Planting Seeds of Consciousness Outside the Naval Base

An interview with Jeong Seon-nyeo (baptismal name Joan of Arc), Gangjeong Mission Station, Catholic Diocese of Cheju (Jeju) by Kaia “Curry” Vereide, an American peace activist living in Gangjeong, supported by the St. Francis Peace Center.  

Picking strawberries to make jam photo by curry

Jeju Island, off the south coast of the Korean Peninsula, is recognized by UNESCO as an environmental treasure with Biosphere Reserve, World Natural Heritage, and Global Geopark designations. It was also declared by the Korean government to be an “Island of World Peace” in 2005. However, deep historical wounds remain unhealed and the island is currently facing militarization, over-tourism, and reckless development. 

At the end of the second world war, Korea was liberated from Japanese colonial occupation but was divided and occupied by the Soviet army in the North and the US army in the South. The US hired many of the police and officials who had worked for Japan and arranged for South-only elections. Police brutality and unilateral elections led to an uprising in Jeju on April 3, 1948, (called the “4.3 Uprising and Massacre”) but the popular movement was met with massive violent repression which continued throughout the Korean War and killed an estimated 10% of Jeju’s population.

In 2007, plans to build a navy base in Gangjeong, a village on Jeju, were announced, although a town referendum with 70% voter participation showed that 94% of the villagers opposed the plans. Despite a strong peace movement, the base construction was completed in 2016, covering over the 1.2 kilometer Gureombi Rock, which formed Gangjeong’s coastline, and causing irreversible environmental damage. The base is Korean but considered to be a tool of US strategy to put pressure on China; US ships (aircraft carriers, nuclear-powered submarines, Aegis destroyers, etc.) use the base for rest and recuperation as well as war exercises. 

I moved to Gangjeong just as the base was opening in 2016 and have been inspired by the steadfast, creative, and vibrant peace movement here. I have been honored to work alongside Jeong Seon-nyeo, or Joan of Arc, who is like a strong glue holding the community together with prayers, song, fresh vegetables, and seafood and by sewing banners, caring for elders, welcoming visitors, preparing for mass, and driving around Jeju in her blue truck. I see her at the daily protest activities outside the navy base (100 bows for life and peace at 7 am, a human chain of singing and dancing at 12 pm), at our communal lunch, as well as at Gangjeong Peace Choir practices and in the fields and gardens we share. I enjoyed the excuse to preserve her wisdom by recording this interview.
​-Kaia 

Joan of Arc's garden beside the navy base by Jeong Sean-nyeo

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Joan of Arc singing at the human chain by Choi Hyea-yeong

Kaia: Why did you come to Gangjeong?
Joan of Arc: From 1994 to 2000 I lived next to Gangjeong in Hwasun. While I was there, they wanted to build the navy base there, but people were strongly opposed. Jeju was declared a Peace Island and because the people of Jeju have a really big trauma related to soldiers and the police, people had a consciousness that Jeju must not be further militarized. So [when I heard that] the navy base was getting [built] in Gangjeong, I thought, “This can’t happen and we must stop this.” So, I couldn’t come to Gangjeong just by my individual choice, but I expressed my desire to the church, that I’d like to go to Gangjeong, and I think it was a good opportunity for the church, too. 

Kaia: When you first came to Gangjeong, how long did you expect to live here?
Joan of Arc: I thought I should stay here until this problem is solved. The issue of militarism entering Jeju is not only something that Jeju people must oppose, but all humanity must oppose. So as long as I can stay, I must stay. That’s what I thought, and it has been 8 years.

Kaia: So for as long as possible.
Joan of Arc: That’s right.

Kaia: Living in Gangjeong, what do you see as the purpose of the peace movement?
Joan of Arc: You could say ‘life and peace.’ Militarism is the opposite of life; it is the culture of death and Jeju needs peace. Militarism cannot heal the wounds of 70 years ago. Peace is things being as they are, leaving them that way. So the purpose is to stop militarism from coming in. Preserving life. Living with nature. I have been coming here regularly since 1994. I always walked on Gureombi Rock. That Gureombi, that water! In between the tides, when the water came in and went out and left tidal pools, they were full of living things. It was truly beautiful. The huge 1.2 km Gureombi Rock had countless tide pools, which were each a miniature universe. Truly a universe, with all kinds of fish, snails, seaweeds, cheonggak, miyeok-sae...

Kaia: That will be hard to translate.
Joan of Arc: ...umutgasari… It was like a fantasy. Not even comparable to a coral reef. One single tidal pool was a paradise, really. It was beautiful. You could watch it all day and not get bored. Now they made it into a place that cannot support living things. It is a crime, it is the evil of humanity, evil. What on earth! They destroy this ecosystem, this beautiful nature, and the military says that they will protect peace! It is unthinkable. Until now, whether in the Korean War or the 4.3 Massacre, the soldiers just do as they are ordered. Those with power use it to preserve their own power. For that purpose they don’t need other living things, other people, anything. 

Kaia: How is Gangjeong connected to the history of Japanese colonial occupation, the 4.3 Uprising and Massacre, the Korean War?
Joan of Arc: The people who gained power during the Japanese colonial occupation, these same people were angry at the people [who rose up] during 4.3. The people who profited from the colonial era financially or by gaining power, they became the perpetrators, and in order to not lose their authority and financial power, they called the victims leftists and commies, people who don’t deserve to exist, whose lives have no value... The people who went up on the mountain [to escape massacre and/or join the uprising], their relatives, or those suspected of having connections to them were subject to surveillance through the guilt-by-association system. ‘This house needs to be investigated. This house is leftist. This house is anti-government.’ They couldn’t raise their voices. They couldn’t talk for 50 years, even 70 years, until today. The people who took power then are the right-wing today. There is a direct influence from Japanese colonialism, 4.3, the Korean War, up to the Jeju Navy Base.

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12 PM daily human chain dancing by Pang Eun-mi

11 AM daily mass in the Gangjeong mass tent by Pang Eun-mi

Kaia: The navy base is a continuation of the same power.
Joan of Arc: Right! People trying to control everything through force is the power of the devil. We need to develop consciousness and see how communism was not the worst and our democracy is not the best kind of democracy.

Kaia: Our democracy right now is not a very good example of democracy.
Joan of Arc: The ideal of democracy is the best: that each and every person is the owner of the democracy.

Kaia: What about the [plans for a Jeju] 2nd Airport [and Air Force Base], the road construction [destroying] the Bijarim-ro forest, and all the other over-development, the militarism that is continuing in Jeju; it all has this same connection?
Joan of Arc: That’s right. That’s right. It’s capital, the flow of money. They are trying to expand their power. The reason that [Jeju governor] Won Hee-Ryong cannot make good choices is because of the vested interests of capital. The people who support him are mostly those in real estate and the construction business. The ‘haves.’ The executives. Not the farmers or the fishing people. … I want to explain something more. Before, Jeju people just lived in Jeju. You know “the frog that lives in the well?” The frog in the well doesn’t know anything outside of the well. If you only live in Jeju, then you only know Jeju. But people [from Jeju] were conscripted to forced labor in Japan and Manchuria and they saw how big the world was. They learned many things and realized, ‘Ah! we need to make solidarity with the wider world, in order to make a better world.’ And the method was education. But the scary thing is the power of the government. 70 years ago, those people [who went into the wider world] were killed. That was 4.3. The killing of the people with consciousness, the smart people.

Kaia: What comes to mind when you hear the word “colonization”?
Joan of Arc: Colonization is a consciousness and if the people of a nation do not change their consciousness, they can easily become colonized.  Each and every citizen, every one, must have their own philosophy. For example, if the right wing only watch their own you-tube channels, etc., they will think that only they are right and see us as leftists. If they only think that way, then conflict is unavoidable. Right and left, these are ways and methods, but the purpose is full human rights. Each citizen must have the consciousness that they are the owners of the democracy. I think we need education to teach us to live together in an ecosystem. If the consciousness is forced to be biased it becomes a left-wing colonialism or a right-wing colonialism that loses sight of the objective and gets fixed, or stuck. So I think that decolonization is a very good standard: for each mature citizen to have their own democratic consciousness. I think decolonization is having this mature consciousness, to choose clearly what one thinks is right.

Kaia: I was going to ask about decolonization next. In Gangjeong and in Jeju we also need this consciousness, but do you think there are other processes that we need especially?
Joan of Arc: In Gangjeong, especially, I think the activists are taking a lead in terms of a progressive consciousness. Whether it is a consciousness of human rights, or anti-war, anti-militarism culture, the activists are a step ahead of the public consciousness, training their consciousness through books, through peace education, through the people around us. I want to answer your question about my role as a farmer, a woman, a religious person, a follower of Jesus...

Kaia: Yes, yes!
Joan of Arc: The problem of the coronavirus seems to be coming out from the culmination of many environmental problems. So, what can I do here, in this environment, with the 24 hours that I have each day? I do what I can, myself, in my daily life: I get ready in the morning and join the 100 bows — an action for a culture of anti-militarism — then I come back and care for my garden and prepare food to eat. These are important for my daily life as a religious person, as a farmer, and as a woman. As a feminist, I must clearly be the subject of my life, and confidently. As a follower of Christ, a believer, a farmer, a woman, the life I live is a full life. And what makes me most happy? Seeing the living parts of the ocean, I really like that. Not possible in Gangjeong now, so I find seaside places all around Jeju. The joy when I see places with little tidal pools full of living things like there used to be on Gureombi, that’s really good.

Kaia: What hope do you have for this place here?
Joan of Arc: I have hope! In continuing my daily life. In this process, just my being here is living hope. In one day, I can join 100 bows in the morning, I can cultivate the fields, I can prepare something to eat for the community, and I can meet other activists and build relationships: this is hope.  

Kaia: I especially wanted to ask you, what do you think is the Kingdom of God?
Joan of Arc: The Kingdom of God is here, now. Oh, in the mass tent where we enjoy hearing the word of God and among the people who join the human chain, acting to oppose militarism, and eating lunch together. This is the Kingdom of God. Cultivating the soil with all the living things in the fields is, as I see it, the Kingdom of God. 

Kaia: Do you have anything else that you want to say to the readers?
Joan of Arc: Come! To this environment of living, breathing resistance to militarism, experience the energy; stay here together. Just staying and being together, that’s enough. You can recharge during the 100 bows, religious people can hear Jesus’ words at the mass tent, and we can dance and sing with artists at the human chain. These spaces were created through struggle. It might seem easy to come and bow, but there are many stories of how people struggled to make and protect this place.

Kaia: The place where we do the 100 bows [at the entrance of the navy base] could be like a field, where we plant seeds, and maybe the sprouts come out in the spring, but I don’t know when we will see the fruits.  Do you think there are sprouts now?
Joan of Arc: It is the time of cultivating the soil. We are making the field. And planting the seeds happens when you all come and join the bows; those are the seeds. And growth happens when you take the energy from here with you when you go. And we get a harvest when new people come here as a result. Oh, it is a great parable!

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A Gangjeong tidal pool in 2016 by Curry

To learn more about the Jeju April 3rd Uprising and Massacre, download the booklet at https://www.jejudarktours.org/en/about-jeju-april-3rd-uprising-and-massacre/ 

To learn more about the Jeju anti-base peace movement see: savejejunow.org (you can download our bi-monthly Gangjeong Village Story newspaper there), a short video greeting and 2018 update from Gangjeong at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWPpS1v3J3s, and these groups on Facebook: No Naval Base on Jeju, Inter-Island Solidarity for Peace, and (in Korean) Gangjeong People.