Submitted by FungalDysentaryGothLLCLTD in chapotraphouse (edited )

6:44 AM - 2 Jun 2020

"The lesson from S Korea's protest movement is not that the protesters should not resort to violence, but understanding the conditions in which certain protests turn violent, and certain protests do not.

It's shallow and superficial to just look at the non-violent 2016 Candlelight Protests without looking at the numerous protests with lots of violence that preceded them from the 1960s all the way to 2015, punctuated by a massive slaughter in Gwangju 1980.

S Korea had two notable peaceful protests: June Struggle in 1987, and the Candlelight Protests from 2016-17. They receive the most attention because they were the final blow to the authoritarians, but one must remember the smaller and more violent protests that led up to them.

Why do some protests turn violent, and some do not? It's because the authoritarian state has an informal list of people that it feels free to hurt and kill, and a list of people that it cannot freely hurt and kill. When the second group joins the protests is when things settle.

In case of S Korea, the dictatorship decided that Jeolla-do people were fair game, and so were college activists. So it was fine for the people of Gwangju to be killed, and it was fine to torture and maim young protesters. But there comes a moment of overreach when doing so.

In 1987, the overreach moment was when Chun Doo-hwan regime waterboarded Seoul Nat'l U student Park Jong-cheol to death. See, the informal rule was you could torture a college student, but you couldn't quite kill one, and certainly not an SNU student.

The second overreach moment in 1987 was the killing of Yonsei U student Yi Han-yeol, who died because he took a canister of tear gas in the head. Once again, tear gassing students of prestigious colleges was within the bounds; killing one was not.

The headline message of the June Struggle was "Bring Back Yi Han-yeol". There is a bitter irony that the death of one Yonsei student was a more resonant symbol than hundreds dead in Gwangju, but that's how this mechanism works.

The June Struggle was won when middle-class white collar professionals in Seoul began participating in the marches. This group was skittish about the violence just as Middle America, but Yi's death tipped the scale for them. That's when Chun Doo-hwan fell.

This dynamic repeated itself in the lead-up to the 2016-17 Candlelight Protests. Prior to the main event, there were numerous protests by labor unions and farmers' organizations, which were cracked down with rubber bullets and water cannons. There were injuries and death.

Once again, it was the Seoul-dwelling white collar professionals and their families tipped the scale. The authorities hesitate a lot more before attacking the "protected class", and the protected class keeps the more passionate elements in check.

Seeing the present day US, I am starting to see the overreaches. There is a real June Struggle vibe in the air. There will come a moment where the protests will look less like shattered store fronts, and more like the Women's March. That's when the tide will turn.

To some, this will feel bitter - because it confirms the unspoken rule that some people in our society is more valuable than others. Trust me, I've seen that all play out in S Korea too. You wouldn't believe the quiet contempt that some in Gwangju have for Seoul urbanites.

But it will nonetheless remain true that the situation will truly begin to turn when the Karen demographic starts showing up for protests. When they do, it would be wise to welcome them. /end

On that note, please enjoy "March for the Beloved," the granddaddy of S Korea's protest songs - a great genre of Korean pop music that is often overlooked."

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celebratedrecluse wrote

I don't know, it definitely changes the tone but it also constrains possibility of action

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