Reaction
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).
Uh, I was there on Sat. night and I can assure you that the protesters were on the whole just as violent as the police if not more so. Sure, the police used water cannons, but then the protesters had two fire hoses going themselves, which they used on the police for two hours straight. Sure, the police hit a few protesters after warning them to disperse for like 3 or 4 hours, but then the protesters hit many police, too, and I personally saw several police with bloody faces or beiing mobbed on by protesters. I’m sorry, but the police have been dealing with this siutation for two months now and have been exceptionally restrained more often than not. Comparisons with Chun Doo-hwan-style repression are hyperbolic, especially since tear-gas has not even been used once so far. The Hankyoreh even compared Sat. night with Gwangju, which is just absurd, IMO.
Comment by King Baeksu — July 4, 2008 @ 5:48 am
Scott, a couple of points in response. First I agree that things are not yet near to the level of Chun Doo-hwan - as I concluded above, the government is currently unable to go to that level and ‘return to the eighties’, as much as many elements within it and in the broader right would like to. What happened on Saturday night is, as I said, a ‘taste’ of that style of repression - especially when you add it to the raiding of the offices of various progressive/civil society organisations, attempts to use the force of the law to scare people away from boycotts of rightwing papers and the violent attacks of far right groups (with certain links to the state). The police have been restrained because they have had to be and because they know that they cannot afford to escalate the situation (eg by using tear gas - something so symbolic of the past). As soon as Lee Myung-bak saw a possible opening, he decided to up the ante, although this looks to have been something of a mistake so far.
Second, please do not get the impression from anything I say that I am a pacifist or against violence. I see nothing wrong with people defending themselves against police violence, or even at certain times attacking the state. But let’s be absolutely honest: using firehoses against water cannons or hitting heavily armoured, baton wielding police is more of a symbolic act of defiance than a serious act of violence.
It is interesting to note, however, that this movement has been overwhelmingly peaceful and actually quite different in character to many of the usual confrontations that happen between police and protesters or unionists in South Korea. Nonviolence has been one of the key principles of the majority of participants and chants urging nonviolence have been repeated ad nauseam at most demos. Personally I think that is a somewhat naive position to take when you’re faced with the South Korean state, but it would be hard to deny it is true if you’ve seen the protests up close for the last two months and read about them in the papers (except of course in Cho-jung-dong).
Comment by kotaji — July 4, 2008 @ 2:28 pm
Hey, by the way, I liked your letter to IHT - it hit the nail on the head. The kneejerk reaction in the US press that any protest in South Korea is nationalist or Anti-American borders on the racist and seems to say more about Americans’ current sense of insecurity than anything else.
Comment by kotaji — July 4, 2008 @ 2:41 pm
King Baeksu -
My friend was tear gassed in Seoul about a month ago.
Comment by Iver Biggun — July 18, 2008 @ 5:16 pm