1970년대 근대화 담론과 이문구의 『우리동네』 연작

Abstract

The political initiative to modernize the rural Korean economy in the 1960s and the 1970s began when the Park Jung-hee administration took power by 5ㆍ16 military coup d’état. Its utmost priority was to lift our economy from poverty and hunger. This urgency gave birth to the Saemaul Movement, which was a government-driven community development project for rural community. The ‘Saemaul Movement’ passed the buck to the farmer’s negligence, self-reliance, and lack of cooperation as the cause for poverty and underdevelopment of the rural community. The movement was a monumental cover-up of the government’s responsibility and a bona fide top-down government-led initiative. The flattening or reduction of the farm income was attributable to the truth system of the discourse on modernization, which accumulated as the result of industrialization strategies. Consequently, the income gap between urban and rural area widened even further. It can be inferred that the rural community in the 1970s has visibly lifted itself out of absolute poverty compared to the past. However, the increase in relative poverty became somewhat more pronounced and devastating. The rural community in the 1970s in ‘Uridongne’ series depicts inflow of urban culture that stimulated conditions for relative poverty. There was also desperate desire, which can be more likened to worldly desire for modern conveniences rather than the genuine aspiration of a farmer, sweeping across the rural area. Meanwhile, ‘Uridongne’ series evolve around the conflict between the government with its development-oriented, window dressing policies and the farmers. The government refers to the world of formal affairs, system, authority, and prohibition, while farmers signify the world of informal affairs, daily lives, and violation. Such binomial opposition is basically an adverse product of one-size-fits-all modernization in the 1970s. ‘Uridongne’ series‘ conflict between the language of the government and the language of the farmers is nullified, dismantling the power and the authority. Such depictions in ‘Uridongne’ series highlight the violent aspect of the Park Jung-hee regime’s discourse on modernization. Inversely, the series advocate the voices of farmers as solution providers and agents of subversive power.