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| Minjung | |
| Hangul | 민중 |
|---|---|
| Hanja | |
| Revised Romanization | Minjung |
| McCune–Reischauer | Minjung |
Minjung is a Korean word that combines the two hanja characters min (民) and jung (衆). Min is from inmin (인민; 人民), which may be translated as "the people", and jung is from daejung (대중; 大衆), which may be translated as "the public". Thus, minjung can be translated to mean "the masses" or "the people."
However, in the Korean political and cultural context, "the public" is not an adequate translation, and "the people" carries a communist connotation that makes its use dangerous in anti-communist South Korea. Nonetheless, "the people" is close to what minjung seeks to convey, both sociologically and politically. For Koreans, minjung are those who are oppressed politically, exploited economically, marginalized sociologically, despised culturally, and condemned religiously. For example, the Minjung Party founded in October 2017.
Thus, the notion of minjung came to identify and inform the struggle for democracy in South Korea. In other words, the concept of minjung functions as a type of worldview that offers the categories in which social reality is organized and comprehended. One of the basic precepts of this worldview is that history should be understood from the point of view of the minjung, or that the minjung are the subjects (and not victims) of history.
The idea of Minjung can be traced back to the late Joseon dynasty's Silhak movement through the works of Jeong Yak-yong and Yi Hwang.[1]
- ^ Son, Chang-Hee (2000). Haan of Minjung Theology and Han of Han Philosophy. University Press of America. ISBN 9780761818601.
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