The Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag (, ) is the pledge to the national flag of South Korea. The pledge is recited at flag ceremonies immediately before the South Korean national anthem.
History The current pledge was introduced on July 27, 2007. A previous pledge of allegiance was used from 1972 until 2007 and was introduced by then-president Park Chung-hee.
Text of the pledge
1972 version Korean-language version
Korean-language transliteration .
English translation I strongly pledge, in front of the proud Korean flag, allegiance to my fatherland, to devote my body and soul to the eternal glory of the ethnicity.
Alternate English translation (with notations) I firmly pledge, proudly in front of the Korean flag [Taegukgi], to loyally devote our body and soul to the eternal glory of the fatherland [joguk] and the ethnicity [minjok].
Literal English translation I am firmly committed to fulfilling my allegiance by offering my body and mind for the endless glory of my fatherland and ethnicity before the proud Korean flag.
2007 version Korean-language version (official version)
Korean-language transliteration .
Official English-language translation I pledge, in front of proud Taegeuk flag, allegiance to the Republic of Korea for the eternal glory of the country, liberty and freedom to the Republic of Korea.
Alternate English-language translation I, standing before the noble Taegeuk flag, solemnly pledge allegiance to the Republic of Korea, to its glory, liberty and justice.
Literal English translation I am firmly committed to my loyalty to the endless glory of the great Korean nation that is free and just in front of a proud Taegeuk flag.
Controversy Unlike the current pledge which pledges allegiance to the state of South Korea, the 1972 pledge rather pledged allegiance to the "Korean nation", "Korean people" or "Korean ethnicity" (translated as "Korean race" by some critics such as Brian Reynolds Myers), also known as the 민족 (minjok).
This version of the pledge was discontinued in July 2007, during the presidency of Roh Moo-hyun, and replaced with different version without references to minjok. The decision was criticized by some left-wing nationalists who advocated Korean reunification of the two Koreas. Similarly, until April 2011, the South Korean army's soldiers swore allegiance to the "Korean minjok" in their oaths of enlistment until that, too, was discontinued for similar reasons.
A 2006 column in Hankyoreh, proposed abolishing the Pledge of Allegiance because of opposition to Park Chung-hee's authoritarian nationalism and "not applying at a time when South Korea is coming to a multinational and multicultural society." However, when the word minjok was removed from the 2007 amendment and replaced with the word "Republic of Korea", an article in Hankyoreh in the same year described it as "runs the high risk of calling for violant and exclusive kukkajuui" and opposed the revision that strengthened state nationalism (kukkajuui) without abolishing the Pledge of Allegiance. That same year, the conservative Chosun Ilbo reported on the 2007 amendment, noting that Shin Yong-ha (신용하), a distinguished professor of Ewha Academy for Advanced Studies, had said, "While there is no problem with 'Fatherland' being replaced by 'Republic of Korea', it is disappointing that minjok was omitted."
Similar case The lyrics of the March of the Volunteers, the national anthem of the People's Republic of China, the word Zhonghua minzu (中华民族) appears; 民族 translates to 민족 (minjok) in Korean. Also, the lyrics of the National Flag Anthem of the Republic of China (Taiwan) included the word "Glorify our nation" (光我民族).
In 1949, during the process of denazification, the following term appears even in the preamble of the current liberal-democratic Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany: "Conscious of their responsibility before God and man, inspired by the determination to promote world peace as an equal partner in a united Europe, the German Volk (people), in the exercise of their constituent power, have adopted this Basic Law."; 민족 derives from the German word Volk.
See also
Flag of South Korea Korean nationalism Oath of allegiance
Notes
References