Looking back on a hot summer
A brief extract from a new interview with Kim Kwang-il of All Together, one of the ‘fugitives’ currently holed up in Chogyesa temple in Seoul as one of the organisers of this summer’s massive candlelight protest movement:
Kim Kwang-il: The start of the demonstrations back in May was the combined result of a whole series of issues that had been thrown up since Lee Myung-bak was elected. From the moment he was elected Lee began announcing a whole host of blatantly right wing neoliberal, anti-democratic and pro-imperialist policies. It was like a policy tsunami—so much so that you became irritated every time you looked at a newspaper or news bulletin. Every day you got up in the morning to find that another right wing policy initiative had been announced in the media.
The gradually worsening economic situation was also behind the sudden explosion of demonstrations. Lee Myung-bak’s core promise in the presidential election was that he would “revive the economy”. This was his so-called “747 pledge” in which he promised to achieve economic growth of 7 percent, average per capita income of 40,000 US dollars, and raise South Korea to the world’s seventh largest economy. Of course this was nothing more than rhetoric that completely ignored the world economic crisis. After Lee took power the economic indicators became gradually worse while the suffering of the exploited grew.
Popular anger gradually built and then on 19 April, when Lee travelled to the US and made an agreement with Bush to allow imports of American beef, this anger exploded. This agreement drastically eased the regulations dealing with the risk of beef infected with BSE. At first the protests against this agreement centred around internet communities. An online petition set up by a high school student attracted more than a million signatures in no time.
Read the rest here.
“the majority of social movement forces were bewildered when the candlelight protest movement first erupted on 2 May, and just stood back and watched.”
“It is true that there is a lull in the movement at the moment, though small protests are continuing. The biggest reason for this is the repression.”
Nice snow job there!
Owen, for an academic you are surprisingly unwilling to use your critical abilities here, preferring instead to give these dubious con artists a free pass!
All for a good cause, eh?
Comment by King Baeksu — November 13, 2008 @ 4:46 pm
“anti-democratic and pro-imperialist policies”
What does this all mean exactly? There is more “democracy” in South Korea than ever before. The protesters were allowed to have over 100 candlelight protests in a row, and were able to publish all sorts of nonsense in a variety of media here.
What does “pro-imperialist policies” mean? Is South Korea an imperial power? Or is this a critique of US imperialist influence in Korea by a protest leader whose adherents always claimed that this movement was “not anti-American”?
If find these people utterly disingenuous, to put it charitably. They seem in the grips of an outdated 1980s Minjung ideology that is incapable of effectively addressing present realities.
These 386 deadenders really need to update their program. The “movement” did not end because of “suppression.” It ended when the common people realized how full of BS this “movement” actually was.
Comment by King Baeksu — November 16, 2008 @ 3:35 am
Yawn yawn…
Comment by kotaji — November 25, 2008 @ 2:19 pm