[One Sip of a Book] The 65-Year Life of Park Won-soon Remembered by Friends

Some sentences encapsulate the entire content of the book itself, while others instantly reach the reader's heart, creating a connection with the book. We introduce such meaningful sentences excerpted from the book. - Editor's note

Park Won-soon's friends gathered to portray his life. From his simple rural boyhood in his hometown Changnyeong, his school days at Gyeonggi High School dreaming of becoming a judge or prosecutor, the period after passing the bar exam when he walked the path of a human rights lawyer, the social activist era when he successively founded and worked with organizations such as People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy, Beautiful Foundation, Beautiful Store, and Hope Institute, to his decade-long tenure as mayor of Seoul leading innovation in city administration. Park Won-soon's 65-year life journey is divided into eight scenes in chronological order, summoning him through the memories of friends, seniors, and junior colleagues.

Then, on May 22, the infamous ‘Oduldul Incident’ broke out. Around lunchtime, two or three students beat the kkwaenggwari (small gong) and gathered classmates here and there on campus, and hundreds followed them toward the school gate. The police entered the campus and began indiscriminate suppression. Usually, the police would have prior information about the protest and only arrest the ringleaders, but that day, according to Kim Hang-su’s memory, the police stormed classrooms and arrested even simple participants indiscriminately.

At that time, Won-soon was reading Time magazine in the library and, enraged by the barbaric suppression, joined the protest. Having hurriedly come to Seoul after hearing the semester had started while at his rural home, and especially since he had a meeting with an Ewha Womans University student after class, there was no way he could have been a ringleader. Yet, Won-soon had to spend four months in detention and was expelled from school. It was truly a barbaric era, but looking back now, it seems that was his destiny.

- From page 29, The One Who Did What No One Else Could

At the end of 1996, a weekly magazine published an article introducing People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy’s anti-corruption law campaign under the title “The Power of Citizens Changes the World.” Since then, we have used this slogan to explain the orientation and mission of People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy. The anti-corruption law campaign expanded into a joint project among civil society organizations in 1998, right after the financial crisis, and achieved the promise of legislation from a majority of National Assembly members including President Kim Dae-jung. As a result of the clean society movement, including the anti-corruption law campaign, the first-ever special prosecutor was appointed in 1999 (special prosecutor for high-level clothing lobbying), a package law to prevent money laundering was enacted in 2001, and the anti-corruption law was enacted and the National Integrity Commission was launched in 2002. These have operated as the basic framework of South Korea’s anti-corruption system to this day.

The anti-corruption law campaign, along with the campaigns for the enactment of the National Basic Livelihood Security Act and the small shareholder movement for chaebol reform conducted by People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy during the same period, is regarded as a monument to citizen action to change society in Korea before and after the financial crisis. Throughout this period, Park Won-soon, who transformed into a full-time civic activist, and we were one team.

- From page 89, Our Youth’s People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy, and Park Won-soon

Remembering Park Won-soon | Written by Yoon Seok-in and 20 others | Medici Media | 264 pages | 16,000 KRW

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.