Issues in Depth: U.S. Beef Imports, Part Two 2008-09-19 03:59
In the evening of May 2, 2008, a group of high school students gathered in Cheonggyecheon Plaza in downtown Seoul. Each of them held a small candle, housed in a paper cup. Their message to the grown-ups was simple and straightforward: "Renegotiate the beef deal with the United States."
The candlelight vigil of May 2. High school students were the first to come, but thousands of others quickly joined the vigil. Nightly protests continued from then until well into August.
Four days later, on May 6, leaders of several dozen domestic NGO's decided that they, too, wanted the government to reconsider the beef deal of April 18, which permitted virtually all U.S. beef to be imported regardless of age or part. These activists showed up in Cheonggyecheon Plaza, presented themselves as the "Coalition against Mad-Cow Disease", and they... sort of... hijacked the demonstrations from then on. ("Hijacked", for lack of a better description...)
It wasn't necessarily a bad thing that the NGO's took over. Over the next five weeks, the organizing ability offered by these professionals helped turn the teenagers' candlelight vigils into a spectacle that nobody had imagined before: on June 10, nearly one million protesters filling the streets of Seoul! But then, the styrofoam debate in the aftermath of that titanic demonstration caused a number of onlookers to cast doubt upon the capacity of the Coalition to properly represent the masses; some of its members seemed all too willing to impose their own agenda upon the crowd. Nonetheless, the Coalition continued to assume responsibility for organizing nightly demonstrations for another three weeks, until its leaders were either arrested or forced to hide from the police.
Religious groups then took over. Catholics, Protestants, and Buddhists led a series of demonstrations in early July, healing the internal strife that had begun to emerge, and restoring peace. Later, the Coalition made a comeback under new leaders; but especially since the brutal crackdown of August 15, its influence has been much diminished. Nowadays, various community-based groups are in charge of organizing smaller, sporadic, and somewhat unpredictable protests and other events with at most several thousand participants. In some sense, after almost five months of trial and error, we are back where we started: grassroots movement led by ordinary citizens.
Indeed, few of us have forgotten to whom we owe the beginning of last summer's rollercoaster protests. Despite all that followed, it was teenagers who inspired the rest of us to rise up against our government. Not college students (who used to organize anti-dictatorship protests in the 80's), nor labor unions (some of which have become very prominent since the 90's), nor any particular group of professional activists... but 16-, 17-, and 18-year-old boys and girls who were supposed to be studying 16, 17, or 18 hours a day for their college entrance exams!
Why teenagers?
Perhaps the kids were encouraged by left-wing schoolteachers (such as those belonging to the Teacher's Union) to oppose the conservative government. Perhaps the left-wing Democratic Party (not to be confused with its American namesake) was also involved in this plot. Perhaps all of this is part of North Korea's tireless attempts to spread socialism in the South. Or maybe the kids also saw MBC's controversial TV program about BSE and thought that they were all going to die. Or what if they just wanted to get away from the suffocating routine of purpose-driven life (where the "purpose" is nothing other than going to college). All of these scenarios have been advanced either by the government itself or by pro-government groups such as the New Right Coalition, and some of them sound closer to the truth than others.
But how often have you succeeded in enticing the average high school kid to rise up in support of your own ideology and/or political interests? Perhaps you could make them write papers in support of your position, in return for better grades or larger allowances. But try mobilizing them by the thousands to do something as dangerous as protesting against Lee Myung-Bak's policy... Now, that's a much more difficult proposition.
Conspiracy theories like the above (e.g. "Socialists are using high school students in order to gain power, and North Korean spies are helping them too") are only interesting to enemies of the alleged conspirators. For the rest of us, a much simpler answer is available, one which is much more reasonable.
We just couldn't take it anymore!
This article picks up where I left off in Part One. There I said that the U.S. beef controversy in Korea actually has little to do with U.S. beef itself. I'll say it again: the first candlelight vigil on May 2 represented not so much the beginning of a minor-controversy-blown-up-by-socialists as the result of a great frustration with Lee Myung-Bak's government.
When I started writing this post, I thought I would list several policies that were advanced by Lee's government before and during the U.S. beef controversy erupted, followed by some sort of analysis as to how they're all related to the issue at hand. Four things immediately come to mind: (1) the Grand Canal, (2) English education, (3) privatization of the national health insurance program, and (4) sale of key public corporations to private (often foreign) entities.
The Grand Canal (left), one of President Lee's most ambitious projects. The 340-mile waterway is supposed to help the shipping industry save time and money, but notice all those bodies of water surrounding the Korean Peninsula! You could arrive earlier by sailing around the Peninsula instead of waiting at each lock gate along the Canal... Also see the road map of South Korea (right), where blue lines represent expressways, many of which were constructed in the last couple of decades. Do we seriously need to spend $10 billion for another mode of transportation with dubious utility? Oh yes, Hyundai Engineering and Construction Company, where President Lee was CEO for 16 years, was supposed to take care of a large chunk of the Grand Canal if it were to become real.
Incheon International Airport, the largest airport in South Korea, the world's 5th busiest airport by cargo traffic, the world's 11th busiest airport by passenger traffic, and the "world's best airport" according to Airports Council International. The publicly owned airport is also making a neat profit for the government; however, the government is planning to sell a large part of it to foreign investors. Some people suspect that President Lee's nephew and a few other associates will profit from the sale. (See this article; it's in Korean.)
But then, I decided against chattering endlessly about these complicated issues. Instead, I'll refer you once again to Jay Kim's video, where he explains how crazy some of President Lee's flagship policies are and how easily one can track those policies to the monetary gain of Lee's associates.
Fortunately, all of the aforementioned policies have been either scrapped, postponed, or scaled down due to overwhelming unpopularity. But of course, as Lee himself clearly stated in his "apology" on June 19, all of those cancellations and postponements are conditional upon "public opinion being opposed to them." Who decides if public opinion is opposed to a policy or not?
There has also been a shuffling of words: "privatization" became "advancement", and "Grand Canal" became "waterway improvement project" or something of the sort. As far as I'm aware of, few of those policies have really been canceled; Lee's government is under enormous pressure both from Big Business and from its own members/supporters to advance the latter groups' interests in the name of public policy.
And the issue of U.S. beef was no different. Only this time, the government messed with something very close to the ordinary citizens' home: food.
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