General Society: Society: News: Hankyoreh

Sore bodies are sick. It is not only because of the biological pain of disease, but also because of social suffering. In the early days of sickness, unlike now, I lived feeling unhappy. It wasn’t just the pain that became part of my body that I was unhappy with. It wasn’t just that the body that had been swimming for an hour each morning and then went to work refreshingly, and the body that was playing on the artificial rock wall on weekends could no longer be my body. Only after becoming a sick body realized that our society is a health-oriented society. My body started to get sick in 2009 during a solidarity campaign in Palestine. At first, the whole body was sore, as if I had a body ache, and after a while the regular menstruation stopped. It was thought that it was due to the high tension and overwork that the site gave. After three months of activities, I returned to Korea and took care of my body. But health gradually drew a downward curve. At night, pain frequently woke up, followed by abnormal bleeding. He went to several hospitals, but did not find the cause, and he was not given a clear diagnosis or treatment. Then, after two years, a diagnosis of thyroid cancer came out. It was desperate. It was not because of thyroid cancer, but because of the explanation that my symptoms and thyroid cancer did not matter. Again, desperately looking for a cure, I was told that I was exposed to toxic substances in Palestine. His head nodded. In Palestine, as the occupation and war are ongoing, toxic substances are common, and rare diseases and cancers are increasing. At least, Israel does not properly purify industrial wastewater and passes it directly to Palestine. In Palestine, groundwater is often used as drinking water. It was also frequently said that Israeli soldiers often fired tear gas, and residents put toxic substances in it. I drank groundwater and tear gas on a daily basis. After that diagnosis, he gave up his will to regain his healthy body. He accepted the sick body as an identity and began to find a way to live a full life even with a sick body. It wasn’t easy. Now, it has improved a lot, but it was a time when the pain showed off its presence. There were also days where I felt like my body would crumble even if I just bumped into people. Chronic pain began to undermine character.

When someone’s speech is uncomfortable, I tried to distinguish whether it really would be the case, or whether I was overreacting because the space of my mind disappeared due to pain. This was the case when old friends shouted fighting, saying, “If you try hard, you will surely restore your health,” or when colleagues at work said, “If you lose your health, you lose everything.” I felt a subtle discomfort from those words. I realized that the discomfort did not result from intolerance, when I began to read society closely based on the identity of a sick body. Those’deokdams’ excluded a sick body. The saying,’If you try hard, you will surely restore your health’, you have turned a sick body into a loser, whose health cannot be restored no matter how hard you try. The phrase’if you lose your health, you lose everything’ presupposes those who have lost health as miserable beings. Of course, no one made this’virtual story’ with the intention of discriminating against or excluding a sick body. I know that I sincerely wished for health and recovery. However, let’s think of the expressions’not like a disabled person’ or’if you don’t fasten your seat belt, you’ll wear a wheelchair belt.’ These expressions have also been said with’sincerity’ of praise or safety. However, this expression has been criticized with the growth of the disabled movement. However, it has been argued for several years that health-oriented expressions can be discriminatory even if they are’unintended’, but they are still not properly discussed socially. And that point seemed to be a proof that our society is a health-oriented society. The deeper we look at our society with the eyes of a sick body, the more the sick body looks like a refugee in a health-oriented society.

Let’s say a little more about the phrase’if you lose your health, you lose everything.’ In order for those words to be the correct virtue that does not exclude anyone, ironically, it must be a society where everything is not lost even when health is lost. A society in which everything is lost when health is lost is a bad society, and a society in which a stable life can be lived even when health is lost is an equal society. Then, what about our society in reality? The health insurance coverage rate is the lowest in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the welfare system is lax, so one of the main reasons for the migration of the middle class to the poor is medical expenses. And, with the exception of some exceptional cases like me, there are many cases where people who are sick in general suffer from feelings of self-response as they receive the attention that they have become ill because they fail to manage themselves properly. When I get sick, my boss quietly cautions me, saying that health care is also “skill,” and I am sorry to my co-worker because no replacement personnel are dispatched. The family is also sorry for the fact that medical expenses are making the economy difficult, unable to perform care, or because they have to ask for care. On top of the biological pain caused by disease, economic and emotional pain is added. After all, our society is a society that loses many things when we lose our health. But, as you know, we live in a society where we are bound to get sick. Being the world’s highest industrial accident death country means that although they have not died, the number of citizens who have become ill from accidents and diseases is also the highest. In addition, OCD recommended the establishment of related policies, saying that if the Korean government does not manage air as it is now, it will become the country with the highest number of premature deaths from air pollution in 2060. The number one suicide rate proves the despair of Korean society, which is difficult to draw on the future, and at the same time suggests that it is of no significance to have a world-class life expectancy. In addition, severe sexual violence, gender discrimination, unstable labor, excessive competition, and unstable housing are all’toxic substances’ that directly damage health. Therefore, we live in a society where we have no choice but to get sick, but since it is a society where a lot of things are lost when we are sick, the sick body is pushed away with misfortune. And even a healthy body becomes more obsessed with health in anxiety. After all, it is not an exaggeration to say that we live in a society where we have neither the right to be sick nor the right to not be sick. Then, in this reality, it is important to create a society in which health is not damaged, but it is also important to create a society where sick bodies can live equally. So, the concept I invented after thinking repeatedly is the disease zone. The right to disease includes the right to health, but the concept has shifted focus and means the right to be well ill.

Of course, it was not possible to organize these ideas smoothly and logically from the beginning. All of this came from the process of searching for answers to the wounds the disease caused me. In the first place, I lived a life that had nothing to do with health or disease issues, but because I accidentally got sick, and because I was sensitive and questioned, I began to stare deeply at diseases and pain. When the disease arrived like a comprehensive gift set ten years ago, like a timid person, he was overwhelmed by various worries and imprisoned in fear and confusion. Then, I began to sense various discomforts and injustices in human relationships and in the medical field, and I vaguely thought that there is a structure that creates such problems in repeated experiences. Rather than quickly closing the countless wounds created by living with a sick body, he repeatedly asked questions in various ways. The process became a process of getting out of a helpless patient and living a life as a subject. Analyzing various problems made us realize that our society is a health-oriented society. After that, when I began to write a book while contemplating the’right to be well sick’, and to make presentations at lectures and conferences, the first of all, sick bodies in various places responded. There were many stories of crying or cheering because they seemed to be comforted that it was okay to hurt. I also cried and cheered while looking at the mail. She is slowly expanding her imagination of another world through the concept of the right to keep getting sick. And the sore or ill bodies that you encounter on this road add to your pain and questions. I believe that I am creating a world where I am not sick because of the pain, and I am not sorry when I am hurt.