Post-341: “The Answer to Nuclear Intimidation is Nuclear Armament” [Korea Election 2016]

Korea’s national election is April 13, 2016 (designated a holiday to promote voting).

I have been translating some of the many political banners I’ve seen in Seoul. Through these translations and analysis based thereupon, I hope to gain some better understanding the election. I am posting these here to discipline my analysis.

Previous posts on Korea Election 2016 here:
Post-338: “The Liars are at it Again”
Post-340: Against the “Sleeping National Assembly”

I remarked in post-340 that many of the political banners that I had photographed and posted have been torn down, perhaps surreptitiously by political opponents. As of March 31st, most were gone.

One banner has remained untouched for weeks. If you understand what it says, you may be surprised by its “survival”:

The upper banner is an incredible contrast with the lower one here. The lower one — “No War! Stop the U.S.-South Korean Joint Military Exercises! Sign a Peace Treaty With North Korea!” — has also disappeared as of this writing.

Here is my translation of the upper banner:

[기독당]
“국방 개혁”
…핵 위협엔 핵 보유가 답…
대한민국 자주국방 최상의 답은 핵무기 보유 입니다.
[기독당]

[The Christian Party]
“National Defense Reform”
…When Dealing with Nuclear Intimidation,
The Answer is Nuclear Armament…
The best way to guarantee the Republic of Korea’s self-sufficiency in national defense is to possess our own nuclear weapons capability.

This apparently new “Christian Party” (기독당, in long form 기독민주당; it proclaims itself in English to be the CDUK, “Christian Democratic Union Korea” [sic]) is led by a Park Du-Shik (박두식), about whom I find nothing online, except that a film actor by that name was born in 1988. Very unlikely the same person.

This call for nuclear armament is actually quite shocking and troubling.

Most would say that this so-called Christian Party is too small to bother worrying about and that nobody who matters is serious about Seoul developing a nuclear weapons arsenal. On the other hand, here is a story from two months ago in which “a right-wing journalist” is quoted calling for nuclear armament.

I have wondered, ever since 2002, while I was in high school (at which time Korea first came into my awareness), why the United States still maintains a military presence in South Korea. A main reason, or the main reason, I have come to see, is that the South Korean government wants them there. A blackmail threat hangs in the air, maybe, in which South Korea would say, “Okay, Uncle Sam, you can unilaterally withdraw. Just, listen, if you do, we can’t promise, you know, that we won’t develop our own nuclear deterrent.” This would be too terrible to contemplate.

So, what of the Christian Party? They won’t win any seats. What, though, of the fact that the banner remains standing while so many others have been torn down? (There is also an identical banner on the other side of the street, visible to all approaching the main gate to Yeongdeungpo Station. I have seen the same banner in other parts of Seoul, too.)

One more thing. Somebody has scrawled graffiti on this banner. You can see it at the top left. The graffiti says, “Obey the Teachings of the Bible!” [성경 말씀에 순종하시오!]. I interpret this to be meant in mocking derision of the banner’s belligerent message…from the self-proclaimed Christian Party. Would Jesus call for nuclear armament? And so on.