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The Hankyoreh has an editorial on the growing religious divide opening up in Korean politics between Christians and Buddhists. Korean Christianity was once synonymous with the democracy movement and progressive, left of centre forces in a way that is rare outside of Latin America. Buddhism on the other hand, whether fairly or not, was tainted by its perceived complicity with both the Japanese authorities in the colonial period and the authoritarian regimes of the post-liberation period.

The editorial gives the impression of a government captured by the Christian right, in much the same way as happened in the US in the 80s and again in the early 2000s. But Buddhists certainly aren’t taking this lying down and monks from all over the country held a massive rally in Seoul today to protest the Lee Myung-bak government.

Could we be seeing a radicalisation of Buddhism in Korea? Buddhist monks are now angry enough to be openly calling for the president to step down. And, as an aside, the idea of Buddhism as a progressive religion certainly has a precedent in Korea in the 1920s writings of the famous monk, writer and independence activist, Han Yong-un. When asked by a Journalist in 1931, “So, if we were to express Buddha’s economic ideas in modern language?”, Han answered simply, “It would be Buddhist socialism.”

Finally, this just in from youtube, showing just the sort of militant evangelical Christianity that Lee Myung-bak supports:

I reproduce in full below an urgent appeal for solidarity from Korea (see also No Ordinary Sun):

Greetings of international solidarity!

Starting May 2, 2008, South Korean people took to the streets holding candle lights in protest against various policies (import of US beefs in danger of being infected with mad cow disease, privatizations of public broadcasting, health, and public corporations, and the grand-canal project) put forth by the Lee Myung-bak (LMB) government.

The protesters came from all walks of life from elementary school students to 80-year-old seniors, ordinary working people to opposition National Assembly representatives. More than a million people just in the greater Seoul area alone gathered on June 10 for a peaceful candle light protest.

However, the LMB government responded with force, repressing the peaceful candle light protests. It discharged fire extinguisher and water cannon, wielded shields and batons, and crushed the people with military boots. Police Commissioner Eo Cheong-soo is leading what he proclaimed in the mainstream media “the real 80s military dictator style” violent repression.
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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…

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.

Let’s change the world!

Being a bit slow and a bit preoccupied at the moment, I’ve only just noticed that Socialist Worker has a cool online article about the recent Korean People’s Day of Action on November 11. As the article explains, it was a day of action to highlight all three of the key issues for the Korean left at the moment - the antiwar movement, the anti-Korea- US FTA campaign and the casual workers’ movement. The demonstration in Seoul certainly looks to have been bigger than most of the other demonstrations seen there in recent years. Despite government and police attempts to ban it and stop people from travelling to the capital, at least 40,000 were there. Let’s hope this can give a bit of impetus to the Kwon Young-ghil presidential campaign.

More on the day of action in Korean here and here with lots of pictures.

The final part of my look back over British newspaper coverage of the June Struggle. I think on balance I was more impressed with David Watts’ coverage in the Times than Jasper Becker’s in the Guardian. Watts managed to convey more of a keen sense of the action on the ground and his understanding of Korean society seems good too. I really wonder whether there would be coverage of this quality in the British papers if these events were happening now. Journalism has changed quite a lot in the last 20 years and in the UK international coverage seems to have been hollowed out in particular. I haven’t done an exhaustive search, but as far as I can see there has been nothing in either the Times or the Guardian to mark the anniversary. Which is somewhat surprising when you consider that back in 1987 the story was big enough for the papers to cover it almost every day and to devote a number of leaders to it.

Below are three articles from the last day of June 1987 - another excellent piece from David Watts, this time reporting from Kwangju; a leader from the Guardian; and finally an in-depth article from Jasper Becker on the ‘two Kims’.

Grassroots bitterness that choked Chun regime
From David Watts in Kwangju
The Times, June 30 1987, Tuesday

The rice fields around Kwangju have turned a rich green with the new crop and the stolid houses contribute to an air of well-being. But beneath the surface is an unrest felt as deeply as in the big cities of South Korea.

In no small measure it led to Sunday’s extraordinary statement from the South Korean Government that it had decided to cede to opposition demands for political change.

The Government decision springs from a complex of pressures.

Perhaps among the most important but less easily quantified elements were American pressure for change and the bad worldwide media image being built up which could easily have damaged the country’s chances of staging the Olympic Games.

The loss of the Olympics would have been such a blow to national pride, international prestige and the never-ending contest with North Korea, that it would have taken years to recover.

In the countryside the juxtaposition of apparent wealth and dissatisfaction confirms the notion that it takes more than an annual growth in gross national product - already in double figures - to satisfy a people so industrious and politically sophisticated that they have built their country into an economic power that threatens Japan in some sectors.

Kwangju has been a centre of opposition to the Government of President Chun Doo Hwan since some of his best troops gunned down hundreds of their fellow Koreans so that he and his fellow generals could stay in power.

That has never been forgotten, but in the countryside it was the day-to-day methods used to maintain the influence of the Democratic Justice Party that rankled.

The farmers of a small township about 40 miles into rice country warn that there must be nothing to identify them or the place as we talk over Ginseng Tea in a small tea shop.

Most farmers cannot subsist on their rice crop alone so they grow strawberries and corn for the big cities. For those with small plots, who make up about 50 per cent of the community, there are difficulties getting loans if they are not supporters of the Government. And that is important with many of the locals heavily in debt and struggling just to educate their children.

‘We see people from the ruling party living better than others so we want a change .. If you have a relative working with the Government and you support the opposition he’ll get a visit from an official warning him that he’ll lose his job if you don’t stop supporting them. ‘

Support for student demonstrators has been strong and often the students help their farming families with money from part-time jobs. In recent times three students from the area have been arrested for anti-Government activities. A young girl who served a year in jail for anti-Government activities came out to find that she could get no work at all because her identity as a criminal had been circulated. She is now reduced to shuttling between friends in Seoul and Kwangju while the Government watches her for evidence of further malfeasance.
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