 |
| 21 and feeling lucky |
Greenpeace, which opened an office in South Korea last year in a bid to expand into new media markets, has been a vocal critic of South Korea's entirely sensible plans to double its reliance on nuclear power by betting big on the industry with the building of 13 more nuclear plants to go with the lucky 21 that already exist. "Nobody sticks at 21" said an official for the nuclear industry.
The government has been forced to label the building of the domestic nuclear industry as a 'green' energy policy, on legal advice which made the case that only the inexperienced and naive could believe it was safe. But government officials maintain that the disclaimer is a technicality – nuclear power is safe for the vast majority of Koreans because they live in Seoul, which by sheer coincidence is located as far away from Korea's 21 nuclear plants as possible.
Greenpeace, which takes its name from the belief that you have to be naive to really believe in peace, states that its goal is to "ensure the ability of the Earth to nurture life in all its diversity", although the organization has consistently fought those with views in any way diverge from its own, sometimes physically in a non-peaceful form of televised martial art known as 'direct action'. These pay-per-view events enable the media group to fund further troublesome direct actions, continuing the cycle. But the deported foreigners argued that they were not coming to Korea to cause trouble, before immediately appearing to contradict themselves by claiming they were here to see government officials.
It is believed that the government issued the deportation order on the grounds that the foreigners disagreed with Korean government policies. As such, the deportations may carry profound implications for foreigners living in Korea, many of whom are known to be dubious about the obvious benefits of safe, wholesome nuclear energy. These dubious foreigners have been known to speak out about a range of social and environmental issues, to the extent that the government database that logs all their online activity and comments is almost full and urgently needs replacing.
Foreigners with different views have long been a thorny issue in Korea. While some become willing collaborators, many do not, and yet sending them back home to their countries while they are still coherent runs the risk of exposing more foreigners to their incorrect experiences of Korea. Generally, senior government figures are said to take the view that it is better for dubious foreigners to remain in Korea and die here, but this was thought impossible in the case of the foreigners arriving at Incheon. "If we'd held them indefinitely in the airport it's likely that Greenpeace would have turned it into a bigger media event, or possibly even a full-length movie, which obviously had to be avoided at all costs" explained a government spokesman.
Related Links
SK Immigration Deports 3 From Greenpeace
Foreign Collaborators To Be Tried Post-Liberation
Korean ISPs Unhappy with Foreigner Tracking Database
Disclaimer: Please note the links above are generated automatically by our software and may not always be directly related to the news article.
