For months on end, hundreds of thousands of people across South Korea have mounted daily demonstrations, candlelight vigils, boycotts, and almost every form of protest up to and including setting themselves on fire – against American beef, the new conservative government, and George W.Bush. So why is it, exactly, that South Koreans are so angry?
For The Hankyoreh, Kim Seon-woo writes in part that its all about “American capital”:
“The Korean heart wants to afford people that kind of hospitality, so when Koreans tell someone they aren’t welcome, you have to ask why. … The way the United States treats Korea is not the only problem. Let’s set aside for a moment, the hypocrisy and ignorance of how the U.S. divides the world into good and evil and maintains a constant global tension, while making itself out to be an apostle of peace and justice. What’s really dangerous is that American capital considers the entire world its prey. In its arrogance over being on a throne of power, it won’t be satisfied until everything belongs to it. All of this and its habit of never hesitating to go to war for money are the greatest factors threatening world peace.”
By Kim Seon-woo, Poet
August 6, 2008
South Korea – The Hankyoreh – Original Article (English)
The entire country is in a flurry over U.S. President George W. Bush’s visit. As I write these words, in downtown Seoul there are protests opposing his visit and gatherings welcoming him, and I’m told on the news that the police are on high alert. Police say they’re going to fight back with liquid tear gas-laced water cannons and color guns if protests turn “illegally violent.”
Police declarations of war against the public have become annoyingly repetitive, and again this time around it looks like they’ve defined people who participate in candlelight vigils as potential terrorists. To them it’s a stark dichotomy: you’re either a citizen or a rioter. When the police told those participating in the candlelight protests that they were “threatening citizens’ safety, they laughed out loud saying, “Uh, we are citizens!” What citizens were in need of police protection? There is such a thing as pseudocyesis [false pregnancy], so perhaps this could be called “false citizenry.”
Should everything noisy be put down indiscriminately by the authorities? Shouldn’t that habitual response have changed by now? The world moves in a series of causes and effects. When there’s noise, the method of approach should be to figure out what the cause is. Threatening citizens as has been done in the past is no longer acceptable.
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