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APPENDIX ‘F'

OUR VIEWS ON THE CAMPUS STABILIZATION LAW

Each time a storm blows up over our campuses we are filled with torment and we lament our own incompetence. As professors it is our responsibility to educate our students but because of conditions outside of the campuses we have been forced to discipline and even expel some students. While a large number of students continue to be dealt with by the courts and police forces enter the campuses and clash with students in violent and confused scenes, the tragic reality of our own situation is that we have been reduced to idle onlookers.

It is true that the student movement has gained momentum and strength and that consequently, there have been a number of unfortunate incidents involving students and the police. But the road of dialogue has been blocked; forced to take another road, the students found that this road led to confrontation. As professors, it is our desire to engage in dialogue with our students, but when freedom of criticism and speech are prohibited there can be no dialogue. . . .

When the government announced that the campuses would be liberalized and the professors entrusted with responsibility for the universities, we welcomed this opportunity to break down the walls that had been raised between students and teachers. But alas, there was no real change in the policies of the Ministries of Education and Culture. They have continued to manipulate university affairs, interfering in even the most trifling cases. Many agreements previously reached between students and professors have been disregarded by the government, and after only a few months the police, who had withdrawn from the campuses, returned, staging surprise raids or occupying the campuses with up to ten thousand men. What is even more absurd and ridiculous is the large scale dismissals of middle and high school teachers whose articles on topics that are commonly discussed in academic circles were published recently in the journal "Minjung Kyoyuk" (Education for the Masses). Some of these teachers have even been jailed for criticizing the government's educational policies. Now a new emergency decree called the Campus Stabilization Law is to be pushed through the National Assembly. All this less than eight months

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after the "liberalization" of the campuses. .. .

This proposed law contains provisions for the forcible detention of our students, without a trial, for the purposes of "rehabilitation" and "ideological reorientation." In any nation the university is the center of intellectual life; a university's role is to nurture ideas and help implant them in society. So to take students away from the universities in order to "rehabilitate" them and "reorient" their thoughts is without question to degrade the university and imply that university professors are incompetent, that is, unable to perform their responsibilities as teachers.

How can we stand before our students when some of their colleagues have been sent to internment camps? And when the "rehabilitated" students return to our campuses, how can we, who have been charged with "incompetence," stand face to face with them?

With this proposed law, the government seeks to control not only the students, but also the teachers. The relationship between students and teachers will deteriorate as both will be forced to become even more rigid and the campuses even more militarized. If this is to be the situation on our nation's campuses, where our future leaders are being educated, then our people's future is dark and gloomy.

True education is possible only when freedom is allowed to flourish. Freedom is universally recognized as an essential element of liberal democracy. The freedom to think, believe and criticize as one wish must be guaranteed by the Constitution if there is to be genuine freedom and education. The government, however, is trying to replace free and open education with military education.

Today's campus problems are a reflection of the problems of our society. When irrationality reigns supreme in our society, to tell the students to turn away from it all and study in the libraries is to produce egoists who will become dangerous poison in our society.

We believe that it is absolutely essential for the people to be devoted to the development and improvement of our society. A university that is indifferent to the problems of society cannot be our university. If the universities take an active interest in social issues, then some disturbances on the campuses are inevitable. But these problems must be settled within the universities between the students and the faculty.

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We want everyone to know of our conviction to defend the universities and to know that whatever happens we will oppose and prevent the implementation of the Campus Stabilization Law.

17 August 1985

Ahn Byung-mu (Hanshin University), Lee Hyo-jae (Ewha Women's University), Kim Yoon-su (Young Nam U.), Lee Sang-sin (Korea U.), Seong Nae-oon (Yonsei U.), Jeong Yoon-hyung (Hong Ik U.), Lee Mahn-yuhl (Sogang U.), Kim Suhng-sik (Kyunghee U.), Song Ki-sik (Cheon Nam U.), Myung No-geun (Cheon Nam U.), Yu In-ho (Jung Ang U.), Kim Chan-kuk (Yonsei U.), Chang Eul-byung (Seongkyunkwan U.), Lee Nam-duk (Ewha Women's U.)