Aftermath   2008-06-12 03:42

Yesterday's protest has been reported worldwide by broadcasters and newspapers all over the world, including the New York Times, London Times, and Washington Post. We are glad that the news reports are finally catching up to the reality of our protests, instead of merely focusing on the issue of U.S. beef. The actual content of the policies we're protesting, while of great importance, isn't all there is to the story. As we have emphasized time and again, what we are most angry about is the way in which we, the People, have been dealt with -- as utterly ignorant folks who shouldn't even have been allowed to comment on government policies.

"Castle MB" -- the 60-meter (200-foot) barricade of steel that had been installed across Sejong Street to keep protesters away from the President's office and residence -- has been completely dismantled. The government, however, says that it is ready to reinstall the Castle if the need arises. We still don't understand why on earth any government would feel a need to cut itself off from the People by such hideous means. It wasn't as if yesterday's protesters were trying to storm the Blue House; most People simply wanted to protest at the entrance to the Blue House, the closest they can get to the President without breaking any laws. Heck, after seven hours of heated debate, we had decided not even to try and breach the first barricade. Why is President Lee Myung-Bak so afraid of communicating with his People, his Masters?

Traffic resumes in Sejong Street after the removal of Castle MB.

Last night (June 11), only about one thousand candlelight protesters were seen. As only a very small minority among us are professional activists, we can't afford to stage massive protests every night. We have to go to work, go to school, raise our children, and get some sleep. Besides, NGO's have given the government until June 20 to respond with better policies, so a lot of us are waiting until then.

In the meantime, The Cargo Union of Korea has announced a strike, to begin tomorrow (June 13). In Korea, diesel fuel had been priced much lower than gasoline for most of recent history, but a series of government policies (many of which were actually initiated by past governments) has caused diesel to become more expensive than gas lately. This on top of rising oil prices has dealt a heavy blow to the trucking industry, which in Korea consist of ten thousand or so small businesses. But nobody has been able to adjust their fees accordingly, because of fierce competition. So the Cargo Union wants the current administration to introduce comprehensive guidelines for trucking fees. A lot of onlookers, however, have reservations about the Cargo Union's threats of strike at this critical juncture. Besides the fact that the Cargo Union's agenda are only remotely related to the ones that most of us are currently concerned about, their past strikes had caused huge inconvenience every time. Many people are also convinced that the Cargo Union is only trying to be selfish. We can only hope that the strike does not interfere with or dilute the meaning of the candlelight protests of ordinary citizens. But only time will tell. Who knows if the two forces will create some sort of unexpected synergy?

President Lee Myung-Bak (a.k.a 2MB) has announced, in response to yesterday's massive protests, that he would "restart" his government. As all his aides and members of the cabinet have already expressed their willingness to resign, change of personnel is likely to be one of the things he has in mind. But he said nothing new about the particular policies against which the People are protesting, so most People are going to wait before welcoming the President's move. Besides, our concern has been about the "bulldozer" personality of the President himself as much as it has been about his ideology and policies. We simply don't trust someone who is all to ready to build a wall of steel between himself and his People. We want to ensure that our government listens to us, so that we don't have to repeat something like this. Netizens have been satirizing that the reason 2MB cannot listen to his People's voices is that he only has 2MB of memory (which is only compatible with the dictatorship of the 80's), whereas it takes at least 2GB to run a remotely democratic system. Will a "system restart" help President Lee out of the trouble he's got himself into? Will he be able to upgrade his memory during the reboot? We all know that the current administration has close ties with Samsung Corporation, a well-known manufacturer of computer parts and electronics. Perhaps the President can ask Samsung to donate a couple of sticks of RAM.

The fantastic members of Daum Agora are still debating who was behind yesterday's sabotage attempts. The police seems totally unwilling to carry out an official investigation -- actually, they're saying that the grease on the barricade was the police chief's own scheme for making the barricade too slippery to climb -- so it is the job of keen netizens to work through the thousands of photographs they had taken with their own digital cameras. (Everyone had agreed to use maximum quality settings, to help with investigation in case the need arose.) Meanwhile, a split has begun to emerge, between those who support the Agorians' emphasis on peace and order, and those who support the activists' desire to risk violence. In yesterday's Styrofoam Debate (see article below), the Agorians had won; and we are thankful for that fact. But we cannot afford divisions amongst ourselves. Activists and ordinary citizens must remain in the same boat. This is a time to unite against the formidable political and economic forces of 2MB's government.

A Note on Numbers

The police has announced that there were only 70,000-80,000 protesters in downtown Seoul yesterday. NGO's that have been organizing the events, on the other hand, report a figure of 600,000-700,000, and one million nationwide. Which side should we believe?

It is not too difficult to see that both sides have good reasons to be biased. The police is a part of Lee Myung-Bak's government, so it has a vested interest in underreporting the number of protesters. The government obviously doesn't want to give the impression that so many people are protesting against it. The NGO's, on the other hand, have a vested interest in exaggerating the number of protesters, as they need to show the world that so many people have given them support. Which side should we believe, then?

Foreign media are usually taking the police's report at face value, whereas Korean news channels are coming up with an arbitrary number between the two extremes -- usually between 200,000 and 400,000 for Seoul. Some have even tried to have computers count the candlelights on high-quality photographs, and came up with approximately 250,000 bright pixels in downtown Seoul. This method, however, has its limits because (1) many people went without candles, and (2) there is no guarantee that the photographs used represent all the streets that the People filled and overflowed.

In some sense, numbers don't really matter. By any estimate, there were a lot of people out there in the evening of June 10 -- the largest protest since 1987. By contrast, the pro-government demonstration on the same day commanded only a few thousand followers, most of whom were members of the specific groups represented there. Even a pro-government newspaper (Chosun Ilbo) reports that only 17% of Koreans support President Lee. It is clear what the majority of the People are saying. There may be times when a government needs to go against public opinion, but now is not one of those times. In any event, Lee Myung-Bak should have tried the best he could to influence public opinion, rather than disregard it altogether and build a wall against it.

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