Check out the Flying Yangban and Incestuous Amplifications (UPDATE: and Jeff and Pusan) for the very best in South Korean riot coverage.
Who needs the Super Bowl (and Janet Jackson’s titty) when you’ve got the ultimate in contact sports right here in Yoido!
BTW, as Kevin at IA suggests, do check out the video footage over at OhMyNews (the first clip is particularly exciting) — I watched it in both awe and abject horror.
A couple of notes. First, everyone looks shitty here. Start with the farmers. Aside from their apparent stealing of the PLO playbook, listen to this crap Song Nam-su, a representative of the Korean Farmers League, spouted off to his fellow farmers upon hearing that the National Assembly adjourned without passing the Korea-Chile FTA pact:
“The masses have set this nation’s history straight and displayed the power of the masses. In the future, let’s protect the farming industry and the race from anti-Korean, anti-democratic forces.”
Note to Song — farmers only make up 1/8 of the nation’s population (if that), and just because you can turn Yoido into a bad day in Bosnia does NOT, in any way, speak well of your credentials as a democrat or a patriot. You’re a special interest, and like many special interests, you’re looking to screw both the masses and the nation in order to protect your job. Unless, of course, you’re willing to argue that the majority of Koreans really do want to shut themselves out of the Latin American consumer electronics and automobile markets so you can keep inefficiently producing over-priced apples and citrus fruit.
However, the farmers aren’t the only people to come out of today smelling like shite. In fact, it takes a National Assembly to really stink up a storm. While the legislature failed to pass two bills intimately tied to Korea’s national interests (the FTA bill and the Iraq deployment bill), it did manage to pass a bill calling for the release of GNP head Seo Ch’eong-weon (arrested on charges of illegal fund raising). It also passed a motion calling for investigations of President Noh and Uri Party head Jeong Dong-yeong for — you guessed it — illegal fund raising. Now, ordinarily I’d use this opportunity to bash the GNP, but unfortunately, the Blue House’s decision to tap Lim Dong-won as a senior presidential adviser on North Korea policy prevents me from coming down too hard on Choe Byeong-nyeol’s crew. Lim, you might recall, is on trial for his role in illegally transferring funds to North Korea ahead of the inter-Korean summit of 2000.
15 Comments
Everytime I start to get a handle on Korean domestic politics it seems to get more confusing and sleazy. Nice to see the legislature taking care of the nation’s best interest. I think I’ll go back to following the six-party talks and nuclear tensions between the ROK and the DPRK. That, I can follow and understand!
I just want to point out that the 1/8 number includes all workers in the agricultural and fishing industries. That includes fishermen, people at processing plants and folks in related trades (such as farm equipment supply folks).
1/8 ? pshaw. let ‘em eat bbungtuigi.
by the way, whether you agree with them or not, it is misleading to ignore that this 1/8 also has dependents and villages that depend on their livelihood. So, while it may be a minority, it’s bigger than you make it out to be and since they are literally fighting for their survival, it’s rather rich of you ex-pats living relatively large and soft to critique either their methods or motives. Would that you could imagine such a situation for yourselves. Your faith in the “free” market might not be quite so religious.
The ritualized quality of the protests and that they’re foisted on society by a selfish minority has been pointed out, but for those who don’t live here, it looks like sheer, violent chaos that represents Korea to the world. That’s the saddest part of all this, how Koreans are once again their own worst enemies, driving off tourism, investment. But then, doesn’t it seem that many people here would be happy to have no contact with the outside world?
Yo Chubbybee, Korea feeds its people with exports, not overpriced domestic apples. As the only WTO member without an FTA (except Mongolia) it’s getting left in the dust. The FTA with Chile even has safeguards in place specifically to protect Korean farmers, but they simply don’t want the state subsidies to dry up–that’s the source of their “livelihood.”
Come on chubbybee — if my cushy little expat job that allows me to live large and soft were to suddenly become economically nonviable, I doubt I’d evoke much sympathy by chucking rocks at riot cops in Yoido while demanding that the taxpayer/consumer pay up so that I can keep my job. Besides, consumer electonics, steel, auto, and semi-conductor firms also employ people with dependents, not to mention whole cities depend on them, and they’re the ones who are going to start laying off people in order to keep the farmers happy. And I haven’t even talked about the damage those subsidies do to farmers in developing nations.
Damn, I’m sleepy.
Well people getting weapy eyed about farmers and farmers getting militant aren’t limited to Korea. ADM invokes the family farm to pretty good effect back home and God look at the French farmers. I just don’t understand it … as you point out, Marmot, people don’t get this up in arms about secretaries or waitresses who are out of work, for example or room salon women for that matter.
Interesting interview with Chilean Ambassador to the ROK in today’s Digital Chosun:
Reporter: Some Korean farmers oppose the free trade agreement between South Korea and Chile.
Ambassador Fernando Schmidt: I want to point out three things. First, the FTA with Chile will allow Korean farmers to make inroads into the Southern America market. Remember that an FTA is a bilateral agreement. Second, Chile is not an agricultural country. The agricultural industry constitutes only 4.3 percent of the gross domestic production in Chile. Third, Chile is not an agricultural product exporter. Please remember that Chile agreed to export grapes, its main export product, to Korea for only a specific time period.
Noone in the political world here has shown any real leadership on the FTA, and this proscrastination has brought us to within two months of elections. I think Haisan has a point on structural factors — the weight of rural votes being greater than those of urban ones. Also, I assume there are a lot of members of parliament, especially GNPers from Kyongsang, who are large rural landowners or absentee landlords of farms. (That said, the National Assembly is ineffective on EVERY policy issue — except say the debate on spelling Korea “Corea”)
But there is a deeper bias against imports in general, as any consumer will note. Politically, there appear to be no groups who are not captive to vested interests. This is surely not unique to Korea, but I think the high-octane “Uri” (Juche?) nationalism and the pervasive mercantilist mentality exacerbate it. Consumer groups are notably nativist here, too.
Have you ever seen a Korean member of parliament question why food costs are always higher (in relative-to-income terms, and often in absolute terms) here than in other OECD countries or why a stock model Korean car costs at least 50% or more here in Korea than a features-loaded one of the same model does in the U.S.?
The comments here are totally missing the point. The Great Leader had large amounts of support in the farm sector after 1945 and right up to the end of the Korean war. Many of the partisans that were active in South Korea right up to the 1960s were recruited off the farms. Remember the Ceju massacre? Well, that was all about “land reform.” Farmers in Korea have a history of violent acts in South Korea and they also have a history of taking their lead from Pyongyang.
This is nothing but a successful continuation of the Dear Leader’s plan to paralyse the South. Not that He is allowing all the political infighting to continue but blocking anything that would open the South’s ecomony more. Hell, there have been more reversals this year than I can count, the beef and poultry import bans for example, two of SK’s largest import items.
Juche for all!
major evasions…. 1) i never said there weren’t other workers with dependents… i said you undercounted those who depend on a protectionist market for agriculture. 2) your skill set obviously gives you more flexibility than farmers, should you lose your job 3) similar to comparing yourself to the farmers, comparing cities to villages is wrong. cities (not named detroit, at least) are far more resilient to economic transformation than villages.
you have the luxury to be sleepy. wake up.
Sorry, but so what if cities are more resilient than villages? Vocations, villages, whole societies come and go — ’tis the march of history. Being born in Bunghole-li doesn’t give you the right to suck at the taxpayer’s teat so you can live there the rest of your life. Being born into a rice-farming country doesn’t give you the right to sell your product at hugely inflated prices at the expense of the public (i.e., your customers). You have the right to do whatever you want, just don’t demand I pay for it.
I apply this argument as much to Newfoundland fishermen and European farmers as I do rioting South Koreans. This starry-eyes nostalgic coddling of traditional industries does the economy no real good and hurts more people than it helps — especially in the third world, where farming is often non-viable because of all the subsidized product swamping the local markets.
I also partially blame the governments for tacitly telling these people that their archaic jobs will be preserved indefinitely, rather than teaching them the world has changed and that different skills and flexibility are necessary now.
That said, I wonder what makes the Korean political system so susceptible to rent-seeking (special interests)… These endless corruption scandals and useless parliamentary sessions aren’t signs of a low level of morality amoung Koreans and Korean politicians — the problems are too endemic — they are signs of structural problems that need fixing.
Offhand, I’m inclined to think that until Korea shifts from personality-based political parties to policy-based, nothing will change.
and all this is over chilean grapes? hmmm. i can’t wait for the games to begin when the koreans are forced to open their rice market in a year or so. but, let’s put this into perspective. if you cut out the street violence, which seems to be a korean tradition, these guys are not acting too differently from french wheat farmers, japanese rice farmers and american cotton producers; meaning that they are using every possible means to avoid foreign competition by intimidating their elected representives. and, btw, since farm protection is such an emotive issue in all societies, how do you expect them to act? these guys see this as the thin edge of the wedge and that soon they’ll all be booted off their 5 hectare farms. which may or may not be such a bad idea since most of these farmers are 50 years and counting. one way or the other there will be a massive reform of korean agriculture in the next ten years or so; either by demographics or legislation. all of this, however, does not absolve the politicians of their craven cowardice in the face of this issue and their complete abdication of their duty to lead the nation. sound familiar?
just a technical comment from me mr marmet hole.. you said “yoido”… “yoi” isnt a “do”…. just because sombody dug a shallow ditch around some land dont make it an island.. ok.. as far as the rest of your comments.. i will say this.. korea will always choose the wrong path… nomatter what.. if u help korea.. they will hate you.. if you work with korea.. they will hate you.. everything is always a zero sum game.. to any korean its impossible to imagine a win win situation.. so signing a FTA is illogical to a korean.. they cant possibly understand that two parties can benefit.. at the same time..
챈짹?????쨀쨋 is an island in the middle of a river. What do you want to call it then? You’re welcome to walk the ditch, or swim, or take the boat at 챈짹?????????짢…
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TITLE: Is South Korea a Democracy?
BLOG NAME: Kamelian X-Rays
Flying Yangban and Kevin at IA both have some quality pictures and commentary on the riots held in Seoul yesterday by farmers against the FTA with Chile and the Iraq deployment. I’m just stunned by the depths to which
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TITLE: Rioting in Korea
BLOG NAME: Barry Talks!
The South , of course.
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TITLE: Koreans and the FTA
BLOG NAME: Silent Running
The Marmot has a post about South Korea’s reluctance to pass a free trade agreement with Chile. Its worth reading just to see how misinformed most Koreans are about the issues involved. At any rate, the Koreans were dragging their…