What Are The Different Views On Mandatory Military Service In Korea
A disclosure before I get-go: I take no intention to undermine or make picayune of the sacrificial service that many conscripted men are offer to the country. Their service is in fact invaluable. What I write below is a critique of the system and makes no statements well-nigh engaged persons and their contributions.
What It Is
It is a conscription that applies only to males, aged between 18 and 35. The length of the service is approximately two years, though the exact corporeality depends on the division (army, navy, air force). There is essentially no pay: one receives effectually $100-150 monthly stipends. Culling options are out of reach for nearly people. A conscientious objector is not accepted: if one refuses to engage in military activities without a proper permission, he goes to jail. A medical condition, depending on its severity (e.one thousand., not having index fingers), tin exempt a person from the service or let civil service instead. At that place is also a very small gear up of merit-based options. For case, an athlete who wins medals in the Olympic Games is exempt. A select group of people with MS or PhD degrees in technology are sometimes allowed to work for industrial or governmental institutes for 3 years, though even this option is scheduled to be revoked in a few years.The chief purpose of the conscription is national defence, which is needed since South Korea is yet in a state of war with North Korea (the current absence of war is technically an armistice).
So far, I have given a description that is typical of any military machine conscription. The Korean conscription, however, has evolved to serve a rather unlike purpose in the society.
What It Really Is
It is a strength, which cannot be denied by individuals, that chisels the Korean club into i that accepts any level of violence, cruelty, and injustice in the name of national interest. It annihilates the very foundation of scientific, creative, and independent minds in the land.For two years in the service, a Korean male is isolated in a primitive surround that would appall someone used to the Western idea of human being dignity and rights. The draftee lives in a cramped quarter chosen Nae Moo Ban with as many as 30 people. In this quarter, a grade of accented hierarchy based on army ranks (i.east., how long they have been in the army) is systematically imposed. Other than daily military drills, most of the draftee's time is spent living in this quarter. And this identify can be a torturing jail cell, for two years, for someone who does non "fit in".
An Unlimited Degree of Collective Violence
I will provide a few specific examples of violence that can happen to anyone who is enforced into the service, where the violence has little to do with the bodily purposes of the armed forces (i.e., national defense force). But before I do and so, nosotros must enquire: why does all this senseless cruelty sally?
There are multiple answers to this question. Ostracizing weak members is an effective way to promote the bonding of a group. The psychology goes along the line of:
I must participate in harassing with others for my condom.
Only perhaps more chiefly, violence and cruelty are entertaining. In this isolated environment, draftees (especially in the afterward phase of the service) have too much gratuitous time with nothing to do. With unconditional power over others, they naturally seek amusement by exploiting this power.
The following is a listing of specific cases of violence in the army. The goal is to brand the concepts more than concrete and tangible to the reader.
- An acquaintance of mine was forced to eat chicken blood shaped into a heart by a higher-ranking cook (personal advice).
- Cases of this kind of "food torture" are prevalent. This article reports such cases in the navy. 1 person was forced to eat 20-30 bags of frozen food, whence the person had to repeatedly vomit and consume again, and be browbeaten for vomitting. Anther person was forced to swallow cockroaches.
- There are many other forms of violence performed in a quarter. This book gives an account of several, including a person who was tied to a tank and tortured by higher-ranking officers.
- Acts of cruelty are performed covertly, since "accidents" are not officially condoned. An acquantance told me that one constructive strategy for harassing is to use staplers: punching holes on the legs is hard to catch because the injury is hidden under leg hair (personal advice).
- More than 65% of draftees study that they have experienced some form of extreme violence/cruelty by superiors (source). In reality, nonetheless, nigh everyone is victimized.
- Many draftees who have been subject to this group violence either suffer from permanent mental trauma or commit suicide. The cases of suicide are all too common news. In one famous incident, a victim killed five others and was arrested before commiting suicide.
- Many victims also often perform the aforementioned acts of violence to their inferiors (partly because they do not wish to appear as weak superiors), thus perpetuating the cycle.
I am frequently shocked by encountering perfectly proficient people who nostalgically reminesce their acts of cruelty on inferiors in their times in the service. I practice not retrieve that they are monsters. But I exercise retrieve that all of us are capable of whatsoever evil given the correct circumstance. The army system in Korea provides the right circumstance.
This is the reason, not the ii-year length of the service or the physical hardship of the actual armed forces drills, that makes many people desperately seek means to dodge the conscription. They sometimes decide on extreme measures, for case removing their own index fingers or toes. A friend of mine was immune to do civil service for being underweight, simply to attain this he malnourished himself for months to the point of danger to his health.
The victims of the army violence and their families are oft helpless. The government is criticized for providing at best lukewarm response to these incidents. In many cases, the people responsible for heinous acts of evil keep to living normal lives after the service, equally if nada of signficance happened. They go on to shape modern Korea.
What It Does to the Lodge
The violence and cruelty illustrated above is enforced on every Korean male person. This has the effect of morphing the mentality of the entire population into one cultivated in the army quarter. A bright and curious higher student becomes fearful of "stepping over the line" with professors, all the obscene sexualization practiced in the regular army distorts the prototype of females (source).It is also an enormous loss of talent at a national scale. Most men are drafted in their early age of around twenty. At this critical bespeak in life when they take the about potential for learning and deep thinking, they are subjugated to a regularizing experience that can involve farthermost levels of violence and cruelty. In particular, the demand for unconditional obedience to superiors destroys potentially peachy minds in scientific discipline in which contained thinking is crucial.
An elephant in the room is that Korean females have admittedly no obligation in this matter. It is clearly unfair and creates all kinds of conflicts between genders. Men naturally recall that they have more rights than women with such sacrifice imposed on them. Women, on the other hand, resent the culture of gender bias created by the conscription, merely they yet want no part in the responsibility (which is rational).
What to Do
Today in Korea, there are many aspects of the social club that people are intensely angry about (including myself). They detest the hierarchical social structure in which conformity weighs heavier than reason. They hate the demand for unconditional and utter sacrifice of time and personal life at work. They hate the society's emphasis on brusk-term successes (e.grand., a celebrity restaurateur, well-selling smartphones) over long-term investments that lead to fundamental advances (eastward.g., consequent and sustaining support for basic science). This anger is summarized in the phrase "Hell Chosun" that deplores the current state of the country ("Chosun" is the proper name of the final Korean dynasty). Republic of korea consistently has the highest suicide rate among OECD countries (source).
At the heart of all these surface problems lies the compulsary military service. The service intills fear in people's minds: fear of superiors, fright of beingness different, fear of stepping over the line, and fear of pain. I simply cannot endorse the systematic, extreme violence and cruelty that routinely destroy and deform innocent lives in the mandatory military service, especially because they are not necessary for the bodily goal of the conscription: national security.
The event is that there is an opportunity to dramatically resolve many social ailments by fixing this problem. Like in other countries, the current compulsory service needs to be switched to voluntary service that is well paid. The negative connotation associated with people non having been in the army, male person or female, needs to diminish, and the positive connotation associated with professional soldiers equally those who defend the safety of citizens needs to exist bolstered. Reunification of South and North Koreas tin can put an finish to this problem, but even before this happens there need to be measures to terminate the unacceptable harm perpetrated by the arrangement.
Source: http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~stratos/opinions/military/military.html
Posted by: youngyeard2001.blogspot.com
0 Response to "What Are The Different Views On Mandatory Military Service In Korea"
Post a Comment