Song roils Gwangju Movement service
A bereaved family member mourns in front of a grave at the National May 18 Cemetery in the southwestern city of Gwangju, Friday, a day before the 33rd anniversary of the democratic uprising that was quelled by the then military junta in 1980. / Yonhap
By Kim Tae-gyu
President Park Geun-hye is scheduled to participate in the 33rd ceremony commemorating the May 18 Gwangju Democratic Movement. But three major related organizations including one for bereaved families are boycotting the event amid disputes over a song scheduled to be sung there.
The disagreement centers around whether or not participants will officially sing a symbolic song for the event in unison, “Nimeul Wihan Haengjingok (March for the Beloved),” just like the national anthem.
The Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs (MPVA), which takes charge of the state event, decided to have a choir sing the protest song loved by democratic movement activists in the 1980s.
The ministry plans to replace the song with a new, official one.
The measures invite not merely boycotts of major entities associated with the May 18 movement to the official event but also criticism from civic groups and opposition parties.
“I urge the government to drop their narrow-minded attitude. They should allow participants to sing the march,” said Park Ki-choon, floor leader of the main opposition Democratic Party.
Party members pressed President Park to make a decision to revive the long-held custom of all participants singing the song in unison, which dates back to the early 1980s.
Even some lawmakers from the governing Saenuri Party agree with Park.
“We are required to designate the song as an official one in line with the hopes of Gwangju citizens and the bereaved families of the victims,” Rep. Kim Moo-sung of the ruling party said.
“I don’t understand at all why (MPVA) stops the long-standing tradition of singing the song to cause a split in public opinion.”
With regard to using 48 million won ($44,000) budget earmarked to commission a replacement song, Kim demanded that the government should not waste taxpayers’ money.
Kim said that it includes no pro-North Korean lyrics, or anti-South Korean content at all. He said: “I sang the song several times a day in the democratic movement in the past.”
From 10 days after May 18, 1980, armed Gwangju citizens rose up against Chun Doo-hwan’s military junta that crushed the movement with brutal and deadly force.
The song was written in 1982 and it has become a rule to sing it in unison in the commemorative event, which started in 1983, and the convention was kept even after it was promoted to a state event in 2003.
During the former Lee Myung-bak administration, the tradition was abided by in his first year in office in 2008 but this stopped the following year because MPVA was against the idea.