The Styrofoam Debate   2008-06-11 10:45

A historic debate took place last night: one that will be talked about for years to come. Thousands of people participated, and it took almost seven hours. All because of a few dozen blocks of polystyrene foam. It's unbelievable, but it's true. The Styrofoam Debate began around 11:00 pm and lasted until shortly before 6:00 am. It was a most bizarre debate, but at the same time, everyone was dead serious.

In our last post, we reported that the police had built a massive barricade -- 60 m (200 ft) across and 5 m (15 ft) tall -- to keep protesters away from the Blue House (the President's home). Amused citizens immediately gave it a name: "Castle MB", or Myung-Bak's Castle. Besides completely blocking one of Seoul's widest streets, Castle MB was also drenched in grease to make it highly flammable. We have no idea which madman had come up with the idea for such a contraption; however, one thing was clear from the very beginning of the night: candlelights did not belong anywhere near the greasy barricade. So we'd been protesting elsewhere during most of the evening. People placed tens of thousands of candles along the central line of Jongro (Bell Street) as pictured below, creating a spectacle never seen before. The entire downtown area became a piece of brilliant artwork.

Meanwhile, sometime in the late afternoon, somebody had unloaded a truckful of large styrofoam blocks on a sidewalk near Castle MB. The blocks, pictured below, measure approximately 100 x 50 cm (40 x 20 in) each, and are light enough for one person to carry. Nobody paid attention to these blocks until well into the night, but they soon became the subject of an all-night debate that could have changed the course of countless lives.

Shortly after 11:00 pm, some people found the styrofoam blocks lying around, and suggested that these blocks could be used to build a stairway to the top of Castle MB. The Sarangbang Group for Human Rights, a rather radical left-wing NGO which has been managing certain aspects of recent protests, immediately supported this suggestion and encouraged nearby protesters to help. As a lot of people had been wanting to get to the Blue House but frustrated by the titanic wall of steel, they saw this as a great opportunity to nullify the President's latest attempt to keep himself away from his People. So began the construction of "People's Castle", shortly after midnight.

Many others, however, were critical of this plan. In virtually every protest we've had this year, attempts to breach the police barricade had always ended up in violent confrontations. Those not wanting to repeat the bloodshed so began to chant "nonviolence", and they successfully convinced others to withhold their plans for a while. People's Castle was moved a few meters away from the barricade (see picture below), and it was labeled a symbol of the Korean People's will to stand up against an oppressive government.

But this peaceful stage did not last long. The Sarangbang Group and other activists pushed harder for their plan, urging the People to seize the opportunity and show their determination to make the President listen. The activists had their way after a couple of hours of heated debate in the form of "free speech" (where, at least in theory, anybody can sign up and have a few minutes on the loudspeaker). The blocks were moved back towards the barricade, and its shape was changed into that of a stairway (see picture below). Just a few more blocks and the construction would be as tall as the barricade. People could now hope to walk across Castle MB (though whether anyone had thought seriously about getting back down the other side is questionable -- see below for more on this issue).

By 3:30 am, the stairway was nearly complete. Activists in red vests climbed to the top and urged the protesters to march over the barricade. They needed the People's voluntary support, however, in order to make it happen -- as ordinary citizens are under no obligation to comply. More heated debates followed. Some citizens called "Let's go!", while others shouted "Come back down!" The activists at more than one occasion tried to take a rough poll, though the results were never clear enough. Meanwhile, concerns about the grease on the barricade took a back seat to the so-called symbolic value of breaching the seemingly impenetrable barricade. Members of the Sarangbang Group, many of whom have been professional activists, were relentless in their appeals to this symbolic value. They were extremely active in the debates, clearly outnumbering those who disagreed at least in the number of people who spoke up.

More people, in the meantime, were beginning to realize the dangers associated with styrofoam itself. The foam is just as flammable as grease. If only one person dropped a candle by accident on the way to the top of the barricade, the entire construction -- including the grease-covered containers -- would catch fire. The earlier worry that breaching the barricade might provoke the police to use violence gradually gave way to the more pressing anxiety about the possibility of fire. Some people actually had good reasons to suspect that fire would engulf them the moment they began to tackle the barricade; the fact that somebody had drenched Castle MB in grease, the fact that somebody had tried earlier to set a police vehicle on fire, and the fact that somebody had dumped the styrofoam blocks so close to the barricade... all added up to a very reasonable suspicion that somebody was waiting for an opportunity to sabotage the protests.

The activists, however, seemed entirely unconcerned about this danger. They kept urging the People to follow their lead to whatever end, in a style that was frighteningly reminiscent of the violent protests of decades past. Well, in fact, it is no secret that these activists are direct descendants of those who threw Molotov cocktails in the 80's. They even talked about how an innocent person's death would bring about change -- right there on the styrofoam platform last night, not in the 80's -- which made a lot of us shudder. But the actists were also really good at the art of persuasion and demagoguery. People were beginning to sway. The moment of tragedy loomed ever closer.

It was then that the young men and women of Daum Agora stood up for everyone's safety. Despite the site owner's recent attempts at censorship, Daum Agora remains Korea's best forum for online debate. Students and professionals make up the bulk of its membership, so Agora also has an abundance of expertise. An informal group of hobby investigators there are even called "Agora CSI" by others. Just after the activists began to call for the construction of a styrofoam stairway, alarmed members who have been watching the protests by Internet TV started writing on Agora forums about the dangers of styrofoam fire.These warnings were then forwarded to other members who were out there on the streets. (Thank you, WiFi and mobile phones!) At first, the group of "Agorians", which consisted of only a thousand people or so, had much difficulty getting the moderators/activists to acknowledge its presence among the tens of thousands of other people. In addition, Sarangbang activists seemed unwilling to pass the loudspeaker to anyone who disagreed with them. Numerous other people spoke up in the meantime, many of them carefully selected by the moderators/activists to deliver speeches supporting the breach attempt. It took more than an hour for the Agorians to have their voice heard. Even then, the activists fiercely resisted the Agorians' suggestion to back up from the barricade. They kept calling for the People to march ahead towards the highly flammable contraption. The final hours of the Styrofoam Debate were truly suffocating. So many lives were at stake!

Finally, finally, an agreement was reached, which both the activists and the Agorians found satisfactory. Around 5:30 am, a few activists and group leaders ascended to the top of Castle MB and installed a huge banner (see picture below) with the words "Is this how MB communicates with his People?" The group leaders then waved a dozen flags representing each of the major groups (including an unofficial flag for Agora), and finally placed the National Flag in the middle of the barricade. They came down and began to dismantle the People's Castle, after almost seven hours of sharp tension. To everyone's relief, we have endured the night without setting the barricade on fire.

As of 6:00 am, Castle MB looks like the photograph below. Now we can see that the street behind the barricade is blocked with multiple rows of police buses, so that even if a few people got across Castle MB, it would have been nearly impossible for anyone to get to the Blue House (the large building in the far background). The police has since announced that they would not attempt to break up the crowd by force; as of 9:00 am, Castle MB is also being partially dismantled to let traffic resume. Last night's candlelight protest, in which nearly one million people participated, is now over. And we are greatly relieved that the greasy sabotage attempt failed to do any harm.

We are left with a few questions about the way in which our protests should proceed. Whereas individual citizens make up the bulk of the protesters, there have always been activist groups that helped organize the various events. But last night we saw that some of these groups have little regard for the People's safety. The Sarangbang Group has also proved themselves bad moderators in the open debates. Thankfully, concerns for peace and safety had the upper hand in last night's debate. But it is clear that the Sarangbang group was selecting speakers with a heavy bias. "Free speeches" were fantastic events when mothers and teenagers were free to speak. For the first time since the days of Aristotle, we're witnessing the possibility of direct democracy. To use these events as an opportunity for provocation and demagoguery, however, is absolutely unacceptable. For this very reason the various organizers have been careful not to let professional politicians speak during candlelight protests. But it seems that some activists have just as much potential to do heavy damage.

What would have happened if the thousands of people who participated in the Styrofoam Debate actually decided to breach the barricade? What would happened if the barricade caught fire during such an attempt? Violence on our side is exactly what the government needs in order to justify its own use of violence. The fact that the police was nowhere to be seen during the 7 hours of last night's Styrofoam Debate is making a lot of people suspect that the government was actually looking forward to something like a massive fire to break out. And who was trying to sabotage our protests, anyway? Who painted grease on Castle MB? Who prepared the dangerous blocks of styrofoam (which our Agorian experts tell us must have been ordered at least two days ago, before anyone knew about the government's plan to build Castle MB)? We hate to bring forth conspiracy theories, but this time we can't help it.

We are thoroughly convinced, as are millions of other Koreans, that the Agorians did the right thing last night by keeping the reckless activists at bay. Please excuse us for taking a side on the Styrofoam Debate, but we think that the Agorians are much more likely to represent the real concerns of ordinary citizens than any professional activist can be. Really, the Agorians don't just "represent" ordinary citizens; they are ordinary citizens for all practical purposes. It would have been a terrible blunder if the People let themselves to be carried away by the activists' dangerous rhetoric.

We are deeply concerned about the future of our protests, as more activists with particular political and ideological agendas seem to be jumping onto the bandwagon that was prepared by the People. This is a pivotal moment in our history. It's not easy to get one million people to mobilize. We can't allow ourselves to be carried away at this moment by the narrow agenda of some particular NGO's. This year's candlelight protests have always been of, by, and for ordinary citizens; and it must remain so till the end.

Note 1: During the critical last hours of the Styrofoam Debate, angry Agorians who were participating through the Internet pulled off a nearly successful DDoS attack against the Sarangbang Group for Human Rights which they believed -- and we agree -- were pushing thousands of innocent protesters towards grave danger. Sarangbang's website is back online, but all recent posts on its forums have disappeared. Meanwhile, earlier in the night, the Blue House was also DDoS'ed. The President's website management team has made a laughingstock of itself by immediately replacing the home page with a static screenshot of the site before the attack, pretending that nothing happened.

Note 2: The New York Times has run an in-depth story about the current situation in Korea. The article correctly observes that our concerns are about much more than U.S. beef, whereas most other foreign observers still think we're only complaining about beef.

Note 3: Members of the cabinet said yesterday that all of them would resign. Prime Minister Han Seung-Soo and all of the President's aides have also offered to resign. The People are largely unconcerned about these moves, as we've seen too many case where changes of personnel do nothing to bring about any significant change in government policies.

Note 4: Twenty-four people have been arrested this morning for refusing to get off the street when the police ordered them to do so. It is likely that they will be released soon, but some protesters have added the immediate release of these people to their list of demands.

Note 5: The Coalition of People for a Solution to the Mad-Cow Problem, an umbrella organization that has been organizing and managing protests that concern U.S. beef (but not those that concern other issues, such as the Grand Canal or the privatization of public utilities), has announced that it would give the government until June 20 to sort out the issue of U.S. beef. We'll have to wait and see how the government will react to this one.

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