”Testing turns, possible futures”

Under the sulky sunlight of a late August afternoon, thirty or so young people were crouching on the sloppy ground right next to a police checkpoint in Pyeongtaek, throwing reproachful looks at hundreds of riot police and soldiers who seemed to increase every minute. In contrast to the shocking array of the military guards, the group spotted with three foreigners was physically a fragile body of «unarmed» individuals whose consciousness and sense of communion, however, were just beginning to increase thanks t the extreme tension of the situation. While still feeling the sharp edge of confrontation with the police and their prohibition of entry to the local village, Daechu-ri, the group pushed the meetings and interviews with local village people and activists who had sustained themselves during a protest that lasted more than two years against the relocation and expansion plan of US military bases in South Korea. At the same moment, the vast range of green rice fields in this small rural village that had been reputed for its juicy rice was being dumped with incessant downpours of dirt only to be transformed into a military base.