Okay, we’re all fed up with bad news about the economy, so I won’t say anymore about it. Just in case you’re really really interested in how the economy is looking in Korea right now, here’s a nice article from The New York Times. “Lehman Brothers screwed Americans; Lee-Man Brothers (Lee Myung-Bak + Kang Man-Soo) are screwing Koreans!”

Back to the real stuff. As I reported in “Amnesty International Reports on Korea” and “Human Rights NGO’s Are Getting Angry“, international human rights watchdogs have been scrutinizing our situation very closely. Amnesty International, which has been investigating police violence in Korea since June, finally published its comprehensive report on October 6. The full text of AI’s 50-page report can be found here. If you are at all interested in what’s been happening in Korea, I strongly recommend that you check out this detailed report. It confirms as fact many episodes of police violence which the Korean government has been all too willing to dismiss as unfounded rumour; it contains lots of photographs and interviews to back up its findings; and last but not least, it outlines AI’s own suggestions for curbing police violence. (For example, riot police should be readily identifiable either by name or ID number, so that legal action can be taken against them in the case of a mishap.) If only the National Police Agency would listen to a fraction of these suggestions!

Above: Cover page of Amnesty International’s most recent report on Korea.

Not only Amnesty International but other international organizations, such as the Asian Human Rights Commission, have repeatedly warned against Korean government policies aimed at suppressing dissent. Well, you don’t even need to look overseas in order to obtain authoritative reports about how badly the Korean government has been behaving. Our very own National Human Rights Commission, which has a legal mandate to investigate violations of human rights in Korea, has also taken issue with the government’s use of violence against protesters. But of course, Lee Myung-Bak’s government doesn’t give a damn about these reports. According to the President’s Office, the NHRC’s report is “grossly biased”, and so are similar reports by international NGO’s. Even the U.N. Human Rights Council recently requested an official explanation for what has happened since last May, and the Korean government stubbornly insists that it is not at fault. The one and only wrong that the government admits to is the trampling of a young woman by policemen on May 31, which nobody can deny thanks to the existence of video footages such as this.

When it comes to government policies, not much has changed since summer when hundreds of thousands of us were out there protesting against all sorts of undemocratic measures. Demonstrations, however, have significantly subsided since late August. The last major clash between protesters and riot police took place in the evening of August 30. That night, one of Agora’s most prominent activists, a 48-year-old essay-writing teacher known in cyberspace by his nickname “Weary Window” (권태로운 창 gweontaeroun chang), was arrested while trying to stop the police from going after innocent bystanders. Since then, most protests against the government has had to assume rather atypical forms in order to escape prosecution.

On September 26, a group of people went to the top of several skyscrapers in downtown Seoul, where they threw fliers containing messages critical of the government.

Above: Fliers fall from downtown buildings. Whoever planned this “demonstration” had enough sense of humor to include the news corporation Chosun Ilbo — one of President Lee’s most devoted supporters — in their list of buildings to tackle.

Above: Pedestrians pick up the fliers. The police was not able to remove the message before thousands of evening commuters could grab and read them.

Above: The fliers of September 26 said, “WAKE UP, KOREA! Lee Myung-Bak, Be Gone!” and listed ten policies to which many people are strongly opposed. The fliers bore the name of “The National Council of Representatives for Democratic Citizens”, who professed their goal as “the flourishing of true democracy in, and the removal of Lee Myung-Bak from, our homeland”. So far as I’m aware of, the government has yet to identify who these “representatives” really are.

A few days afterward, on October 4, another cloud of fliers were sprayed from a tall building in Myungdong Shopping District. Though less spectacular than last time, this incident also served to raise awareness among the general public that the Free and Sovereign People of Korea are still alive and ready to fight. Back in the 70’s and 80’s, when it was often very difficult to openly criticize the dictatorship, dissidents would rely on fliers like these to convey their messages. It is a sad thing that this method should become necessary once again after all these years; but still, it is reassuring that some people are keeping up.

Above: Fliers snow down on Myungdong.

However, not all the flier-throwers were lucky enough to escape prosecution. On October 9, a man booked a room in Koreana Hotel, owned by and located in the same building as the aforementioned Chosun Ilbo. The man broke the window of his suite and unrolled a large banner from the opening, while at the same time throwing thousands of fliers toward the busy street below. However, due to high winds, he had much trouble keeping his banner in place. The message was supposed to be critical of Chosun Ilbo’s unabashed support of the oppressive government, but not many people could read it on time.

Shortly afterward, police arrived at the scene. The “vandal” was promptly arrested, and the fliers he threw were collected and disposed of.

Above: Fliers in the dustbin, watched over by police officers.

On a smaller scale, however, peaceful protests haven’t ceased at all. Every weekend throughout September and October, and sometimes even on weekdays, small groups of citizens continued to gather in Cheonggyecheon Plaza with candles in their hands. That’s the same place where high-school students held their very first candlelight vigil on May 2, before the oft-criticized NGO’s took over and moved to the larger Seoul Plaza. It is truly refreshing to find ordinary citizens with little candles again in this cozy little square. Yes, we’re back where we started. As somebody in Agora proclaimed, this is “Candlelight Season Two”.

Not only in Seoul but also in almost every major city across the country, local groups staged surprise demonstrations, handing out fliers and informing their fellow citizens about the impacts that Lee Myung-Bak’s policies would have on their all-too-ordinary lives.

Above: Small demonstration in Cheonggyecheon Plaza, October 11.

Where demonstrations were not feasible, small groups — sometimes on their own, but often in cooperation with like-minded groups found on the internet — produced posters and displayed them on sidewalks. According to the organizers (who usually post on Daum Agora about their activities), this method is particularly effective in raising awareness among college students and senior citizens: two groups that, in Korea, often have an aversion to out-and-out demonstrations.

Above: Posters on display in Gwangju, October 18.

But of course, the government knows this, too. Poster-displayers in the Gangbuk district of Seoul found several plain-clothed police officers lurking around in the corner:

Above: Police officers gathered in a corner, October 8~9.

According to members of the local group that organized the presentation that day, officers would constantly nag at them, refusing to identify themselves but threatening to arrest the poster-displayers for obscure crimes. Fortunately, members of the local group had enough knowledge of law (thanks to Daum Agora!) to disregard these empty threats; but the problem, of course, is that those in power often bend the law whenever it is convenient for them to do so.

Still, we have some good news. Several citizens who were arrested during demonstrations, including “Weary Window” who had been dearly missed by many, were released in mid-October after a forthright judge found no reason to keep them imprisoned. Many others who were fined for participating in allegedly illegal assemblies were also cleared of all charges. Best of all, the Law on Assembly and Demonstration, which Lee’s administration has been using as an excuse to suppress all anti-government demonstrations, is now under review by the Constitutional Court at the request of a conscientious district judge. If that law were to be declared unconstitutional, Lee Myung-Bak and his police forces are going to have a lot of problem! Unlike the legislature which is totally controlled by Lee’s Hannara Party, the judiciary in Korea still seems to enjoy a fair amount of independence.

This trend had better continue, because the government is cooking up all sorts of ridiculous laws to discourage protesting. If President Lee has his way, it will soon be illegal to cover one’s face during a demonstration. Why? Because the police wants to photograph everyone and arrest them at home afterwards! Also, the fine for participating in “illegal” demonstrations could soon become as high as 20 million won ($20,000); and in order to make the penalty even heavier, Hannara party is considering a bill that would allow local businesses to file a class-action lawsuit against citizens whose demonstrations have a negative impact on sales. Oh, and to top it off, the City of Seoul is going to designate a few parks away from downtown as “demonstration zones”. Basically, if you demonstrate there, the police will leave you alone; but of course, nobody ever goes there except to demonstrate, so you voice will never be heard. A clever proposal! But too bad for them, we know better than to take that bait.

In the meantime, I hope you’ll enjoy this video. The title is “Most Beautiful Country”, and it’s a collection of photographs from last summer’s demonstrations. It’s so beautiful… and at the same time, so sad.

The music is by Dain Family, a group of volunteers who had served food and drink to weary demonstrators throughout the summer. Since the end of large outdoor demonstrations, Dain Family has been helping local groups raise awareness, in their communities, of the injustices committed by Lee’s government.

The U.S. beef controversy that heated our nation last summer is now all but over. Beef imported from the Land of Cowboys is selling like crazy everywhere in Korea, so much so that the government now feels comfortable enough to consider importing Canadian beef, too. (Three mad cows were found in the U.S.; fourteen were found in Canada.) But really? Have the Korean People finally “realized that they had been fed false information about the so-called danger of U.S. beef, and chose not to be fooled again”, as the government would like us to believe? Or is there something more to the story, which the government is trying to prevent us from talking about?

And why is it still so difficult to find meat shops and restaurants advertising U.S. beef, if it’s so cheap and tasty and — most importantly — totally safe?

As I wrote in earlier articles in this series, my view of the matter is that the U.S. beef controversy and three months of bloody protests that followed actually had more to do with the government’s handling of the issue than with the safety (or lack thereof) of U.S. beef itself. The way in which our government dealt with this controversial issue helped people discover the dark side of his “bulldozer” leadership. He wouldn’t allow anyone to stand in his way. He wouldn’t let other people question his priorities. He would have the country all for himself and for his supporters, as if anyone who disagreed were not a member of his corporati… er, Republic.

And the way Lee’s administration dealt with the TV show PD Notebook (or PD Diary according to some translations) was one of the earliest signs of things to come. Oh, and this also had something to do with the issue of U.S. beef.

Above: PD Notebook, MBC (channel 11), every Tuesday at 11:05 p.m.

MBC is a somewhat left-leaning network. Since President Lee and his Hannara Party call themselves right-wing, MBC is usually the first TV/radio station to report on anything that might be unpalatable to the government. MBC is also the second-largest network in Korea and receives no subsidies from the government, which explains why it’s difficult for the government to control it one way or another. On April 29, 2008, PD Notebook — MBC’s flagship investigative news show — talked about the issue of U.S. beef, which was just beginning to get controversial. (The agreement to permit the unrestricted import of U.S. beef had been signed just 11 days earlier.) PD Notebook focused on the possibility of contracting vCJD from eating U.S. beef; and the information it conveyed was probably the most important reason why our teenagers held their first candlelight protest barely three days afterwards.

As we all know, this protest and the ones that followed were very unpalatable to President Lee Myung-Bak, who had just returned from his first-ever meeting with George W. Bush. As the oppression of outdoor demonstrations intensified, PD Notebook was also blamed — not only by government officials but also by pro-government newspapers such as Chosun Ilbo and Joong-Ang Ilbo — for making people concerned about U.S. beef imports. The fact that the producers of PD Notebook were somewhat careless in putting their report together gave the government and its supporters ample opportunity to criticize the whole program.

If you believe what Chosun Ilbo says in its reports (see links 1/2/3/4), the PD Notebook broadcast was a total lie, designed from the very beginning to incite the public into rising up against the government. On the other hand, if you believe what some people have been saying in defense of PD Notebook, MBC and the producers were absolutely faultless. Which side should we believe?

The PD Notebook controversy has since grown into an even more serious controversy over the government’s alleged attempts to gain total control over the nation’s TV stations. Since July, two of Korea’s four national networks (KBS and YTN) have had their CEO’s replaced by men hand-picked by the President’s Office. The third (SBS) has always been supportive of Lee Myung-Bak, so that leaves only MBC in the other side of the political division. Given these circumstances, many people consider the PD Notebook controversy from June to August to have been Lee’s first attempt to make sure that MBC understands who is boss.

In my treatment of the issue, however, I will only talk about the content of what PD Notebook said on April 29 and in some of its follow-ups in May and June. Government control of the media is another big topic that deserves a separate treatment.

To be continued in Part Two…

Above: President Lee visits Korea Food and Drug Administration to discuss the melamine contamination. He was later criticized for not taking the outbreak seriously enough. Reportedly, he asked why melamine was not listed as one of the ingredients on this box of snack. Does he even know that the problem has to do with Chinese dairy, which is listed? Or was he simply too tired after his recent visit to Russia?

Kim Chang-Joon (also known as Jay C. Kim; not to be confused with the person who made the videos linked in this website’s “Downloads” section), a Korean-American politician who was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1993 to 1999, made a remark about his homeland a couple of days ago. According to Mr. Kim, the absence of protests against Chinese baby milk is evidence that last summer’s protests against U.S. beef was nothing more than a product of rampant anti-Americanism.

Jeon Yeo-Ok, a devoted member of President Lee’s Hannara Party, quickly came up with another reason why we’re not protesting. According to Ms. Jeon, the Korean People are now well aware of the fact that their past concerns about U.S. beef were totally unfounded. Having realized that they had been fooled, Koreans, says Ms. Jeon, refuse to be fooled once again into a frenzy.

Was that it? Does our response to the Chinese baby milk scandal prove anything about last summer’s U.S. beef controversy, which hasn’t quite ended yet? If that were so, President Lee’s supporters would be very happy. As I’ve noted in Issues in Depth: U.S. Beef Imports, Part Three, some pro-government newspapers had even contradicted their own past reports in order to “prove” that U.S. beef carried zero risk of BSE!

Too bad, they just shot themselves in the foot.

Professor Jin Joong-Kwon, a well-known critic of the government who has obtained the status akin to that of a pop star since the protests began in May, responded yesterday to Mr. Kim and Ms. Jeon by listing the following as “conditions under which the Chinese baby milk scandal could become like the U.S. beef controversy”:

(1) The Chinese government threatens South Korea not to stop importing Chinese dairy products;
(2) President Lee accepts that request;
(3) The Korean government agrees to keep importing Chinese dairy products even if more deaths follow;
(4) The Korean government runs ads in every major newspaper, saying Chinese dairy products are safe;

and so on.

So according to Prof. Jin, the reason the Chinese baby milk scandal hasn’t made us take to the streets with candles in our hands is simply because, fortunately, none of the conditions above has been met. In other words, our government is currently doing a pretty good job keeping melamine-contaminated products off the shelves — notwithstanding President Lee’s stupid remark about labels, noted above.

And this actually makes a lot of sense. It’s not as if we make a living out of protesting. (Only a few of us do, and they’re called “professional activists”.) Especially when there is a very high chance of getting arrested and/or beaten up simply because we say something the government doesn’t like to hear, we don’t take to the streets for no particular reason. Those candlesticks cost money, too! When things are going reasonably well, we mind our own business. That’s what citizens of a modern industrialized nation are like.

But perhaps, President Lee’s supporters would like to paint us as something different. Maybe they think of us as a monstrous enemy who would rise up against them at every single opportunity. Too bad, these folks can’t even appreciate it when we silently tell them that they’re doing a decent job this time.

Around 2:00 a.m. on Tuesday, September 9, three members of an anti-government group were brutally stabbed by a man with whom they had just had an argument over the issue of U.S. beef. One of the victims, known in the discussion site Daum Agora by his nickname “Gentleman”, was stabbed in the back of his neck and again in his forehead. He underwent a major surgery and did not regain his conscience until seven days later. The other two also suffered serious injuries.

Above: The scene of the crime, shortly after the attack.

According to the police, the attacker was drunk. Which, of course, is supposed to mean that he committed his crime only in response to some provocation (i.e. his quarrel with the victims over the safety of U.S. beef). This scenario eliminates the possibility of charging him for (attempted) premeditated murder. However, according to eyewitness accounts, the attacker was not drunk at all. In addition, he seemed to have approached his victims with a clear purpose when he picked up a quarrel with them, quickly identifying the three most important faces among the two hundred or so protesters who were at the scene. (All three victims had played significant roles in organizing the group’s recent demonstrations.)

In addition, a lot of people agree that it is very unlikely for a drunk person to successfully attack three able-bodied men with such precision — stabbing two of them in the neck, and sticking his second knife squarely in the forehead of the third. Even a sober man would have had much difficulty achieving such a feat. Could an ordinary restaurant owner — for that is what the police says he is — do that? Did his cooking skills help him do that? Where did he learn to cook, Shaolin Monastery? Now, whose account is more realistic?

Above: The scene of the crime, a few days afterwards. Several posters have been placed on the ground, protesting against the outrageous attack which many of us now believe was as an act of terrorism conceived with the goal of discouraging anti-government protesters.

Dozens of police officers were stationed in the area, because the incident took place in Jogyesa — the Buddhist temple where several leaders of left-wing NGO’s are hiding — where the three victims had been staging an all-night protest against their persecution. But none of the police officers seems to have stopped the aggressor when he entered the temple brandishing a pair of knives; and even after the attack, the stabber was put under arrest after having fled, on foot, over three hundred feet from the scene of the crime.

Eyewitnesses claim that the police tried to remove everything from the scene without investigating it. A police line was installed only when dozens of other citizens, who had been demonstrating together with the victims, strongly protested against the police’s negligent behavior. Thanks to their efforts, the scene was preserved. But it was no use; after taking the attacker into custody, the police quickly wrapped up its “investigation”. It is now officially known as nothing more than a mindless act of yet another drunk man — the same kind of tragedy that takes place every night in the city.

Above: Weapons recovered from the scene of the crime. One of the knives got stuck in its victim’s forehead, and it took surgeons several hours to remove it.

Above: X-ray photograph of one of the victims, “Gentleman”, taken immediately after he was taken to the hospital. The photograph clearly shows the blade penetrating his forehead. The image was released by the victim’s friends several days after the attack. Thankfully, “Gentleman” has regained his conscience now; however, the side-effects of his major surgery could be staggering.

Furthermore, few of the nation’s major news channels — many of which are either pro-government or else under enormous pressure from the authorities — have reported the incident in any detail. Concerned eyewitnesses posted their own accounts on the Internet (such as this one), but these posts were quickly censored. (On Daum Agora, when a post gets censored, a message is shown notifying the user that the author himself had chosen to delete the post in question. Of course, this is a lie more often than not.)

All of this, even as a second man, suspected of having planned the attack, roams free!

When the following post appeared on the website of New Right Coalition — a group of President Lee’s most devoted supporters — on June 30, few people paid attention to it. Most readers probably took it as nothing more than a hoax. It reads: “Let’s murder candlelight protesters with me, in the middle of Seoul! Any weapon would do: Japanese swords, knives, stones, lumps of metal, steel pipes, or wooden bars… Send me a note if you’d like to join me in my plans… The only way to stop protests is to murder some of them, so that they’ll be too scared to protest anymore… I’ll follow up with more details, including the date and time of the planned murder…” And the author, Kang In-Han, even includes his bank account number (which probably led a lot of readers to believe that his writing was a hoax).

Well, it doesn’t seem to have been a hoax. Internet-savvy folks soon discovered that the same person, Kang In-Han, had written repeatedly on the same topic. Whenever something bad happened to anti-government demonstrators (such as when some of them got hit by a car in late July), he praised whoever was responsible for the deed. Also, in some of his other posts, he calls himself a “Professor”. According to eyewitnesses, there was a “Professor” at the scene of the attack on September 9; this person had quietly disappeared shortly after the attack. Combined with the extraordinary knife-wielding skill demonstrated by the attacker, these circumstances have led a significant number of people to suspect that the attack was carefully planned.

Of course, these pieces of “evidence” are rather too weak to result in a conviction. The “Professor” at the scene could have been another person, perhaps a real university professor; and nobody has proof that the attack on September 9 was carefully planned — especially as the police is unwilling to repoen the case that it has so quickly decided to have been a random act of violence. Meanwhile, the government is known to have placed ordinary housewives under investigation simply for saying “I wish someone could kill the President”. The charge? “Attempted murder of the head of state”. (When the case was publicized on the Internet, the police quickly dropped the investigation and let the poor woman go home.) Now, if the government cares so much about safety and security to care about every nasty joke on the Internet, why does it not even notice Kang’s foul-smelling plans? Oh yes, the attacker confessed that he just got angry and came back with two knives. But should anyone seriously believe the words of a criminal?

Maybe it’s not a crime to attack people who disagree with the government?

As we’ve seen, the Korean People were very concerned about this unexpected change of policy. Opposition began to grow, and on May 2, as I described in Part Two, candlelight protests began. Then, shortly afterwards, the following advertisements appeared on the first page of every daily newspaper:

Above: 350 million cows were slaughtered in the U.S. in the last decade, but there was no BSE! The beef we’re about to import is enjoyed by 300 million Americans, 2.5 million Korean-Americans, and people from 96 countries. No cow born in the U.S. after 1997 has ever been diagnosed with BSE. As well, we will properly quarantine all imported beef. BSE cannot and will not enter Korea. Your government will take care of your health! (The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Fisheries, and Food & The Ministry of Health, Welfare, and Family Affairs)

Above: We’re importing the same beef as what American citizens eat! The beef we’re about to import is enjoyed by 300 million Americans… (The rest is the same as above.)

So… this is how the Korean government “responded” to the People’s concern that the virtually unconditional opening of the domestic market to U.S. beef would allow beef tainted with BSE to cross the border. All except two or three of the 96 countries mentioned above have more stringent regulations than what the Korean government announced on April 18; and yet, the government was proud of it!

The ads were just the beginning. The government even printed and distributed cartoons where the main characters claim that U.S. beef is absolutely safe, and that any allegation to the contrary is baseless.

And there’s even more than newspaper ads and silly cartoons. Video clips were made, too. And according to an official report that was released at a later date, the publication and distribution of these ads, cartoons, and video clips cost the government over $4.5 million. That’s $4.5 million of taxpayers’ money spent on advertising a particular product from a particular country!

Imagine seeing the following ad on the first page of every American daily newspaper. How would you react upon learning that your government is spending millions of dollars of your bloody tax to make a particular product more palatable to you — and in particular, to encourage you to purchase imported goods? (The following fake ad probably states the truth, but in circumstances such as the one described just now, would you even care whether the ad told the true or not?)

Above: Imagine the U.S. government advertising for Toyota…

Now, even more important than the waste of tax money is the commonsense principle that a government is supposed to remain neutral between different products on the market, as long as no particular product poses a threat to public health and/or security. It’s the job of manufacturers/producers to convince consumers to buy their merchandise. That’s a very elementary principle which forms the backbone of any capitalist democracy!

When such a simple and simple principle gets broken — and even more, when the government acts as if it’s proud of having broken it — one is obliged to ask what kind of connection there could be between the government and the manufacturer/producer in question. Something must be going on behind the scenes. This is where we really need to be suspicious of a conspiracy, or at the very least, a deliberately arranged convergence of interest. (Yeah, I said in Part Two that I don’t like conspiracy theories. Give me a more reasonable explanation for the above, and I’ll gladly take it. But for now, it seems that some sort of convergence of interest is the most likely explanation for what’s happening!)

Well, we know that the President of the U.S. National Cattlemen’s Beef Association was invited to President Lee’s inauguration ceremony in February. What’s that cowboy doing halfway across the world from his ranch?

We also know that Lee wants the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement to be put into effect as soon as possible, even if it means sacrificing public health. Lee himself said that on June 19, but we didn’t need him to say so; we knew it from the beginning.

Lee seems to believe that the FTA will help “normalize” Korea’s relationship with the U.S., which he (and many of his supporters) thinks had gone sour during the left-wing rule from Feb. 1998 to Feb. 2008. Being a hardcore conservative, Lee thinks he absolutely must fix this “socialist problem”.

But the FTA requires Korea to irreversibly privatize a number of public corporations. And as Jay Kim says in his magnificent video — and as I noted in Part Two — Lee’s relatives and associates are drooling over those privatizations.

And we all know that both ideological commitment and expectation of profit are excellent motivations for people who have money and/or power to do something wrong.

Well, in fact, there’s a name for this kind of politics: interest group politics. We’re all familiar with it. Things are even messier in the U.S., where everyone from Esso to NRA to Greenpeace try to make Congress pass certain laws. As citizens of modern capitalist democracies, we’ve all given up — at least to some degree — hope of ever getting rid of this intimate relationship, between government on the one hand, and business and ideology on the other hand. Perhaps this kind of relationship is even necessary for modern societies to function properly. But of course, even if we can live with it, there’s got to be a line that should not be crossed. By early May when the ads shown above first appeared in daily newspapers, we’d had enough of Lee’s unabashed official support for those whom he liked.

What was even more, the information on the ads was clearly misleading!

A few days after the government’s ads appeared, members of an Internet community called SoulDresser pooled money to run similar-looking ads on a couple of left-wing newspapers. In a clever parody of the original ads, the first ad read:

Above: We’re not importing the same beef as what American citizens eat! The beef we’re about to import is shunned by 300 million Americans, 2.5 million Korean-Americans, and people from 96 countries. (1) Even USDA Standard, the lowest grade of beef that an ordinary consumer will buy in the U.S., must be from cows less than 30 months old. (2) American consumers are well aware of the dangers involved in Advanced Meat Recovery, and even OIE recommends against its trade. (3) Beef tainted with BSE cannot be sanitized; and theoretically, 0.001g of it can kill you. Renegotiate the beef deal!

The graph on the left compares Japan’s policy on U.S. beef (green: only allow cattle less than 20 months of age); the Korean government’s previous policy (blue: less than 30 months of age, no bones or intestines); and the current administration’s policy (red: allow pretty much everything). In early May when this ad appeared, even skulls and brains were allowed; later, in mid-June, American exporters agreed to suspend trading such parts “until there is market demand in Korea”.

Another ad from SoulDresser followed:

Above: Put public health first! Renegotiate the beef deal! The government and the media are being even less trustworthy than U.S. beef producers… You say you’ll stop importing U.S. beef if BSE is found in the U.S., but it will be too late then. Implement proper regulations now… Stop spending tax money in an attempt to convince the People of falsity… We want regulations like what Japan has in place… What about scientific evidence that was published in 2007 in none other than pro-government newspapers? etc. etc.

What scientific evidence? Well, look what some of our nation’s “most trustworthy” newspapers used to say regarding the danger of BSE (or lack thereof):

Above: Chosun Ilbo, April 22, 2002, p. 1. “Koreans are believed to be at a higher risk of contracting BSE, because our traditional recipes sometimes call for cattle brain, spinal cord, intestines, liver, and even raw beef… Also, studies show that our genetic makeup might make us even more vulnerable to nvCJD (new variant CJD, caused by beef infected with BSE)…”

For your information, Chosun Ilbo changed its position immediately after April 18 of this year. Now it claims — in accordance with the government’s official position — that the BSE scare is totally unfounded. In particular, both the government and Chosun Ilbo now insist that the concern about our genetic makeup is absolutely ridiculous. Well, did science change since 2002? Let’s look at a more recent article from another well-respected national newspaper, Dong-A Ilbo:

Above: Dong-A Ilbo, March 23, 2007, p. 24. Left: “According to an article published in the October 2005 issue of Neurogenetics, every single victim of CJD were found to have the methionine-methionine combination as their 129th amino acid. Among Britons and Americans, around 40% have such a genetic makeup; but the ratio is much higher among Koreans…” (This last clause is not visible in the excerpt.) Right: “Even if you remove SRM, infectious prions can be found anywhere else in the carcass of an infected animal… A tiny amount present in cosmetics made with beef extract can cause disease after a long time… The immune system multiplies the prions so that they spread throughout the body.”

Hmm, at least according to what our national papers used to say, BSE is a very scary disease!

There’s a reason why I’m quoting Korean newspapers rinstead of scientific journals.

First, newspaper stories represent what the average citizen is expected to know about some scientific issue; and therefore, the excerpts above demonstrate that the average Korean, by April 2008, had a good reason to suspect that the danger of BSE was real. Simply and suddenly negating that bit of information — without any reference to sources at least as credible as the ones cited in previous stories — wouldn’t have helped at all to alleviate this concern.

Second, the fact that both Chosun Ilbo and Dong-A Ilbo now discredit almost everything they said about BSE in the past is a perfect example of the very close relationship between government and the media in South Korea. Many of our major newspapers will only report what the government likes them to report, and the same is becoming increasingly true of both the TV and the Internet. So much for freedom and democracy.

Oh, yes, and Korea Food and Drug Administration — by far the most reliable agency when it comes to questions of food safety — kept recommending, as late as June 27, against the use of American cattle spines and intestines in drugs and cosmetics. (See this news report, in Korean.) Real scientists hadn’t changed their mind, after all.

What does this all mean? The April 18 “change of policy” had no scientific basis at all. It was all about politics and economics, made without any regard to expert advice. The Korean government was lying, indeed, when it said that there was absolutely no danger of BSE.

Oh, and the part of the government’s ad where it says that there was no BSE among the 350 million cows slaughtered in the U.S. in the last decade is simply false. There have been three cases since 2003, and that’s the reason why Korea stopped importing U.S. beef in the first place! In addition, American cattle farmers used to import a large number of cows from Canada every year, where there have been 13 cases. There’s a very good reason why dozens of other countries, including our neighbor Japan, closely monitor and regulate the import of U.S. beef — and beef from other places, as well.

Of course, as I said above, there’s nothing new about politicians lying. As we all know, they lie and change their words all the time, for their own interest and for that of their supporters. Most of us, as a result, have a certain degree of reservation when taking a politician’s word. But as you can see from the examples above, around the time that the U.S. beef controversy arose in Korea, the lies and pretenses of our leaders were getting rather too transparent for the People to put up with.

So perhaps that’s why our teengers, naturally much less patient than the rest of us, revolted first. No matter how lazy, selfish, or undereducated they might be — for that matter, I don’t think any of us “grown-ups” are much better than them — they had this one magnificent quality: they hadn’t just given up, like so many of the rest of us. The books they read — and they’re supposed to read so much — told them that the Republic of Korea was a democracy; but every day around them — and around us, too — things were deteriorating at an alarming rate. Who would want to enter a society such as ours? Better fix it first, according to what little we know about how it’s supposed to be. As this picket, displayed by one of the teenagers, says:

Above: “I’m just doing what the textbooks told me to do!”

Oh yes, the government noticed what was happening, and it now says that the textbooks need to be replaced, “because they were written by socialists.” Seriously, if it is “socialist” to say that citizens of a democratic country have the right to demonstrate against policies they abhor, I’d rather be a “socialist.” In the mouth of a greedy politician, such labels are empty names anyway.

Finally, here’s my favorite excerpt from Dong-A Ilbo:

Above: Chosun Ilbo, December 29, 2003, p. 3. “We need to be able to trust the government. Even if beef is 99.99% safe, the government must ensure that the other 0.01% is being properly taken care of…”

Exactly what Lee Myung-Bak’s government has no intention of carrying out!

The next article in the “Issues in Depth” series will be about PD Notebook (or PD Diary), a TV program aired on April 29 that greatly raised awareness of BSE among the general public. The broadcasting station, MBC, paid dearly for airing the program; and producers of PD Notebook were demoted after MBC was forced to apologize for “misleading the public”. A lot of people believe that the government is blaming everything on PD Notebook, when the government itself is at least as much at fault.

Above: 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.

Above: 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.

Above: 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.

Click Here for Part Three!

And most of these “stories” get seriously oversimplified by the time they reach the printed (or broadcasted) media, not to mention the International section of a magazine on the other side of the world. The result? We get painted as a mindless mob, driven by insane fear. Our struggles become known as just another of those so many crazy things that happen in the world every day, somewhat amusing but barely understandable. “The Prince of Zaraquaqua attempted a coup this morning, but he was shot on his way to the bathroom…” Seriously, who cares.

But the important thing, as always, is why. Human beings don’t normally participate in anti-government rallies en masse, so there’s got to be a reason why this is happening in Korea. Why did a relatively minor issue, such as U.S. beef imports, trigger a massive series of anti-government protests in Korea? Is beef a sacred topic in Korea? (No, very few of us are Hindu.) Did anyone choke to death while eating a Big Mac? (Not that I can remember.) Is this just another episode of rampant anti-Americanism? (That could have been true 6 years ago, but less likely so now.) Or does the issue have more to do with our own government than with the U.S.?

Above: Inspected carcasses in a U.S. slaughterhouse. Source: Wikipedia.

Let’s go back a few months. On June 1 of this year, in my very first post, I described the issue of U.S. beef imports as that of (1) risk management and (2) public accountability — though I didn’t use those exact phrases. I don’t have much to add to that article, but let me repeat some of the things I said there, so that we all know how it began. So here comes the “background information”.

The first American case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE; a.k.a. mad-cow disease) was discovered in 2003. (Sorry, I’m not going to introduce that disease for you. Please do your own research; Wikipedia is your friend.) Since then, except during brief periods, the Republic of Korea had banned the import of U.S. beef. That was a perfectly sensible decision; who wants to buy beef from a country that can’t control a deadly bovine disease, especially when scientists believe that eating beef tainted with BSE can cause vCJD, a deadly human disease? Dozens of other countries banned the import of U.S. beef around the same time, only to loosen the prohibition gradually and cautiously. But the U.S. claimed to have sorted out the issue; and since 2006, the U.S. government has been trying very hard to get Korea (as well as other countries) to open up its market again. The U.S. government, of course, was under enormous pressure from its beef industry, which expected a revenue of at least $1 billion a year from beef sales in Korea. (In 2003, we purchased $850 million of U.S. beef, making us the world’s third largest importer of U.S. beef.)

However, until April 18, 2008, the possibility of reaching a trade agreement seemed all but illusive. In the summer and fall of 2007, the Korean government had permitted a small amount of U.S. beef to be imported; but American exporters had failed to meet the “no bones” condition, so the experimental permission was promptly revoked. After our change of government in February, the U.S. renewed its attempts to make us buy their beef. But we insisted on a few conditions, such as (1) a ban on the trade of any beef produced from cattle over 30 months of age (which are thought to carry a higher risk of BSE than younger cattle), and (2) the removal of all specified risk materials (such as the brain, spinal cord, and certain internal organs). The U.S. argued, on behalf of its beef industry, that such conditions were not acceptable, despite the fact that nearly 100 other countries including Japan and the EU have similar regulations in place. So the negotiations stalled — until April 18.

Lee Myung-Bak, the 66-year-old former businessman who became our President earlier this year, had his first meeting with U.S. President George W. Bush on April 19 in Camp David. The night before Lee’s helicopter ride, the Korean government dropped all of the aforementioned conditions, and imformed the U.S. Trade Representative that Korea would import all U.S. beef regardless of age or part. Of course, a short list of prohibited parts were attached, which American exporters apparently didn’t mind; but in any case, those minor conditions must have been considered insignificant by both parties. Without further ado, an agreement was signed. The next day, Lee and Bush were seen happily riding a golf cart together.

As you might expect, Korean consumers were taken by a total surprise. Less than 24 hours ago, our government and most of our news agencies had been telling us that the aforementioned conditions were strictly necessary in order to ensure the safety of our food. But now, less than 24 hours later, the same government was telling us that such conditions were completely unnecessary. And as far as we could tell, no scientist had made a new discovery, during those 24 hours, about the risk of BSE (or lack thereof) in the United States.

Even more confusing, some agencies within the government continued to say that some of the beef that were now permitted were dangerous to consume. (According to this news report, which is in Korean.) Who were we supposed to believe? As you might imagine, it was not at all unreasonable for us to suspect that our government’s sudden change of attitude was nothing more than Lee’s gift to Bush. And of course, an annual revenue of $1 billion is not a small gift at all. For your reference, trade between Korea and the U.S. currently amounts to approximately $80 billion a year. Beef would have represented more than 1% of it.

Above: A candlelight demonstration in May, where tens of thousands of citizens participated. The number of protesters eventually grew to nearly one million in mid-June. Since then, our number has declined steadily, due to violent suppression, negative publicity by the pro-government media, internal strife, the arrest of our leaders, and of course, pure exhaustion.

And the rest of the story is just as I described in my first post as well as all the posts that followed. Worried about food safety, concerned about the fact that a policy on such an important issue was reversed without any explanation, and angry that such a reversal was made for no apparent reason other than that the President wanted his meeting with Bush to be more pleasurable, hundreds of thousands of Korean citizens flooded the streets in protest.

At first, the government didn’t bother to respond at all, as if the officials simply couldn’t understand what the problem was. Then the government attempted to impose its position upon everyone, as will be discussed in more detail in Part Three. When we told the government to stop fooling us and do some real work, the latter responded with a violent crackdown upon us. When we didn’t stop protesting, the government managed to get American exporters to temporarily suspend exporting beef over 30 months of age and certain specified risk materials, as I reported in an earlier post. But then again, when we proved ourselves intelligent enough to see through this shallow trick, the government renewed its efforts in beating us up and arresting our leaders.

And now our government and the few who support it (about 25% according to a recent poll) are calling us criminals, traitors, liars, communists, and North Korean sympathizers. All of this, while U.S. beef is being imported and distributed freely and we have no way to reliably decide if any particular product contains U.S. beef. (See this post for a reason why it’s impossible for us to avoid or boycott U.S. beef even if we wanted to. The government is having a hard time getting merchants to properly label the origin of beef products.)

Above: Victims of police violence in late May and early June. For more records of brutality, please refer to “Democracy is Now Officially Dead in Korea” (June 29), “The Horror!” (June 29), “2MB’s Happy Day” (August 16), and “More Pictures” (August 23). You might also want to watch this YouTube video as well as other video clips that show up as related to that one.

There are several aspects to the ongoing controversy, including (obviously) the scientific facts about the safety (or lack thereof) of U.S. beef (or certain parts of it), the role played by the local media in bringing such information to the attention of the general public, and the way in which our government has handled these issues. The last point was the focus of my earlier post, summarized in the paragraph above.

This time, however, I would like to talk about the issue of U.S. beef imports from an angle that might seem slightly off-topic. That angle can be summarized in one word: trust. Or to be more precise, lack of trust.

No sane citizen trusts all of his or her politicians. But as a whole, citizens of a modern state tend to take their government’s word when the latter tells them that such-and-such is the case. However, in the months immediately preceding and during the early stage of the U.S. beef controversy, Lee Myung-Bak’s government had already lost that trust to a critical degree. As a result, no matter how hard the Korean government tried to convince its People (that is, us) that we should trust President Lee and his team of “experts” to work things out at the end of the day, few of us could trust them anymore. We had no choice but to take matters into our own hands. So we’ve been protesting, calling for change. In fact, we’ve been doing more than just protesting; I’ll take another opportunity in the near future to introduce you to some of the other things that ordinary Korean citizens have been doing to secure their sovereign rights in these difficult times.

To give a quick summary of what is to come in Parts Two and Three, my view is that the U.S. beef controversy in Korea actually has very little to do with U.S. beef. Therefore, all those headlines that say “Koreans still protesting against U.S. beef”, etc, actually say very little about the reality of our situation. Rather, I think there already was a critical mass of distrust and discontent between the Korean People and our government, waiting to explode at any moment.

In other words, the unexpected beef deal of April 18 only served as a trigger. Indeed, it was a very appropriate trigger. The way in which the issue of U.S. beef unfolded is representative of the way in which our government lost its People’s trust in several other issues as well. Let me put it, tentatively, as consisting of six stages:

(1) The government serves a very specific interest, or at least appears to do so;
(2) The government pretends to be serving everyone’s interests;
(3) The pretense, which was rather transparent to begin with, is uncovered;
(4) Dissent and opposition develops among the general public, leading to a messy state of affairs;
(5) The government blames a particular party for the mess, and that party gets persecuted; and
(6) Pretending as if there is no dissent any longer, the government carries on what it had been doing.

Okay, so much for now. More will follow in the posts to follow. (1) - (3) will be covered in Part Two; (4) is already well known; (5) will be the topic of my future article on PD Notebook; and the phenomenon described in (6) will have to wait a bit longer to manifest itself.

In the meantime, many of the things that I want to say in Part Two were already discussed by Jay Kim in his magnificent video. Please do watch that video; it’s worth your 25 minutes, although I won’t agree with Jay on every issue.

Disclaimer: That’s right, this series is going consist of more opinion than news. I’ve been trying not to talk too much about my own views, other than what is obvious from the fact that I’m running a blog like this. But this time I’m trying not only to report but also to analyze what’s going on, so I suppose I have no other choice. I’ll do my best not to get too biased, but please don’t take my word and feel free to consult other opinions if you’re really interested. The problem, of course, is that reliable sources in English are hard to come by…

Click Here for Part Two!

Demonstrators face the police.

The “815 Peace Action Group”, organized by members of Daum Agora, station themselves between the demonstrators and the police in an attempt to prevent violence. They hold a banner which read: “Mr. President, let’s talk!”

Another banner by the 815 Peace Action Group reads: “You can’t tame the People of Korea with violence. Stop the indiscriminate arrest and violence!”

Never mind the 815 Peace Action Group, the police began to fire their water cannons almost as soon as they arrived on site. The water was heavily dyed in blue, so that anyone who escaped the scene could be identified and arrested even after several hours. Read my August 16 post for more on what happened.

Our desire to take care of the matter peacefully… got stained all over in blue.

As the manhunt proceeds, volunteers try to care for the injured. According to some reports, the police was so intent on arresting everyone that they even arrested other policemen in plain clothes. The police are no longer being paid cash for arresting us, but instead they get gift certificates and opportunities for promotion.

More arrests. They were dragging us all over the streets!

This woman was exiting a coffee shop when she was splashed with a blue stream of water. She was instantly arrested, and the police claimed that the blue stain on her blouse was evidence that she had been demonstrating. Eyewitnesses testified otherwise, and human rights activists complained hard; but the police took her into custody anyway.

More signs of violence. The women in yellow raincoats (top) were trampled upon as the police advanced upon the demonstrators; the man (bottom) was surrounded by several policemen and repeatedly beaten.

A couple of days after the arrest spree of August 15, it was discovered that some policemen had ordered women to remove their brassieres upon detention. Often drenched all over in water and blue dye, the women were then detained where any men could see them. First reported by the Hankyoreh and widely publicized shortly afterwards, this incident caused a public outrage.

The police argued that (1) they had only been following procedures (the police has the right to confiscate certain personal items if such items are believed to be dangerous, and bras are supposed to be dangerous because somebody might use them to hang herself); and that (2) no harm was done because they didn’t forcibly remove the women’s bras (they ordered the women to remove their bras, and the women complied after much complaining). But these arguments only caused more outrage. The “procedure” in question was by no means carried out consistently; many dozens of women have been detained this summer for protesting against the government, but few of them had been ordered to take off any of their clothing. As for the second argument, it’s nothing more than a slightly different version of the rapist’s argument that his victim didn’t/couldn’t resist.

More likely than not, somebody is trying to use sexual harassment as a means to discourage women from participating in anti-government protests. And the “bra incident” was just the beginning. As concerned citizens began to dig deeper into the case, several police stations were found to have installed the women’s bathroom where anyone — not just the policewoman on duty — could see whoever was inside. At least one policeman told reporters that he had seen women taking showers there. Of course, this last problem is an architectural one, that must have existed for a long time. But then, it is rarely the case in Korea for jails in urban police stations to be so full of women — and in particular, well-educated women who can tell when their rights have been violated. It is in these troubled times that some officials reveal themselves to be the savages that they are.

Speaking of savages, here’s a video clip showing what the Korean police tends to do with demonstrators who disagree with the government too much. The pictures were taken in a number of occasions between 2000 and 2003 — long before President Lee came to power — at labor union strikes and farmers’ rallies. It was bad then, and it’s worse now. And of course, now the police gets money and praise for beating us up!

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6981286511461816014&ei=kdesSL6vMIi4wgPJ54w0&hl=en

You and I could disagree as to whether or not the labor unionists and farmers deserved to be treated harshly. The same may be said about today’s anti-government demonstrators. But most of the time, what you see is the police beating up unarmed demonstrators and defenseless detainees (unless that flag is considered a weapon!). Now, who’s the rioter? Who is a greater threat to public safety?

Long-time readers (thank you very much), on the other hand, may have been waiting for me to tie up some of the loose ends that I left hanging. I remember writing on numerous occasions that such and such a topic deserves a separate article, but I have rarely followed up with the promised article(s). Now I’m going to fill you in as best as I can.

Here’s a tentative list of issues I want to go over. I will dedicate at least one full article to each topic. Many of these issues are still in the middle of unfolding, so the order in which they are listed here isn’t necessarily the order in which they will be written on.

1. U.S. beef imports

On April 18, 2008, on the eve of President Lee’s first meeting with George W. Bush, the Korean government suddenly dropped all of its restrictions regarding the import of American beef. (Some of them have been put back temporarily in June.) This unexpected decision triggered a series of massive protests, as hundreds of thousands of ordinary Koreans got angry about the government’s blatant neglect of food safety. In particular, a lot of us have been concerned about the (in)adequacy of BSE controls in the U.S.

Questions: Did we have good reasons to suspect that U.S. cattle are susceptible to BSE (mad-cow disease)? Why did the government act as it did?

2. PD Notebook

MBC (Korea’s second largest TV station) has a program called “PD Notebook”, a hallmark of investigative journalism. In late April, PD Notebook talked about food safety practices in the U.S., and its reports greatly fueled our aforementioned fears over BSE. Since then, the government has taken issue with certain aspects of PD Notebook’s reports, calling them “distorted and exaggerated”. A highly targetted investigation followed, and MBC was forced to apologize for its “erroneous reports”. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of citizens have been protesting the government’s (allegedly one-sided) investigation.

Questions: What exactly did PD Notebook say? How much, if any, did they distort and exaggerate? If some of its reports were false, where do we — those millions of protesters incited by PD Notebook’s reports — stand now?

3. Death Theory

Regarded by some as the ultimate nemesis of Lee’s government and by others as nothing more than an urban legend, reporter Choi Yong-Geun’s assertion that a young woman was killed by the police during the demonstration of May 31 - June 1 has since become an extremely sensitive topic — especially as the government is trying very hard to censor it. The police is having a hard time coming up with a coherent account of what happened; news agencies are contradicting their own reports of the event in question; and the dearth of reliable photographic evidence only adds to the uncertainty. Meanwhile, dead bodies have been found, and…

Questions: Are there reasons to suspect that the death theory is more than just an urban legend? What has the government done to explain itself, and what has it done that keeps making reasonable citizens suspicious? In particular, what does the government’s attempts to censor all discussions of the death theory tell us about its attitude towards “inconvenient facts”?

Above: A newspaper ad introducing the death theory and asking eyewitnesses to come forth. The ad was supported by donations from concerned citizens, but the man who organized the effort was arrested afterwards. That’s right, we’re not even allowed to try to discover the truth.

4. Privatization

Clearance! 50% Off! Nearly every public corporation in Korea is now on sale, thanks to President Lee’s unyielding conviction that a government should be as small as it can be. That’s very conservative, thank you very much, but certainly there’s got to be a line that shouldn’t be crossed? Why is the government so intent, for example, on selling the world-renowned Incheon International Airport, which has been making a neat profit for quite some time? And what’s the deal with privatizing the health care system, when every other developed nation except the U.S. has the government take care of its citizens’ health? Of course, when these public amenities are sold to third parties, the government makes money. But where does that money go? Smell kleptocracy, anybody?

5. Government control of the media

Many of the major dailies are already quite pro-government, and now two of Korea’s four largest TV stations are having their CEO’s replaced with the President’s close friends. There is also compelling evidence that government personnel are being stationed right inside the datacenters of Korea’s largest Internet portals. Truth becomes what the government wants it to be. Without knowing what’s going on, how can we keep protesting?

6. Distortion of recent history

History books are being rewritten, praising the colonizers of early 20th century for their alleged contribution to Korea’s economic growth, and labelling as terrorists those who fought for our independence. Cold War ideology is being revived, and anything other than radical conservatism — or should we say, a brand of fascism? — is automatically equated with North Korea. Well, not so blatantly, but clearly enough that it’s unmistakable. To be sure, previous governments had also written history books to their liking; but this time it’s much worse than before. Which makes many of us wonder: what does the ruling group gain by trying to change the past?

7. Whatever else comes up next…

So please, stay tuned, check back every once in a while, and pray that our beloved country doesn’t go to the dogs…… or rather, to rats…… (Rat is a nickname of President Lee.)