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On December 11, BTS‘s leader RM enlisted in the military with his fellow member V for their mandatory service.
Before leaving, RM wrote a long, heartfelt letter to ARMYs and posted it on Weverse. In the letter, he talked about his happy memories with fans as a BTS member and honestly touched upon his fear of the coming 18 months.
These 18 months can be long or short, but I trust that it will be a time when we can all gain foreign but new inspiration and learning. Although it may be scary and daunting, is there anything more comforting than the fact that during this uncertain time, there will be something to expect and look forward to? It might be my duty, but I think that it is also everyone’s love.
— RM
The letter touched hearts, whereas many fan translators famous how nuanced the unique Korean model was, making it virtually inconceivable to translate it precisely into English. Some followers requested Anton Hur, the author and translator who labored on the English model of BTS’s memoir, Beyond The Story: 10-Year Record Of BTS, for a translation.
However, Hur voiced his reluctance to translate the letter in an in depth thread on X (previously Twitter), implying that it doesn’t align together with his viewpoint on conscription on the whole, which is “incredibly ambivalent” primarily based on his real-life experiences.
I’m not ignoring the (very respectful ????) requests to translate Namjoon’s letter—I simply really feel extremely ambivalent about army conscription on the whole due to my very own experiences in serving within the Korean military and my very own political very non-mainstream beliefs.
— Anton Hur (@AntonHur) December 12, 2023
He then supplied a painful recollection of his time in service, throughout which he was severely injured. A building accident led to 2 of his vertebrae and all his heel bones being fully destroyed, and in accordance with his physician, it was a miracle that he survived with out struggling extra extreme bodily repercussions.
My medical doctors say it’s a miracle I 1) didn’t die, 2) didn’t grow to be paraplegic, and three) can stroll in any respect. You can say I’m in a really specific place to have an opinion on the matter of conscription. My opinion is, it’s romanticized an excessive amount of, in service of another person’s empire.
— Anton Hur (@AntonHur) December 12, 2023
Hur then criticized South Korean politicians for not respecting Korean artists and recognizing the nation’s actual “soft power,” i.e., BTS, and their refusal to exempt the members.
But Korean politicians care extra about their d*cks feeling larger as a result of another Korean man kicked a ball right into a web as a substitute of precise “soft power” or the repute of Korean artistry internationally. Or, I dunno, greater than negotiating a peace treaty with North Korea.
— Anton Hur (@AntonHur) December 12, 2023
He additionally criticized the federal government for its fixed failure to place an finish to the warfare between the North and the South, which entered its 70th yr of ceasefire in 2023. As a outcome, Hur mentioned, the nation’s youth must pay the value.
It is shameful that it’s the seventieth yr of the ceasefire and we nonetheless haven’t declared an finish to the Korean War. (I largely blame America for this, however that’s a complete new thread.) And it’s our youth that also pay for it, whose mother and father weren’t even alive in 1950–3.
— Anton Hur (@AntonHur) December 12, 2023
He ended the thread by saying he felt too “ashamed and angry at this state of division to translate the letter.”
I’m too ashamed and offended at this state of division to translate the letter. We have failed and proceed to fail the youthful generations for not ending this warfare. It feels improper for me to then translate a courageous younger man’s letter of giving consolation to his mates. I’m sorry.
— Anton Hur (@AntonHur) December 12, 2023
The harm and ache in Anton Hur’s phrases resonated with many, together with Jinwoo Park, a Korean-Canadian author. He posted his response to the thread on TikTookay, including his two cents as effectively.
“I think the conscription system is a load of crap…Everybody thinks on some level that the conscription system is outdated,” Park says within the video, including that everybody he is aware of has tried to get out of the necessary service in a technique or one other.
He particularly criticized that BTS weren’t exempted from their providers when wealthy and influential individuals might simply discover their method out of it.
Unlike Hur, Park admitted he had no army service expertise as a result of he attained Canadian citizenship early in life. But that call was made by his father, a veteran soldier with a robust patriotic sense of responsibility towards his nation. Park mentioned that despite the fact that his father would rush to assist if South Korea ever goes to warfare once more, he additionally acknowledges how dangerous necessary army service is.
In Park’s opinion, the conscription system is detrimental to Korean society because it hinders younger males’s academic and profession prospects. In his view, it’s an exploitative system that imposes compelled labor on the youth, even when South Korea has all of the sources to have a full-standing military with well-paid troopers who signed up for the job voluntarily.
While Park acknowledged that there’s a want for the nation to have armed protection forces, he additionally known as the conscription system a “vestige of the old times,” highlighting how the scenario has modified because the Korean War, inflicting the North to lose its edge over the South, and primarily eliminating the foundation trigger behind the need of conscription.
In the tip, Park acknowledged Hur’s place on the conscription debate, emphasizing the necessity for a re-evaluation within the context of South Korea’s present sociopolitical setting.
Though RM’s letter was the catalyst behind this vital discourse about conscription, the idol himself has by no means expressed any critiquing opinions on it. After his enlistment, some followers rediscovered a poem he had written in regards to the political local weather of the 2 Koreas as a fifth grader, the place he expressed his hopes for a peaceable future. You can examine it here.
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Content Source: www.koreaboo.com