The Ven. Jiyul's hunger strike has gone on for more than 80 days now, and continues towards 100. Something unbelievable is happening. November 29 of last year was the 58th day of Ven. Jiyul's hunger strike, and the day an appeals court issued its judgment on whether to stop construction on the tunnel through Mount Cheongsan. The lawsuit was lost a second time. Many of the civic groups and people who had worked with Ven. Jiyul gave up and went their separate ways. She, meanwhile, continued on with her lonely hunger strike.
Someone once called the earth we live on the "Can't Be Helped Star." The things of everyday life are filled with things that go against principle. Everyone begins by talking about principles and resists going against them, but eventually they give up and get complacent. It "can't be helped."
Ven. Jiyul ends up being the strange one, living as she does in this world without giving in and by invoking principles. During his presidential campaign, Roh Moo Hyun promised he would have the tunnel project scrapped. He won and was inaugurated, but Ven. Jiyul started her first hunger strike when she saw construction going ahead anyway. The outcome of that first hunger strike was the formation of the "Rail Line Review Commission," but it did not even include Ven. Jiyul or people from the Mt. Cheongseong Task Force. When the commission concluded that construction was to move ahead, she began her second hunger strike, which she called off only when those involved in the class action suit secured 200,000 signatures. When construction still did not stop she began her third hunger strike, which secured promises about a joint environmental study by experts that were not kept. The Ministry of the Environment did a study all on its own for a mere three days and decided to allow construction continue. It said that it couldn't be helped since the Korea Rail Network Authority was opposed to the inquiry. The court's judgment, too, essentially is saying that it can't be helped since it is a state project that is already underway.
Saying something can't be helped is another way of saying that which is stronger can't be beaten. The "logic of development" has beat the "logic of life" that Ven. Jiyul is trying to defend. She is laying her own life on the line for other life in all its forms. She is resisting the colossal strength of the logic of development with her one frail body. The life in her is dying out. Our society is at a crossroad, one where it must decide whether to save Ven. Jiyul and save life at Mt. Cheongseong, or to learn our lessen when it's too late, after we have lost life as it exists in her and the many living things there.
The Hankyoreh, 21 January 2005.
[Translations by Seoul Selection (PMS)]
[Editorial] Is Ven. Jiyul's Life Vanishing? |
