Two different hunger strikes

Suh Kyoung-ho
The author is an editorial writer of the JoongAng Ilbo.

“Do not linger or be saddened by the things you hear about me. I plead and advise our people to instead devote their energy to show their fervent passion and strong conviction about democratization,” then-dissident leader and former president Kim Young-sam said on May 18, 1983 as he went on a hunger strike.

The day marked the third anniversary of the Gwangju Democratization Movement. Kim’s nonviolent act of protest was launched at his home in Sangdo-dong, Seoul, encircled by more than 200 police and intelligence officers. He put up five demands for democratization, including the release of prisoners of conscience, the guaranteed freedom of the press, a constitutional reform to institutionalize a direct presidential election system and elimination of anti-democratic laws. His wife Son Myung-soon read out the statement to the foreign press, which delivered the news around the world. No media at home reported on Kim’s hunger strike due to strong censorship under the Chun Doo Hwan military regime.

Kim was carried to Seoul National Hospital on the eighth day. He refused treatment or food. On the 11th day, the military regime offered to lift the home confinement if the opposition leader went overseas. Kim rejected, saying, “The only way they could send me overseas is to carry my dead body.”

A wave of sympathetic hunger strikes spread at home and abroad. U.S. Senator Edward Kennedy and Japan’s Social Democratic Party issued statements supporting the cause of his protest. Local media started to report on “a dissident’s meal issue” to avoid breaking the government censorship guideline. By the 23rd day, his body hit its limit. His chief secretary Kim Deog-ryong read out a statement on behalf of a feeble Kim, “I am stopping the hunger strike in order to die while fighting instead of dying while sitting.”

Kim’s hunger strike had earnestness. The statement is displayed at the memorial space at the Kim Young-sam Library at Sangdo-dong, southern Seoul. Kim wrote on 10 pages of A4 paper. Confined at home without any visitors in a cell-less prison, he wrote, “I write this without knowing if this could reach the people.”

On the fifth day of his hunger strike in a tent erected before the National Assembly building, Democratic Party Chair Lee Jae-myung prepares to speak before a supreme council meeting. He is on strike to attack the government for “regressing on democracy.”

Kim wrote it on May 2, about two weeks before the hunger strike. He clearly explained the purpose of his action. “The time calls for the accumulation of power and wisdom to achieve democracy,” he wrote to muster solidarity among the democracy activists. Kim Dae-jung, another dissident leader in exile in the United States responded immediately. He issued a statement and joined a protest rally in America, as well as contributing an opinion piece on the The New York Times. The two Kims launched a council for democratization the following year. Kim Young-sam’s party caused a sensation in the parliamentary election in February 1985. His hunger strike shook the rock-strong military regime.

On Aug. 31 this year, opposition Democratic Party (DP) Chair Lee Jae-myung started a hunger strike “with no time limits.” The head of the majority party launching a hunger strike just a day before the National Assembly opened for the regular session puzzled many. In the statement to explain his cause, Lee said, “Korea is crumbling from the government’s bigotry. The government accuses people with different opinions as anti-national forces … Ideological conflict does not solve livelihood. Ideology cannot come before livelihood.” Many would agree so far. But the main opposition’s fault is not small. Lee didn’t deny it. “I share the responsibility for the downfall of Korea and people’s lives,” he confessed.

As Seongnam mayor in 2016, Lee went on a hunger strike to protest the government’s plan to revise its policy on subsidizing local governments. He claimed that the idea of diverting some of the subsidy for rich municipal governments like Seongnam to helping poorer ones impairs the principle of local autonomy. But his argument was very selfish. The banner over the tent of Lee’s sit-in reads “Livelihood before ideology, Unity before conflict, and National interests before selfish interests.” He should be making these comments at the legislature. Otherwise, his hunger strike will only invite suspicion over the real purpose of the strike — to avoid being arrested by the prosecution for a plethora of allegations against him, including the one that he pressured a gangster-turned CEO to remit $8 million to North Korea in return for favors when he was the Gyeonggi governor.