kotaji 거타지

I received this rather enticing invitation in my inbox a few days ago:

Dear Sir or Madam,

My name is Joseph Hong and am the Research & Policy Officer at Liberty in North Korea, or LiNK, a nongovernmental organization devoted to the protection of refugees and human rights in North Korea.

We would like to cordially invite you to a funeral procession for the dead and dying of North Korea on July 5, 2008 at 6:00 PM, sponsored by LiNK and No-No Demo. The funeral procession will be held in Cheongyecheon towards Shichong.

Groups organizing protests in Seoul have pledged that one million will turn out to protest over the beef issue on July 5, 2008. Last week, protestors came brandishing steel pipes and bricks, toppling police vans and attacking the offices of several major newspapers. The funeral procession will be next to the protestors and remind them that perhaps there are more pressing issues.

For more details, please visit:
English - http://libertyinnorthkorea.blogspot.com
Korean - http://blog.daum.net/linkglobal

The invitation is attached and we look forward to your response.

Best regards,
—
Joseph Hong
Research and Policy Officer

There are two strange things about this. First, do they not realise that I’m a Kim Il-sung worshipping bbalgaengi son of a bitch? Why would I want to attend a demo organised by a US-government funded organisation that is now joining up with a rightwing South Korean pro-LMB group? Second, and somewhat more seriously, I really wonder about the motives behind this whole enterprise. Holding a rightwing counter demonstration to a potentially million-strong demo of anti-Lee Myung-bak protesters is surely asking for trouble. Unless of course that’s what they actually want…

The reaction begins in earnest…

Both photos from Oh My News.

Eighties nostalgia has been fashionable in the UK for a while now, but reenactments of the Miners’ Strike have not been a feature (actually, on second thoughts…). In Korea meanwhile, by last week the Lee Myung-bak government obviously felt that the candlelight protests had quietened down enough and the time had come for some serious, 1980s Chun Doo-hwan style repression.

There had been some warning signs with increasingly belligerent announcements from the government as well as increasingly confident and violent attacks by far right organisations. Attacks have also come on other fronts with the prosecution beginning criminal investigations into the the TV station MBC’s coverage of the US beef issue and into a movement to boycott companies that advertised in the major rightwing newspapers. But it was on Saturday night at the latest large-scale candle-light demonstration that the government gave a taste of the sort of repression it was prepared to mete out.

As I said before though, a real return to the eighties is not as easy as getting a silly hairstyle, wearing brightly coloured clothes and listening to electro-pop. The anti-2MB protests show no sign of flagging at the moment and for all its bluster the Lee Myung-bak government is really unable to use the sort of repression that was available to Chun Doo-hwan back in the dark days. Or at least so far anyway…

[Note: I’m not being sponsored by the Hankyoreh, but their coverage of recent events in Korea has been invaluable, hence the large number of links here. Clearly many Koreans think so too as their subscriptions have been soaring apparently).

It is interesting - but perhaps already a cliche - to note how over the last decade or so the barricades have been reversed and police forces around the world have become experts in stacking shipping containers to protect places of power and privilege in the same way that the Parisian working class became experts in a similar art during the course of the 19th century.

Paris, June 1848

Seoul, June 2008 (source: OhMyNews)

Of course, one of the consequences of putting all your energy into protecting a centre of power (on this occasion protecting the presidential palace Chongwadae from an anti-government march hundreds of thousands strong) in such a way is that you effectively give up the rest of the city to the protesters. As a police force you also cause yourself other problems such as a lack of mobility. I experienced some of this when I took part in the first of the big beef protest marches on Thursday 29 May. Since the police had decided to take up a position ‘protecting’ the Kwanghwamun junction and other approaches to Chongwadae from the march using their buses, they had blocked themselves in and could go nowhere else. This gave the march the freedom of the city and we wandered apparently aimlessly for a couple of hours, taking over the central streets and no doubt causing traffic chaos. And as I write this, the sea of candle bearing protesters some 500,000 strong has begun to march away from the police barricades, refusing, for the time being to confront directly the metal wall thrown up hastily by the powers that be to protect themselves.

Another consequence is that protesters are able to use the barricades themselves for expressions of protest and humour:

Seoul, June 2008 (source: OhMyNews)

Palestine, 2005 (www.banksy.co.uk)

From: OMN

From: Ch’am sesang

I’ll put some of my own pics up soon, when I get a chance.

Video time:

UPDATE:
Both Gord Sellar and Matt have some intelligent commentary on the current protests over the relaxation of controls on US beef imports.

It’s my theory that political and social events in Korea often take the form of a magnified version of events that are taking place in Europe, and recently the country that has been most similar to South Korea in its political trajectory is France. So a case in point would be the dramatic fall in the popularity of Sarkozy since he was elected last year and the even more dramatic fall suffered by Lee Myung-bak since he came into power a few months ago:

Sarkozy - came to power just under a year ago - current popularity rating: 38%

2MB (Lee Myung-bak) - came to power two and a half months ago - current popularity rating: 28%

By the way, it’s interesting to note just how upset the Grand National Party are by Democratic Labour Party lawmaker Kang Ki-gap’s recent election victory in the GNP stronghold of South Kyongsang and the key role he has played in the current popular revolt over US beef imports. They’ve now decided to go after him on supposed election violations. As if that wasn’t enough of a sign of panic among the conservatives now running the country, they’re hastily making all sorts of noises about prosecuting anyone they don’t like “spreading rumours on the internet” or holding candlelight rallies with “political slogans and placards”. I have a feeling they’ll soon realise that it’s not so easy to turn the clock back…

No Ordinary Sun brings us exclusive pictures of the May Day rally in Tokyo:

(I do like the way that Japanese activists manage to use cute cartoon characters even on their union banners.)

While Pressian was on the scene for today’s events in Seoul:

(It’s interesting to note the difference between the events held by the two Korean union federations on May Day - while the more radical KCTU held a big rally against the privatisation and pro-conglomerate policies of the Lee Myung-bak government and promoted the rights of the casual workers who now make up the majority of the South Korean workforce, the conservative FKTU organised a May Day marathon… which will surely do much to promote the rights and livelihoods of its members.)

Meanwhile, here in London we just went to vote with heavy hearts… Not even the anarchists managed one of their attempted riots.

A life of atheism might have to go out the window on this fantastic news:

Samsung boss Lee Kun-hee is indicted for tax evasion and breach of trust.
(But they cleared him of slush fund bribery - boo; and they’re not going to arrest him either - boo boo).

Meanwhile, the Korea University students who so courageously challenged his award of a (dis)honorary degree in 2005 are back in their classrooms after almost two years of living in a protest camp outside the university. (They were actually expelled from the University over a different protest in 2006, but I won’t let that get in the way of the poetic justice of the situation).

Korea University students celebrate their hard-fought victory

CAN’T RESIST THE UPDATE:
Ha ha! I do like seeing corporate execs bowing in humiliation.

I feel bound to warn everyone that there is a dangerously militarised country threatening Asia today.

It has a population at least 15 million less than the UK and yet supports an active army more than five times the size of Britain’s, while spending far more than the UK on conventional weapons. In fact, it has over 600,000 active troops, a reserve army of 4.5 million and conscripts every able-bodied young man not rich enough to avoid it for two years of their lives. While this country’s GDP per capita is ranked 35th in the world, it is the world’s 5th biggest buyer of arms and also the 17th largest exporter of weapons. It routinely threatens its neighbours with large-scale military exercises and has engaged in a number of military skirmishes in recent years with one of its neighbours, resulting in loss of life on both sides. Although it does not currently have nuclear weapons, this country has a record of seeking nuclear weapons in the past and is known to possess technological knowhow as well as civilian nuclear reactors that make it a potential nuclear power.

You all know which dangerous militaristic country I’m talking about don’t you?

The Hankyoreh English edition reports on a development that I’ve been hearing about from some people here in London recently: the arrival of North Korean ‘defectors’ (or “saet’omin” in the new politically correct terminology) from South Korea seeking asylum in the UK. These are people who have left North Korea as refugees and been resettled in South Korea under the government programme there, but then left again after finding life difficult in the South.

Apparently there are now some 300-350 North Koreans in the UK awaiting decisions on their asylum applications and it seems that this may be causing some tensions within the established (South) Korean community in south west London, where many of them are living. It will be interesting to see how far they get with their applications, since I imagine that the UK government will see them as claiming asylum from South Korea rather than North Korea. On the other hand, I have no doubt that their difficulties in living in South Korea are absolutely real and they have a genuine desire to escape from the second-class status they are lumbered with in the South by making a fresh start in a third country. If our government is at all serious in its condemnation of North Korean human rights abuses and concern for the plight of North Koreans then it ought to welcome them with open arms.