The 30th day of fasting indefinitely today (20th). He said he wanted to live with a free spirit. So, I looked for something interesting and it wasn’t as fun as I thought. On the one hand, I also had the desire to live a life of service, so although I was later than others, I decided to become a priest and knocked on the door of the Order. It has just been over ten years since I became a bride. On the one hand, those decades were also time spent with socially underprivileged and workers on the street.
After receiving the bride’s ordination, while he was working at the Children’s Center for the Disabled in Busan, Kim Jin-sook climbed the Hanjin Heavy Industries’ 85th crane and began to settle.
“After receiving the bride’s ordination, I was confused about my identity for a while. I thought that it was different from what I had and what I expected. Then while I went to Hanjin Heavy Industries, I came to feel ashamed. Serving life in the world. , I thought I was shaking with something little for a while after saying that I would live an unselfish life. The visit to Hanjin Heavy Industries was an opportunity to strengthen my heart.”
What happened to it? When I went to Hanjin Heavy Industries’ Crane Agricultural Farm after hearing the appeal of the dismissed worker’s family, it was the services that greeted him with harsh expressions and gestures. Since I am a bride, not a worker, I thought I would still receive the least respect, but it was not at all. Something like Roman Carla, the symbol of the bride, was nothing in their eyes. Starting with all sorts of swear words and threats, there was a resentment like “Are you a bride? Then I am a Buddha”.
After returning from shame, my pride was so hurt that I never wanted to go in front of it again. Yet, many thoughts were entangled. Oh, the workers have been living like that. The world where work is respected is still far away. The idea that people are being used only as a tool of profit and a new realization of the ills of capitalism gave me the courage to visit again.
“I feel awe for Kim Jin-sook”
I met Kim Jin-suk in person when I was hospitalized after getting off the crane.
“I was amazed while talking about it. I thought that I had a more religious dignity than I was. I felt embarrassed because I wondered that there were such people in the world. I actually have a strong negative thought in everything. I laughed and struggled like Jinsook Kim. I’m not the one who can do it. I’m fasting now and I have all sorts of feelings like anger mixed in. I wasn’t intoxicated by my mood, but I was very envious of my optimism about the clarity of trying to get some hope. I felt awe at that point.”
Afterwards, Father Seo Young-seop went to Gangjeong Village in Jeju Island and to Miryang, fighting a transmission tower, and met the grandmothers, and in the case of Ssangyong’s dismissal, he went to Daehanmun and fought with the police trying to demolish the incense. In such processes, he was arrested and prosecuted several times, and he was also fined. Thinking about the pain of the weak and the workers, he went on to stand as a bride on the street, holding a mass on the street, and sometimes he did not refuse the role of a fighter.
While studying at the seminary, I had to cut my hair short for training. After becoming a bride, she grew her hair just as she did before. Even after becoming a priest, the free spirit did not want to give up, and it was the Franciscan Order that emphasized fraternal relations while deliberately looking for a place that could accept such a temperament.
In 2014, the hair he had grown was completely pushed like a monk. It was before the Supreme Court ruling on Ssangyong Motor’s dismissals. I had to do something while praying for the correct judgment to come out, but I wondered if I should give myself the most precious thing.
However, the ruling ignored the pain of workers, saying that layoffs were justified. I wanted to make people aware of it, with the idea that the issue of dismissal was not over, although it may have been legally over. So, I made a decision not to grow hair until all of Ssangyong’s layoffs were reinstated.
The first impression was like a village uncle dressed in shabby clothes. He wore jeans and hiking boots and a thick parka, and his head was raised enough to cover his shoulders, so it was difficult to find a part that would look like a bride. This is because in 2018, after the announcement that all workers laid off Ssangyong Motors would be reinstated, they began to grow the hair that had been pushed back.
Roman collars don’t usually do well. There is no reason for a bride to go around with a strict look, but the idea that she does not have a reason to be treated differently from other people was also acting as a bride to dress like a local uncle.
“In 2011, I was having a rally in front of Hanjin Heavy Industries, and the plain clothes police drank alcohol and came and gave a certificate. I looked at it and asked if it should be done during public service. The next day, I called the Yeongdo Police Station and asked me to apologize, and they said why should I apologize? Then I apologize when I reveal my status as a bride. I would not have apologized if I had been a general public. My status as a bride certainly has such privileges. I wanted to give it down, and that everyone should be able to enjoy the same rights fairly. Think about it.”
Father Seo Young-seop moved to Bupyeong, Incheon on December 8 last year, and moved the field of pastoral activities. There, he is in charge of operating a nursing home and is working as a spiritual assistant to the Secular Franciscan Society, a group of lay people for spiritual practice.
On the one hand, he is also the chairman of the Justice and Peace Committee for social solidarity activities. As a result, they only come to join once or twice a week for fasting farm growth in front of the Blue House, and they usually continue fasting by playing a role as a bride. In the name of active fasting, she is fasting apart from other fasts, but the same is difficult. It’s hard even if you sit still, but it’s because the stamina consumption is heavy while fasting while running around.
One day, he posted a brief post on Facebook saying,’I feel grateful for a glass of water so that I can tear up in the morning’.
“How long do I have to fast, but when I think about that, I’m so bored that I can’t. I think I’ll do my best from the given day and endure it. So, time passed faster than I thought.”
On December 6th, just before coming to Incheon, I had a fight from Busan Station to Yeongdo, and after that, I participated in a parade from Yeouido to the Blue House and lie down on cold asphalt together. He said that the reason he was struggling for Kim Jin-suk’s reinstatement was because of his regret and despair.
“Not from the sympathy for the workers or the people around me, but many things I enjoy are due to the sacrifices of other people, and I have enjoyed those things without thinking. I thought that I should not live comfortably. When I live in Busan, I use an air conditioner on a hot summer day. I lived in a way that I didn’t turn on. I was strict with myself and wanted to enjoy less, but I was more sorry for the thought that I still enjoyed a lot.
When I said that I would start the struggle for reinstatement again in Busan, I was hoping. Since the retirement age was short, I thought that if the parties and civil society moved, the government would show a move to resolve something. But that’s not it. As the agreement with the management was broken, the government came out in such a way as to pull out. In such a situation, there was a desperate sense that I couldn’t do anything and end it like this.”
“I don’t believe in the one-time language of respect for labor”
Father Seo Young-seop said he had nothing to expect about the current government’s approach to labor issues, called the candlelight administration. So, I didn’t even read the presidential New Year’s address that was announced recently.
“I don’t trust the one-time language of the masses that people say first because I respect work. I call the chief of civil society at the start of the camp here in front of the Blue House, but it’s not allowed to wear a sleeping bag. If so, change the principle, if it has been the case since the Park Geun-hye administration, I asked if I could change the principle and apply it from now on, but I couldn’t say, but people who said they had exercised in the old days entered the Blue House, but they just became bureaucrats and they seem to have no soul. I have to show it in concrete action, not in a plausible word, but there is no such thing.”
Father Young-seop Seo told the story of a special general meeting held in Mexico in 1992. It is said that what we decided at that time was that we would unconditionally stand with the poor. It is said that such a stance has been passed on in a way of social solidarity and social love, and it is in such a trend that the Justice and Peace Committee is actively engaged in activities.
Father Young-seop Seo’s judgment is that for entrepreneurs, workers are always the object of arrangement, and there is no awareness of win-win. What would happen if even the state abandoned workers in such a situation? Those who have been fasting homeless in front of the Blue House for more than 30 days in the middle of winter are demanding the responsibility of the state and demanding that they be the agent of resolution.
“Because I have experienced state violence in front of Daehanmun Gate. I think that the fact that Jin-suk Kim was fired was caused by state violence. The police intervened in a way that illegally arrested, investigated and tortured, and branded him as a red-haired worker with an uncomfortable ideology. So, I think the state should apologize and solve the problem for workers who have been killed and fired by state violence, as if they apologized for 4.3 or 5.18.
There are workers who died while working in the field even on the day when the Severe Accident Corporate Penalty Law was reduced to half. We have to create conditions for workers to work safely, and that doesn’t come true just because of respect for labor. We have to come up with practical countermeasures, and in that case, I don’t think there will be a worker like Kim Jin-suk who has to live unfairly as a dismissal for 35 years.”
During the interview, Father Young-seop Seo said that he was inherently unfamiliar. If others eat together to become friendly with strangers, then they need to be close to each other to eat together. So, when I went to Daehanmun, I even heard from other people that there was no greeting.
A bride with such a personality preaches on the street, sometimes fighting and yelling against the police. Maybe it was because I wanted to be close to Jesus. That way, even if I go to heaven and meet Jesus later, I will be able to erase my face and get closer, because there is a belief that that is the way to become a disciple of Jesus.
Even today, poet Song Gyeong-dong, who are the singles hunger in front of the Blue House, Jeong Hong-hyeong, senior vice-president of the National Metals Union, Busan Yangsan, Seong Mi-sun, co-operating committee chairman of the Green Party, and Kim Woo’s rights-finding union activist (4.16 Solidarity Steering Committee), confronted the cold wave and worked with our society for reinstatement and honor recovery. Waiting for the country’s response.
Along with the prayer that Father Young-seop Seo posted on Facebook every day, “Our Lady of Consolation and Peace, Hanjin Heavy Industries & Construction, Kim Jin-sook, pray for all the dismissed workers in this land to be reinstated, including the last dismissed worker!”