Joel at Far Outliers mentions an article about a trend towards the “suppression of free speech” in South Korea. In addition to the harassment that a “free North Korea” group has apparently gotten from “self-styled ‘progressive'” protesters discussed in the article by Aidan Foster-Carter, Joel mentions the recent bizarre (and inexcusable) banning of online blogs by the South Korean government in an attempt to prevent distribution of footage of the recent beheading of a Korean hostage. He refers us to the great blog NKZone which also has a posting on this (pretty much any blog related to Korea has been talking about this of late).
My only concern with the Foster-Carter article and the sometimes rabid responses to the recent censorship and current left swing of Korean politics on the usually deeply conservative English-language blogs about Korea (in particular Marmot’s Hole and Flying Yangban over at GOPKorea – I should take care to note that despite my own raving liberal politics, I still read these two blogs, which are often excellent sources for recent Korea related news) is that I believe they are portraying Korea—and Koreans—as emotional slaves to political fashion who swing from one political extreme (authoritarian dictatorship and anti-communist ideology) to the other (a pro-unification, pro-North Korean regime) without conceding the exceptionally complex adjustments and changes that are going on in Korean society. One person whose opinions I respect the most on this are those of my friend Lim Jaehwan. His most recent posting on the Korean media emphasizes the continuing dominance of conservative newspapers in Korea, even as populist or left-leaning alternative media sources like OhMyNews are growing in popularity.
The “free North Korea” and “pro-America” segments of Korean society didn’t just die overnight. Nor, for all its faults and recent blunders, does the young and more radical government of South Korea mark the establishment of a North Korean puppet in the south that will crush all voices of “freedom” and dissent. The pendulum has surely swung, but it swung partly as a result, I believe, of a number of contingent political factors (the recent impeachment crisis, desire for reform, etc.) that may not consistently serve the current ruling party in the future. The new Uri Party has had, and will surely continue to have, its share of political excesses, but if it survives another election, it may undergo a process of “professionalization” similar to what is happening with the Taiwanese ruling party now. The adjustment from a party made up of old protesters who, upon gaining power, gathered in the halls of government to sing old anti-government protest songs (Jae – I’m waiting for you to post the details about this!) to one that can function with the bureaucracy, make level-headed and long-term policies, and appeal to mainstream voters in a time when a mass reaction to a political crisis is no longer available—all this takes time.
I for one, rejoice at the thumping defeat of the conservative forces in Korea’s legislature who have ruled for so long, just as I continue to rejoice at the slow death of Taiwan’s symbol of authoritarian rule: the KMT Chinese nationalist party. I feel that this is a healthy thing, and I am confident that it will result in a more mature democracy for both countries that will hopefully give birth to a new political configuration on both left and right. However, in this period of transition, I think we can benefit now from a careful look at the deeply nationalistic aspects of more leftist parties that have come to power (The Taiwanese nationalism of the Democrats in Taiwan, and the often irrational anti-American arrogance of Uri and Roh Moo-hyun) rather than simply scoffing at their emotional polemics and their other petty incompetence at facing current political issues. We can also benefit from looking at the complex changes in Korea society, especially in its views towards the North, without assuming the south has suddenly gone Communist.
My discussions with my friends has shown me that young Koreans are deeply ambivalent and even confused about their views towards North Korea and the issue of unification. I doubt that has changed in the past few months of political turmoil. Few, if any of them, deny the madness we often hear about in the North, but as the flood of movies coming out of Korea recently reveals, there is an increasing willingness to admit that (contrary to the portrayals of Korean society I have seen by the conservative expert foreigners living in and blogging about Korea, with a few exceptions like the fantastic blog Hunjangûi karûch’im) guess what: things are not all black and white when it comes to North and South.
As readers of my previous posts will know, I love movies that are willing to deal with and present the audience with moral ambiguity. Recent Korean action movies like JSA, Shuri, Double Spy, Silmido, and to a lesser extent Brotherhood all contain elements of this. None of these movies portray North Korea as the “good guy” or suggest that Koreans should all throw away their reservations about the North and embrace it. Instead, each and every one of these blockbusters puts real human beings, with real complex emotions into the dehumanizing and reductionist reality of an insane world. North and South Korea, as well as its war and continued tensions are all a microcosm of a global disease of modern madness.
I am confident that most Koreans understand this in a time when, ironically, many Americans have come to forget it…
Thanks for providing more balance, including a Taiwan perspective, which is always an interesting comparison with SK (and colonial Korea). I’ve added an update to my post on Foster-Carter’s column. Would you care to compare the ascendency of former dissidents in Taiwan and SK to the earlier ascendency (and sclerotization?) of former dissidents of the 1968 generation in Europe?
BaiZaWei, any correctives to my post on sumo onomastics would be quickly acknowledged.
Great posting, Michi. Among others, I am looking with great interest at the ‘professionalization’ process of the Uri party because what they are learning now and ahead will change the colors of Korean politics. When it comes to protest songs, I just found a couple of excellent sites where you can even listen to some of them. I will blog on it quite soon.
Jae, thanks for your posting! I look forward to seeing your own postings! Well, I’m off to China next week, let’s meet again when I come back to Tokyo the end of this month!
(Sorry for the long post, but I don’t have a bog of my own yet.)
Interesting perspective on this issue, and as the arrest of pro-NK academic Song Du-Yul demonstrates, there is more going on in SK than wholesale conversion to a pro-NK ideology. On the other hand, I really wonder how “nuanced” one can be about this issue; the actions of the South Korean government are utterly despicable and unjustifiable. As a Free Korea blogpage ( http://freekorea.blogspot.com/2004/06/censorship.html ) points out, this kind of pro-NK thuggary is far from an isolated incident; the fact that some of these actions were carried out by police and government ministries indicates that this censorship policy has the blessing of the ruling administration, at least the ministries controlled by Uri and its sympathizers. The fact that this is taking place under the watch of an administration led by a former human rights lawyer makes it all the more appaling.
You may find the tone of Foster-Carter’s article to be “rabid”, but I think her perspective is basically correct. Much of ROK society has shifted quite radically from the very conservative ideology of the past to strongly left/liberal one. What has not gone away, even among the ostensibly pro-democratic elements, is a deep-seated authoritarianism in their political approach. Holding political opinions, especially about relations to the US and to NK, that are contrary to the policies of the government is seen not just as disagreement or dissent, but seen as actively treasonous, and something to be met with silencing and violence. The arrest of Song Du-Yul only confirms this; the justice ministry is probably still under the control of conservative elements and they seem determined to abuse what power they have left, even while other branches of government (and civil society) carry out abuses of power for opposite reasons.
This all seems to point to a kind of low-intensity civil war going on within the ROK at present. The clear authoritarianism of both sides in this conflict does not point to a healthy development in Korean democracy and I really can’t share your optimistic view that this will all blow over when the Uri party becomes “professionalized”. A lot of damage could be done to Korean democracy while waiting for these student activists to do some much-needed growing-up, and as experiences with the American campus Left demonstrate, once former student radicals achieve positions of power and influence, their actions and perspectives do not necessarily moderate.
A couple of other points –
On the ambivalent attitude of young Koreans to North Korea. Why the ambivalence about NK? I mean, is there really anything good that can be said about North Korea as a society? Its quite clear that the North Korean regime is nothing more than Stalinism fused with Unification Church-like elements. North Korea is not like present-day Cuba or like the Soviet Union and eastern Europe of the ‘70s, where a clear civil society existed under the heel of inefficient would-be totalitarian regimes; NK represents a successful totalitarian project, probably the most totalitarian society that exists on earth today. Of course the North Korean people are “real human beings” – the tragedy of North Korea is that millions of real human beings are forced to live under a fundamentally inhuman system.
Given this reality, just what do South Koreans expect from reunification? The only possible course reunification could take if it was carried out under the terms dictated by the Kim Jong-Il regime would be the total surrender of SK and absorption into the DRK. If young liberal South Koreans haven’t figured this out, then they are quite simply in a massive state of denial.
On the nationalism of the Taiwanese and South Korean democratic movements – you discuss the similarities between the two, but you fail to mention a critical difference: their respective attitudes toward reunification. South Korean liberal nationalism seems to be fundamentally pro-reunification; indeed, a lot of rhetoric out of SK these days comes across as “reunification at any price”, even if that price means throwing human rights out the window. Contrast this with the Taiwanese DPP, which has been a strong supporter of Taiwanese independence. They recently seem to have modified their stance on declaring formal independence from China, but only because needlessly provoking China might compromise the security of the de-facto independence of Taiwan. The point is that Taiwanese liberals clearly do not want Taiwan to become part of the People’s Republic and don’t seem to have any attachment to the idea of a grand reunified China.
Perhaps this has to do with how leftists often define themselves by what they are rebelling against? The South Korean military dictatorship defined itself as fundamentally separate from North Korea, while the KMT dictatorship was in full agreement with the Communist “One China” policy. (The KMT’s disagreement with the Communists was simply who should be in absolute control of this “One China”.) These situations perhaps helped foster a pro-independence mindset in Taiwanese democrats and a pro-reunification mindset in Korean democrats. In any event, this at least gives Taiwanese democrats a certain clarity that Korean democrats lack; the Taiwanese are quite clear that there cannot be democracy with either the KMT or the Communists in charge, while the Korean democrats somehow persist in believing that some kind of viable fusion of democracy and Kimism is possible.