Someone would think that the concept of Minjok existed from millenniums ago judging by that ‘minjok’ is innate in people. However, according to Carter Eckert, there was not strong sense of belonging to a Korean nation until late in the 19^th century. Minjok wasn’t an important concept until the Japanese illegal occupation era. Japanese tried to unite Korean and Japanese under the slogan, 내선일체 naeseon ilche, claiming that Japan and Korea are ethnically homogeneous, but separated unavoidably. On the other hand, Historian Shin Chae-ho used the ‘minjok’ in order to unite Korea and provide the axis of resistance against Japan. In his book, he stated the bloodline of Dan-gun, Goguryeo, Goryeo, and Josun to emphasize the Korean, Han spirit. In the modern days, former president Park Chung-hee who maintained dictatorship for 16 years, emphasized ethnic nationalism, and homeland. Lastly, Kim Young-sam propelled Korean globalization in accordance with reinforcement of the concept, minjok.

 

 

Historian Shin Chae Ho

President Park Chung Hee

President Kim Young Sam

Then, what makes minjok? The dictionary says that Minjok is a group of people sharing culture, series of ideas, language, and possibly genetics. However, I don’t think minjok means so. The standard of minjok is extremely vague, but to get general ideas of it, I think bloodline may be the primary standard of Hanminjok. For example, consider multicultural families, and foreigners living in Korea. Sam Hammington, Robert Holley have lived in Korea for years and even use dialects, and eat Kimchi. Their eating habit is more Korean-tic than Korean kids, they more engaged in Korean society, and married to Korean. But still, they are not considered as Korean. Actually, I won’t say people with blue eyes and blond hair are Hanminjok definitively. Next, how about Koreans living abroad or migrated to other countries? They share not the place or region, but the bloodline and series of thoughts. They might not be legally Korean, but still considered as Han-minjok, and Korean associations exist abroad showing strong bond among Koreans.

 

This indicates that neither eating kimchi nor assimilating to the Korean society determines Hanminjok. Where you live doesn’t either. The bloodline is thought to be the most primary standard of Hanminjok. What is contradictory about this is that even we, ourselves don’t have unique bloodline. Throughout our ancestors of Gojoseon, Goguryeo, Goryeo, and Joseon, our blood mingled and people married to foreigners. Also, scores of invasion by Japan and China affected so-called Dan-il minjok. These days, Korea is no more a Dan-il minjok society. However, we still believe and claim that they are ethnically homogeneous, racially distinctive compared to other societies. Sometimes, I feel that we do blindly.

 

The standard, bloodline makes minjok such an exclusive community with contradiction. Bloodline is arbitrarily given exclusive factor. It can only be satisfied with being reborn in Korean, and no one outside this exclusive community can mimic and meet the condition. Fixated on this exclusiveness, people sometimes blindly claim homogeneity and distinctiveness, thereby revealing the dark part of Minjok concept. For example, the exclusiveness of Minjok often hurts the outcast of Korean society in the form of xenophobia. Kids from multicultural family are often bullied. Furthermore, Koreans have inclination of not accepting and embracing the mixed-blood. Their nationality is Korean, language is Korean, and eating culture is Korean. However, they aren’t considered as Han minjok, indicating once more that the concept of minjok and nation is another story.

 

multicultural family in Korea



Minjok has been occasionally used as a political tool to unite people and drag attention. In fact, we don’t use the term, ‘minjok‘ in our daily lives saying, “I will share my favorite snack with you because we are the same Hanminjok.” Instead, we can find the term more frequently in Declarations, Inspiring speeches and special events such as World cup, sports game. Especially, the sports broadcaster keeps reminding us that we are the one, and thus insinuating that we are the best one. It has been used as necessary illusion in order to unite people and drive them to focus on economic development and national agenda.


We are united into Red Devils under the concept of Han-minjok

Necessary illusion, suggested by Noam Chomsky, is a political power using propaganda to distort and distract from major issues to maintain confusion and complicity, preventing real democracy from being effective. The former president Park Chung hee implemented 5 year economic development plan, and required people to engage in it. The dictatorship highlighted the concept of Minjok, nationalism, ethnic romanticism to drag their attention to the plan solely and drive them to pursue the prosperity of nation and minjok. This necessary illusion worked relatively well. In contemporary Korea, the Dokdo issue is broached whenever a political conflict or corruption is revealed to the public. Public are more interested in dokdo issue, thus it mitigates the impact of the exposure of corruption or conflict. Politicians know that minjok concept is innate in our minds and exploit them as a political tool to drag attention away from their vulnerability.

 



Panorama image of Dokdo



The higher degree of necessary illusion exists in North Korea. North Korea developed the concept of Minjok into Ju-che thought. It is a more aggressive, blatant form of ethnic nationalism, or Minjok-ism. They believe that they are the cleanest race, the most superior race in the world. Brainwashing North Koreans, they succeeded to maintain stable government with united ideology. The blatant form of minjok such as North Koreans is closer to Nazism and ultranationalism. Some people are afraid if this kind of things would happen. Minjok is such a closed community and people are fixated on bloodline, homogeneity. If the ostracism against foreigners worsens, we might become unable to communicate with other societies.

 

 

Again, what’s minjok? I’d like to say that it is hugely flawed concept. Used as political tool in the form of necessary illusion, possibility of authoritarianism requiring the sacrifice of individuals is occasionally entertained. It has extremely vague criteria. Bloodline is a primary standard, which hinders embracing the diversity of Korean society with the prejudice prevalent in closed community. But it doesn’t even mean the bloodline itself determines minjok definitively.

At first, I thought that the concept doesn’t exist, and it’s illusion. The concept of minjok was initially introduced to unite people and urge them to fight against invasion or external force. It was used as necessary illusion, but eventually we cannot deny that minjok exist among Koreans and we are united easily under the concept of minjok. Overcoming these flaws will be hard, but if we do, I believe Korean society will develop into more embracing society for others.

 



more embracing minjok concept