Why South Korea has so many protests, and what that means
A recent rally in Seoul, South Korea, carried the sound of a rock festival — high-amp speakers throbbing with the K-pop hit “Gangnam Style” — if not the look of one. The crowd of mostly elderly people waved South Korean and American flags to the song’s revised refrain: “Anti-communist style!” When speaker after speaker revved up the crowd with pro-American, anti-communist chants, the crowd shouted, “Hooray for President Yoon Suk Yeol!”
Days later, when thousands of mostly younger protesters marched through the same city center, they shook handheld signs and chanted, “Out with Yoon Suk Yeol!”
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Protest rallies have been a fixture of this capital city of Asia’s most vibrant democracy for decades, born during South Korea’s difficult march toward democracy in the 1980s when massive crowds, often armed with rocks, firebombs and even stolen rifles, clashed with riot police, tanks and paratroopers. Distrustful of their government, South Koreans have a penchant for taking all manner of grievances to the streets, so much so that it has turned demonstrating into a kind of national pastime.
As the coronavirus pandemic has receded, protest rallies have returned to Seoul with a vengeance. Barely a weekend passes without the city center turning into a raucous bazaar ringing with livestreamed protest songs, slogans and speeches that reveal a country increasingly polarized over its president.
The vast majority of protests now are organized by rival political activists who use social media, especially YouTube, to mobilize supporters and livestream their gatherings. With churchgoers and other elderly citizens on the right, and mostly younger progressives on the left, they have become a public referendum on Yoon and his policies.
Left-wing protesters call Yoon a “national traitor” and demand his impeachment, holding him accountable for policies they see as anti-feminist and anti-journalist; for the crowd crush last fall that killed 159 people; and for his attempt to improve ties with Tokyo, Korea’s historical enemy, despite Japan’s release of treated radioactive water from its Fukushima nuclear power plant.
But Yoon has found a sorely needed ally in right-wing, mostly Christian and elderly South Koreans who rally to defend him and the country from “pro-North Korean communists.” That is a Cold War-era moniker that still packs a punch in a country that remains technically at war with North Korea and still enforces a draconian anti-communist “national security act.”
Most of the rallies don’t make national news. But when they grow in size and intensity, they can herald a political storm ahead.
Massive protests spearheaded by progressives in 2017 triggered the impeachment of Park Geun-hye, who was then the country’s conservative president. Monthslong protests led by Christian evangelicals galvanized a conservative pushback against Park’s progressive successor, Moon Jae-in, and helped Yoon win election as a conservative candidate in 2022.
“We cannot hand over our country to North Korea,” said the Rev. Jun Kwang-hoon, the organizer of the largest conservative rallies, during an interview at his Sarang Jeil Presbyterian Church in Seoul. “We church people cannot sit still.”
Until Jun began mobilizing large conservative rallies several years ago, the outdoor protest scene had been dominated for decades mostly by students and unionized workers who waged often violent campaigns against dictatorship, corruption and inequality. But in this rapidly aging society, the votes of older people wield more power than ever, and conservative churches have the resources to channel their hostility toward North Korea and South Korean progressives who favor inter-Korean reconciliation into a nationwide political movement.
In sermons and speeches, Jun has repeatedly warned that if progressives take power, South Korea will be ”communized” by North Korea, and China will replace the United States as its main ally. If that happens, he says, there will be “10 million South Koreans massacred” and “another 10 million fleeing to the sea as boat people.”
“I know all this because the Lord told me,” he said during a rally in August, calling himself a “prophet.”
In this social media-obsessed, factionalized country, conservative influencers like Jun have become so powerful that they helped “radicalize” Yoon’s government, Ahn Jin-geol, a longtime progressive activist, said in an interview.
Progressives rally crowds with a litany of complaints about Yoon’s government, ranging from inflation (“Everything has increased, except for our wages!”) to the allegation that Yoon, a former prosecutor general, has used criminal investigations by prosecutors to disgrace his enemies, including unfriendly news media (“Dictatorship by prosecutors!”).
Conservative rallies are part political, part Christian revival meeting in appearance. As speakers attack prominent progressives — including Lee of the Democratic Party — with expletive-laden diatribes, labeling them “North Korean spies,” many in the crowd raise their arms and shout “Amen!” or “Hallelujah!”
But conservatives also energize their gatherings with patriotic songs and pop standards catering to old people, like “What’s Wrong With My Age?” The song’s refrain — “It’s a great age to fall in love” — is changed to “It’s a great age to become a patriot.”
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