The Problem and Systemic Crisis with the “Basic Bill for Residents’ Self-Governing”

The legislative bill proposed by the ruling Democratic Party of Korea (primarily by congressman Kim Young Bae) on January 29, 2021, which puts forth a false cause of ‘self-government/autonomy”, is in reality to set up an official governing body created by a special interest, particular ideological force, to control the citizens. This effort is a product of a conspiracy to take away people’s rights. Despite a government self-governing organization already in existence, the bill tries to create a separate, new residents’ self-governing organization and a citizen’s council, which receive government funding and make decisions on, and carry out,  matters directly related to people’s lives. This is nothing more than creating and legalizing national and public group and property with preferential treatment and taking care of the interest of the citizens’ council members with governmental budget. 

Originally, the Democratic Party rammed the revisions to the Constitution, and tried to add the phrase, “Aiming for a creation of a decentralized state” into Article 1 of the Constitution, and also tried to amend the Constitution to “make it possible to enact ordinances that are not prescribed by law.”  When these attempts were blocked, they are now using the notion of a self-governing by residents to legalize their actions and to carry out the complete takeover of power in the local and regional areas with leftist ideologies under the notion. Indeed, the platform of “residents’ self-government” is easily and powerfully misused to increase the leftist ideology and policies in the local and regional areas. The forces that have been propping up the ideological positions of the labor, education, and village community will be combined by this platform and they will exert the synergistic efforts to seek their own political and economic self-interest.  

Looking back in history, in 1870 the Russian communist revolutionaries went to the farms and villages and encouraged revolution via the V Narod Movement; in the 1980s of Korea, the most popular movement among leftist student activists, many of whom now became political leaders of the ruling Democratic party, was to join the agricultural field and to educate farmers. Now after 40 years later, the Korean society is experiencing a strange déjà vu. Already, in places like Sungmisan village in Mapo and elsewhere, the old generation of activist group forces are living together and doing joint, communal childcare cooperatives, and created cooperative manufacturing facilities to develop complex village communities. There are now 85 such villages throughout South Korea. The former Seoul mayor, the late Won-Soon Park implemented the “Seoul City Village Community Support Center’, through which the city of Seoul’s budget supported these various organizations, and the Gyeonggi Province has copied these actions as well.  In December of 2012, the Framework Act on Cooperatives was passed, and various kinds of cooperatives were set up, thus allowing the leftists to carry out their activities with the economic cooperative structure as a basis. Now if the “Residents’ Self-governing” idea becomes legalized, these sorts of organizations will emerge nationwide, and soon there will be a national network of these groups.

The eldest generations in South Korea have experienced the Korean War, particularly the three-month period of occupation by the North Korean military. They remember the notorious atrocities committed by ‘People’s Councils’ under the name of self-governance by the people. They comprehend instinctively the danger of what it is like for an ideological force or group to control the people. In the name of self-governance, the right wing or conservative forces will be weeded out, ideological re-education will be directly and indirectly carried out, and through securing of personal information, the control and monitoring of the people will be carried out. This scenario is indeed taking steps of realization in the modern society of South Korea by the official adoption of this self-governing ideology in the bill. 

This bill is filled with many ‘poisonous’ clauses. First, in the village and town (‘eup’, ‘myun’ and ‘dong’) level of municipalities in South Korea, there already exists an administrative social welfare center and a residents’ center, but this bill would create a separate and autonomous citizens council and citizens self-governing council, leading to a duplication of rights and duties and a great burden on the taxpayers of South Korea.  Furthermore, the citizens’ self-governing council would be set up as an independent legal organization, thus possessing a full and unchecked legal capacity and, far surpassing the already-existing local level organizations’ power and position under the law.

Secondly, there is prescribed in the bill the governmental responsibility to administratively and financially support such organizations, and in every five years the comprehensive support plan must be established. The government must also support the organizational bodies and operate the professional support agency. In contrast to such a strong support by the government, there is an absence of monitoring and control mechanisms against such organizations and their activities. 

Third, one single person can duplicate his or her membership and belong to several different citizens self-governing councils by using residential and work addresses. This means that leftist activists are allowed to have overlapping participation in various organizations to contribute to forming a nationwide network of citizens’ self-governing organizations. These organizations can easily associate with the teachers unions and labor unions. Furthermore, non-South Korean residents and ethnic Korean Chinese (‘josonjok’) can participate in decision-making process by these citizens’ self-governing bodies as members, which makes the self-governance susceptible to foreign influence. 

Fourth, the bill contains an article that bans discrimination against a resident’s particular ideology or belief. A hidden agenda is to use this provision to stifle and prevent criticism of communism at the grass-root level. 

Fifth, the citizens’ council has the authority to decide even on local tax matters, including local personal and residential tax rates. 

Sixth, this bill would allow the citizens self-governing council and its members to align with special interest groups and ideological organizations in carrying out various local activities for the residents in such areas as transportation, environment, childcare, housing, public safety and social welfare. Specialized offices in such fields can be set up, and these may ultimately replace the governmental organizations and functions. There are even such worries that this bill would allow for the councils to cooperate with other civilian organizations and support its network and tap into using and accessing state funds and properties, allowing for the council to eventually emerge as a huge landowning organization. 

Seventh, the citizens’ self-governing council can demand the attendance of relevant civil servants, and call at will any related experts, and request relevant documents at any time as needed, thus giving the council unchecked powers of summoning officials and accessing to information.

Ultimately, the great fear imposed by the bill is that through an ideological networking, a substructure of the Republic of Korea will end up operating like a totalitarian system. If the passage of this bill is not stopped, it could eventually lead to a Soviet-style or a Chinese Communist Party-style localized system of power whereby an ideologically rooted organization can carry out realistic control despite the already-existing government organizations. Is this not the collapse of the free, democratic system of the Republic of Korea? At least, these discussions call out the serious problems with the bill and an attempt to raise awareness about the dangers among the South Korean citizens and people in the free democratic world. Experts need to continue to point out the problems and poisons with the bill, and the media and SNSs need to build up the public opinion. Also, the opposition party in Korea, which does not seem to fully grasp the seriousness of the matter, must wake up from its helpless dream and act proactively and responsibly in and out of the congress.