— Subtitles in English —

[Host]
Hello, Professor.

[Lee Won-young]
 Hello, nice to meet you.

[Moderator]
You’ve been having very busy days lately. First, you walked about 1,600km from Korea to Japan in the 2023 march to stop the discharge of Fukushima nuclear contaminated water.
What prompted you to do this march?

[Lee Won-young]
Well, the Japanese government has announced several times that it will push ahead with the release of nuclear contaminated water.
Over the past few years, it has been causing quite a bit of trouble to the people around the world.
However, people wondered if they could really throw it directly into the ocean.
There was also the thought that no government in its right mind would be able to do that.
However, in the end, I was angry because the Japanese government announced that they would have to commit ocean dumping, and rather than having any special thoughts, I was so angry that I started thinking about marching.
While walking from Seoul to Busan and walking across mainland Japan.
I started with the thought of going to protest against the Japanese government with the citizens of Korea and Japan, and all other angry citizens around the world.

<Subtitle>
During the Korean-Japanese Citizens’ Walking March Japan finally began releasing nuclear polluted water on August 24th.

How did you feel at that time?
What was the reason you continued marching?
After seeing the Japanese government commit such a crime, we began to think about it from two perspectives.
One thing I sensed this time was that ‘Japan’s democracy is not normal.’
This is because this issue requires asking the public’s opinion.
When it is a serious matter that dumping nuclear contaminated water into the sea will interfere with the fishing industry and ultimately harm the health of the people, a decision must be made after formally asking the people in advance.
However, the Japanese government proceeded unilaterally without the consent of the people.
Because Japan has a cabinet responsibility system, even though the National Assembly has authority, it is powerless.
This time, I felt that Japan’s democracy was terribly broken, and I thought that this was a problem that needed to be properly addressed and corrected.
Another thing is that even if their ocean dumping has already started, this ocean dumping will continue, so I kept marching until the end with the thought that it had to be stopped at some point.1

<Subtitles>
What was the atmosphere in Japan like at the time of the Korea-Japan Citizens’ Walking March?

[Lee Won-young]
Japan’s first ocean dumping took place around the latter part of my march.

[Moderator]
That’s right. Yes.

[Lee Won-young]
Before that, about two-thirds of the Japanese citizens gave me a lot of encouragement while I was walking.

[Moderator]
Ah, I see.

[Lee Won-young]
People passing by also waved and responded well.

[Host]
Yeah.

[Lee Won-young]
These mothers with children enthusiastically welcomed our march.

[Host]
Great!

[Lee Won-young]
They welcomed us that much, but after the discharge of nuclear contaminated water, the Japanese people also became discouraged and became very gloomy.
I could clearly feel the atmosphere changing.

<Subtitles>

What does the ‘Global Citizen March to Stop Nuclear Wastewater (GLOMA)’ contain?

‘GLOMA’ means ‘Global citizen March to stop nuclear wastewater’.
To put it simply, it was called ‘GLOMA’.
There were various reasons why we marched like this.
This picture (map of the Korean-Japanese march on the screen) is the march we took last year, from Busan to Tokyo. In this march, we read this sentence at the start of each march.
When we arrived in Tokyo and marched and delivered it to the National Assembly, what impressed me the most was this scene.
If you look at this scene, when we arrived in Kyoto, we walked together with about 100 Japanese citizens.

[Host]
Oh great.

[Lee Won-young]
Coincidentally, there was a protest against nuclear polluted water in Kyoto, so we marched there.
Since Kyoto is an international tourist city, there were a lot of foreigners.

[Moderator]
I see.

[Lee Won-young]
So, we were marching, and when foreigners saw the march and realized the meaning of the march, they welcomed us very warmly.

[Host]
Great

[Lee Won-young]
What I was thinking at the time of the welcome was “Ah! “We need to hold an World Citizenship Conference in earnest.”
And I made that decision a year ago from now.
‘Let’s have that time again in Kyoto!’ ‘Let’s have a march on June 8th!’
That’s how the June 8th March came about.
Kyoto used to be called the Kyoto Protocol.
Isn’t this a place where countries come together and sign an agreement to come up with climate countermeasures?

[Host]
Ah! I see.

 [Lee Won-young]
So, symbolically, Kyoto has a very strong image as a world city.
So, essentially, there needs to be a movement at the grassroots level to do this, and we should deliver a declaration containing that intention to the United Nations, the center of the international community, and convey that intention to the U.S. Congress and U.S. politicians.
That’s how we came up with this event.
As for the event taking place in July, comrades are marching in New York right now.

[Host]
That’s right.

[Lee Won-young]
Because we know what that march is like, “Oh, then how about we go to New York and join in?”
I thought about it and talked about it with my comrades in New York.
Especially Comrade Park Baw. New Yorker.
Well, if you look around New York City, Comrade Park Baw is currently protesting at the Japanese Consulate General.
If you walk from Times Square to the United Nations Headquarters in New York, it’s approximately 4km.

[Moderator]
I see

[Lee Won-young]
So, what if we march this in a circle? This got me thinking.
These two people will give a lecture and we will march for an hour.

[Moderator]
I see

[Lee Won-young]
This event is called ‘Gloma July 6th’. no see. Our idea is to gather at 2 p.m. and march 4.3km from the UN Headquarters, the Japanese Consulate, and the UN Headquarters to Times Square.3

<Subtitle>
I would like to share the following thoughts with those who are watching this video. Things happening around the world are really serious these days.

[Lee Won-young]
These days, morality is almost impossible to find.
In the past, during the Cold War, the United States also made great efforts to maintain its moral superiority.
The basic values ​​that the United States should have, distinguishing between what should and should not be done at the national level, were much higher.
The United States has been making efforts for a very long time to say that this is the direction in which humanity around the world should move.
The United States has been doing that for a while, but strangely enough, after the Cold War system collapsed in the 1990s, capital seems to have taken its place.
If you look at what is happening in each country right now, there are many things that go beyond common sense.
There is no limit to state power unless the people control it.
We really need to stop the current release of nuclear contaminated water because the state power is ignoring the Japanese people and releasing it arbitrarily because the US president gives the okay.
The fact that we are actively promoting the World March, the March in Kyoto, and the March in New York at this time is motivated by the very strong intention of ‘let’s not miss the moment’ to stop these atrocities.

Source; Korean internetcast in America

Categories: 01. Korea, 02. Japan, Event, GLOMA, Korean-Japanese citizen walking march, Media Reports