Talking of Candlelights   2008-06-06 04:00

Massive protests are being planned for June 6 (Memorial Day), over the weekend, and June 10 (the 21st anniversary of the June Democratization Movement which brought about the demise of military dictatorship). Though there are groups organizing parts of these events, candlelight protests/festivals rely mostly on the voluntary participation of those who have heard about them on the Internet. The power of the Internet, however, should not be underestimated. It is expected that anywhere from 200,000 to 1,000,000 people nationwide will participate in protests this weekend. No one knows how the government will react, as there are plenty of excuses to label our protests as illegal. But we light our candles nonetheless. We are the People. We will not tolerate a government that treats us as mere objects of manipulation.

Left: Poster designed by netizens, calling for 1 million people to get together on Memorial Day. The poster notes that the gathering has not been approved by the police; and that participants should bring their own food and drink, as well as raincoats, masks, and helmets (in case the police responds with violence).

Right: Family protesters, with pickets saying "Thank you all for your efforts to make the Republic of Korea a better place." Families with children and teenagers in school uniforms have played a significant part in recent protests, even in the midst of brutal oppression.

Anyone who can read Korean will notice that the poster above contains no reference to U.S. beef at all. Some people who know nothing about the situation here have tried to suggest otherwise, but let me repeat: beef trade and Anti-American sentiment are only a part of the issue. What we're really angry about is the fact that President Lee Myung-Bak's government has been relentlessly trying to (1) deceive us about its policies and (2) suppress dissent. Ever since the police began to use violence against our peaceful protests, our concern has never been just about U.S. beef. We are sick and tired of the way we've been treated as idiots. We are alarmed by the government's utter lack of respect for democracy.

Tens of thousands of people are already gathering in downtown Seoul and in other major cities to participate in what is going to be a 72-hour nonstop protest. Meanwhile, critics of our protests have begun to voice their own concerns. This is a welcome move, as debate and disagreement form the cornerstone of democracy. Unlike the President, we the People will not try to suppress disagreement. A few individuals actually showed up in downtown Seoul over the last couple of days to "protest our protests". We did not beat them up or shoot water cannons at them, and we wouldn't have done so even if we had those horrible cannons at our disposal. There have been a few quarrels, but that was all. Most of us are good democratic citizens of the 21st century. Thanks (!) to the government's recent aggression, we know how not to behave.

One member of Daum Agora -- Korea's largest online forum for political and other debates -- posted a very thoughtful argument yesterday to the effect that there is something seriously wrong with our recent protests. According to him or her: (1) Most of us are out there on the streets for no other reason than self-interest (such as "We don't want the price of X to increase!"), and there is no common cause (such as liberalism or socialism) to bind us together; (2) We don't know what we're talking about when we call for extreme measures such as the President's resignation, as it is far more likely that we'll end up making a compromise; and (3) After all the current issues have been resolved, our protests, unlike the great democratization movements of the past, will simply fade into history without a lasting effect.

We are convinced that he or she is wrong, and here is why. (1) What's wrong for us, the People, to demand that the government protect our most important interests? And why do we need to have a single common cause to stand behind? We may have disparate aims, but our candlelight protests stand at the intersection of all those aims. Isn't that enough? A common cause cannot be, and should not be, manufactured by a few ideological buffs for everyone else to subscribe to. If one were to emerge, it will emerge naturally as each of us stands for his or her rights. (2) Extreme slogans certainly look good on the pickets, but nothing says that we should achieve everything that's on our pickets or else consider our protests to have been a failure. Compromises are often necessary in politics. When we reach an agreement with the government (hopefully!) which we find reasonably satisfactory, we will drop the case. That would be a victory, not a failure. (3) We're not looking to be remembered to all eternity. We just want our government to respect our most basic rights.

All in all, the critic's argument is based on a misunderstanding of what our protests are fundamentally about. There have been many attempts to draw analogies between what we're doing and what our fathers had done in the 70s and 80s. As honorable as the democratization movements of the past have been, however, there is no need for such analogies. What you see in the Republic of Korea right now is a completely new and innovative form of political participation. (Ever seen our crosswalk protests?) Really, our protests are more like festivals than demonstrations. They are an expression of our sovereignty as a People. We don't fight for an ideology. Ideologies are relics of the last century. We fight for our own rights and those of our brothers and sisters, parents and children. This is the democracy of the 21st century. What century do you live in?

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