Red Festa – Disseminator of the Spirits of May 18 Pro-Democracy Uprising, But Needs Something New
Red Festa, teenagers’ cultural festival to commemorate the 25th anniversary of Gwangju Democratic Movement (GDM), was held with being subtitled as “The Spirit of May Is inside My Heart” around Provincial Office and Geumnam-ro street in downtown Gwangju on May 21. This festival was planned to succeed the spirits of GDM such as resistance, pro-democracy, defense of human rights and peace. In accordance with the spirits, Red Festa consists of 4 main sections: Democracy, Human Rights, Peace and Sharing.
In the Section of Democracy
Participants --most of them were citizens, middle and high school students-- could recognize situations of the GDM through experiencing the performance in which they were placed between the militia and the military. In addition, they could see a variety of reproduced sets ranging from incensing the victims, donating blood to distributing rice balls. Im Sa-rang, Gwangju Information high school student who acted as a mother of victims in the above performance, said, “I have some mixed feelings whenever I act this role because it reminds me of tragic images of those times.”
In the Section of Human Rights
About 50 teenager representatives across the nation gathered to discuss the issues of human rights, including several topics such as students’ rights, the right to labor, voting right, right of minorities and so on, in view of youth. One of the teenager representatives remarked, “As a high school student, I used to live a life without concerns for human rights. Through this occasion, I took a meaningful chance to think of them”
In the Sections of Peace and Sharing
Walking along the street, the Tribune reporter saw rather miserable pictures being displayed. This section stood for world peace including non-mainstream countries like Palestine and Myanmar. The purpose to exhibit those pictures is to show the similar situations to GMD in their countries and to have sympathy through understanding one another and building up community spirit as a member of a global village to prevent the incidents from taking place again. At the end of the road, the sharing section had already awaited me for a long time. Sharing the spirits by playing traditional games was a concept of this part.
Hundreds of middle and high school students participated in Red Festa. The overall ambience of this festival was not serious and the level of demagogy was relatively low, as has not often been the case with other May 18th related events. Most participants enjoyed this festival, understanding the historical facts, not in the classroom, but in the historical spot. Jung Min-woo, Sangmu High School student who joined as a volunteer, put, “I am very happy to be here because I can figure out the situation of GDM more vividly.” As Jung’s comment showed, Red Festa played a great role as an educator to teach the spirits of May 18th to the young. It can be said that the host organization’s efforts enabled the spirits of GDM to penetrate into students’ minds. And all these series of events ended with the beginning of a Rock Festival.
However, in spite of section being well-organized, this festival left one thing to be considered carefully. Because of the lack of 4 sections’ organic harmony, this festival failed to express the meanings of May 18th as the valuable spiritual asset which is more significant for today. Although some readers may regard this suggestion as too demanding and outrageous, considering the short history of this festival, all the commemorative events related to the May 18th Uprising is not free of this question.