Breaking the Myth of Nuclear Power Omnipotence in the Cold War era: Discourse on Nuclear Power and the Movement against the Construction of Nuclear Power Plants in South Korea in the 1980s and early 1990s

Abstract

In South Korea, the frontline of the Cold War in East Asia, an active anti-nuclear movement could not emerge until the 1970s due to the effects of Korean War, national division, and the Cold War culture. In the 1970s, youth activists, religious figures, and intellectuals who opposed the military regime became concerned about environmental issues as a reaction to the adverse effects of industrialization pursued by the military. In the 1980s, the ecological movement gave way to the anti-nuclear peace movement, which confronted the security discourse that dominated the Cold War era. The South Korean democratization movement of the 1980s overcame and transcended Cold War factionalism on an ideological level, and as a result, anti-nuclear peace activists opposed the nuclear disarmament of the Korean Peninsula and called for the abolition of nuclear power plants. Based on anti-foreign nationalism, they used a discourse that directly linked individual life, safety, and health rights to national survival and peace, and treated nuclear weapons as a symbol of imperialist oppression. Environmentalist organizations, such as the ‘Anti-Pollution Movement Association’, actively engaged in solidarity activities with local residents' protests against the construction of nuclear power plants and nuclear waste sites. As the case of Yeonggwang-gun, Jeollanam-do shows, the difference in position between the local residents who pursued economic compensation and the establishment of a sustainable basis for livelihood and the environmental movement group that pursued the public spread of the anti-nuclear movement led to distrust and conflict, despite the devoted solidarity of both sides. As the case of Anmyeonisland shows, conflicts between residents were intensified by monetary inducements from government organizations, undermining their everyday relationships. Nevertheless, the anti-nuclear movement in Korea from the late 1980s to the early 1990s contributed greatly to breaking the myth of nuclear power omnipotence in the Cold War era, revealing the ecological agenda to Korean society, and laying the foundation for the growth of the eco-environmental movement in the 1990s.

Keywords

• anti-nuclear movement
• environmental movement
• nuclear power plant
• anti-pollution movement association
• ecologism