Keira's Adventures: June 2008

June 10th 1987, protesting university students could be heard through down town Seoul. By June 29th enough of the public had joined their cries and South Korea amended the constitution to allow for a completely democratic election of president.

Two decades later, I am witnessing another cry of the people. On May 2nd, these cries were similarly started by a group of young people, this time high school students. Their simple cry; to eat beef without fear of BSE (mad cow disease).

South Korea is in the middle of a Mad Cow Scare. It seems that at the last visit to the United States, South Korean’s President, Mr. Lee Myung-bak, signed a deal to import American Beef into Korea. Though this deal seems good for both parties involved, Mr. Lee Myung-bak, failed to adopt policies for what kind/age/medical testing the beef would have to under go. The President unwittingly allowed South Korea to become a possible dumping ground for unsafe Beef. As ill-luck would have it, this president whom was only inaugurated 100 days previous to this, was having to deal out answers as to why beef just recently accepted into Korea was found with BSE.

“Mainstream media reports that about 80,000 protestors turned out in Seoul, the capitol city, on Tuesday to demonstrate against resuming imports of US beef. Tuesday's protest was the culmination of a three-day protest that began June 9 with an estimated 40,000 protestors. Some clashed with police and about 40 were detained, according to local reports.”
http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?article_class=2&no=382840&rel_no=1

There have been no proven deaths related to BSE in Korea. As most of you Canadians know the affects of Mad Cow disease on humans are rare. So this should lead the question why are there so many people out protesting this cause?

I believe that it comes down to the fact that the people feel the president is not taking their voice/concerns seriously. As a democratic nation it would seem that the people are feeling as if the new president is living up to his “Bulldozer” nickname (formerly from his time as mayor of the city of Seoul) and Bulldozing through enacting change but without much thought of the consequences.

This is my little Saskatchewan, more left winged brain, trying to relay what I am seeing, feeling, and reading so I urge you if you are interested to read further but this is what I know/have heard.

‘Since Lee Myung-bak's presidential victory several months ago, Koreans have had high expectations of him to implement his economic pledges as economy was the central issue in the election. The pledges itself include privatization of public enterprises, deregulation, forging free trade agreements and autonomous educational policies. Lee was elected president with the highest margin in the Korean presidential elections held since 1987.’ (Korea Nation at a Crossroads;HankYoReh )

Interestingly, that though he does hold the highest margin in presidential elections, I have heard that less than half of the population turned out to vote. I even asked fellow Korean teacher-coworkers if they had ‘bothered’ to vote and a lot of them had not. Lesson one to be learned; “VOTE.”

The more I read about this president’s ideas, the stronger I feel that I would not have voted this man to rule my country. Beef deal aside, he wants to privatize health care (SICKO ;), amongst other companies, and he had ideas about ripping apart the nation of Korea (yes the whole country) so that ocean liners can cross through for trade. This beast of a project was called the “cross country canal project”, and I believe this idea has actually been dropped due to public disproval. In addition, he has implemented a program in the Public Schools which increases the already competitive environment. Now, students are being leveled off in their grades into high, medium, and low brackets. I can not go into detail about this now as this is another tangent but school for these children is over 8 hours a day already with enormous pressure—more leveling/ more competition is not the answer.

The Mad Cow Beef Issue has become just a catalyst for the citizens to voice their disapproval of the president’s actions. Voicing their disapproval is precisely what is still happening today (two months later) in downtown Seoul. Almost every night since May second there has been “candle light” vigils of varying numbers in the City Hall area, of Seoul. In attendance have been monks, university students, families, Labour groups (Korean Metal Workers’ Union, Korean Confederation of Trade Unions), taxi/bus drivers who honk as they drive by, and me (the last two weekends) ☺.

The feeling of downtown Seoul is something of a paradox. Things are definitely not at ease, as there is a national struggle, but the first weekend I attended the mood was still quite bright. This particular weekend, I went to check out the action with Jesse (a fellow Brighton teacher) and his beautiful wife, Gabby. I was surprised at the multitude of police officers present. There were buses upon buses full of young police officers (Korea has mandatory 2 year civil service for its young men so many of the Police officers my mom would have said ‘looked like babies’). We walked by city hall where there was a substantial gathering of people sitting on the grass. Around them were various tents/ or booths with anti- beef flyers, buttons, and candles. We each bought a button and carried around our flyers like good concerned Seoulites. We walked further and saw a lot of anti-U.S. sentiments. Being the ‘white kids” we are it was a little unnerving (where was that Canadian flag when I needed it?) but not dangerous. We walked on past the yelling crowd and just after it was a counter attack with pictures of the US soldiers and how much they helped South Korea in their war vs theNorth. It was interesting seeing the two right side by side. Kind of nice—how true freedom of speech should be. We continued our travels and tried to get to the “Blue House”- (like the White House- where the President is). We asked many police officers to let us through but they laughed at us and said we were unable to cross
their lines. Pity ☺

Our fabulous day continued with more police crossings, and lots of great conversations and coffee drinking. We finished the night off at Namsan Tower. Another sort of demonstration was happening there. This one did involve candles, as well, but instead of protestingthe Beef it was put on by a Women’s group to remind everyone to conserve power. While we were up on the tower looking at the city lights the tower shut it lights off for a small amount of time as a demonstration to coincide with other buildings around South Korea and Japan who were also turning their lights off.

The weekend protests were peaceful and quiet because the President had announced that he would talk to the U.S. and try to get some regulations put on the beef. Some times protests do work ☺ This past week though the outcome of those negotiations were that
“the program encourages the plants to voluntarily ship only beef from cattle younger than 30 months old to South Korea…The ministry also announced that shipments of meat containing brains, eyes, skulls and spinal cords from cattle younger than 30 months of age will be sent back if found during quarantine inspections. In addition, the South Korean government will have the right to monitor U.S. meat-processing plants and inspect U.S. plants when they violate the sanitary rules.”
http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/295508.html
Because the wording is that the U.S. will do it ‘voluntarily’, regulating themselves, no real controls are set. The people feel the point of their protesting was not really honoured. As such, and because of other issues (now The President is implementing with North Korean relations- issues that I do not know enough about to write about), the protests have grown more violent this week.

Police issued an alert throughout the nation and mobilized the entire nation’s riot police force, going into emergency mode. Some 30,000 riot police Zofficers were mobilized at major protest sites nationwide, with almost 20,000 riot police officers deployed in Seoul alone.
http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/292645.html

This past weekend in my wanderings (this time with Roberta), the feeling was much sadder and angrier. There were more people out protesting and their yells were strong and full of conviction. None of the police had a smile on their face. Interestingly, even a palace we tried to go to was blocked off because of the rioting.

The government has clearly stated on multiple occasions that it would not allow for these kind of demonstrations and as a result water cannons (think firefighters blaring water at the people), fire extinguishers, and battery as been used more and more frequently this week. The candle light vigils are now considered illegal actions against the government. Some TV broadcasting companies are under investigation from the government for promoting untruths about Mad Cow. The 3 main newspapers are being censored to a large degree.

“All 14 members of the National Police Agency’s human rights committee have decided to resign en masse to express regret for the crackdown on the candlelight rallies conducted by the riot police… Oh Chang-ik, the general director of Citizens’ Solidarity for Human Rights, said, “The fact that committee members with various ideological inclinations have decided to resign en masse shows what is really happening with the police. We have tried to make human rights a priority, but have feel betrayed by the recent attitude of leaders on the force.”
http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/295728.html

It seems that in this democratic nation the president is really trying to silence the people’s voice and I don’t see any good coming out of it in the next couple of weeks.

Keira's Adventures

Sunday, June 29, 2008

Protests!

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

CoEx (shopping mall in Seoul) Aquarium

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