Korean “Progressives” Send Message of Gratitude and Sympathy on 9/11: “Fucking USA!”
UPDATED; scroll down.
You haven’t heard the last of this. Call it a prediction. The U.S. media was watching, but (thus far) doesn’t much seem to care. The U.S. government is watching and does. Update on that later.
For now, here’s what happened, beginning with pictures from OhMyNews:
Much, much more here.
Here’s part of :
The demonstration started off peacefully with singing, dancing and a speech by Democratic Labor Party central committee member Lee Jeong-mi, but turned violent after the reading of a declaration calling for 2005 to become the first year of the exit of U.S. forces from the peninsula.
Participants tried to approach the statue wielding metal pipes and long bamboo poles and throwing eggs at riot police who had sealed off the area. When the protesters started slinging mud, police fought back brandishing shields, clubs and fire extinguishers. The clash soon descended into chaos, with both sides hurling stones that left many injured.
Some 20 of the protestors, including outspoken academic Park Beom-su of Kyung Hee University, were injured by stones thrown by police, and dozens of police sustained injuries in attacks with blunt instruments by the demonstrators.
The park resembled a battlefield littered with branches, dirt, eggs, torn-up paper and the blood of the wounded.
The Chosun reports commie rat bastard “progressive” turnout at 4,000, almost as many cops, and 1,000 counter-protestors [OFK note: in my long-running takeover bid for the word “liberal,” I’m all for letting the anti-democratic left have the word “progressive.” Maybe Teddy Roosevelt wouldn’t be happy about that, but I never voted for him anyway.]
The Donga Ilbo’s rather incredible take? Move along, nothing to see here:
Even though they shouted each other and had some physical contact, there was not a big physical clash between the two groups, contrary to what people had been worried about.
If ever there was a time to suspect that the Korean press was tempering its coverage for U.S. audiences, this would be that time. The Joongang Ilbo buried its own coverage deep inside the “national” section [this came later] but added this interesting detail:
Yesterday afternoon, about 4,000 progressive activists, including members of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions and the Korean Teachers and Education Workers Union, rallied in front of the statute. They said the event was to declare South Korea’s independence and anti-Americanism, and to end the U.S. forces’ occupation of the peninsula.
The KCTU is the largest labor group in Korea. Since we know that the Democratic Labor Party was also well represented, I’d like to hear the case that Korea’s unions are not, for the most part, radicalized and open advocates of North Korea’s political and strategic goals, if not toward all aspects of its ideology. This makes issues of working conditions and pay in Kaesong [a South Korean industrial park in North Korea] completely fair game as an attack on the hypocrisy of the Korean labor movement. I wonder what Kim Moon-Soo must be thinking today.
The Joongang Ilbo had this interesting photo showing demonstrators from both sides nearly meeting. More on that in a moment.
Two comments on the police here. One, as tempting as it might have been to me personally, throwing rocks is probably not an optimal method of riot control. Two, note that the conservative counter-protestors weren’t even allowed near the statue, while the “progressives” obviously went pretty far afield (if you’ve been to the statue, as I have, you know that there are no shops like that in its immediate vicinity). Now, it’s legit to keep these groups separated, but one also suspects that Roh may have been playing to his base here. If that was the attempt, I suspect it pleased no one.
Nor should it.
Update 1: Triangulating between the nation that threatens your government’s existence and the one that’s preserved it for half a century can be tricky, and President Roh is turning knobs and dials to reign in the fiesty anti-Americans that form a good part of his base:
“We hope such an incident will not happen again,” deputy Chong Wa Dae spokesman Choi In-ho said. “Such an illegal attempt to destroy the statue not only undermines the South Korea-U.S. relationship, but is also against a mature historical perception of our society.”
On Aug. 23, President Roh Moo-hyun dismissed any effort to dismantle the statue as unwise and harmful to South Korea’s alliance with the U.S.
Demolition of the statue would not only seriously undermine the pride of Americans but also aggravate U.S. sentiment against South Korea, the president said.
I don’t blame Roh for the fact that South Korea has its own violent, radical fringe. Most countries do. I do blame Roh for failing to uphold the rule of law when these latter-day Brownshirts (Violent? Check. Racist? Check. Willing to act at a tyrant’s beckon call? Check.) try to control the debate by controlling the streets.
Just once, I’d like to see people who attack each other with bamboo sticks, saliva, bags o’excrement, knives, and firebombs do hard time.
Update 2: GI Korea points out some language from a separate Chosun Ilbo story:
The groups reportedly chose Sunday, Sept. 11, because it coincides with the anniversary of terrorist attacks on New York in 2001.
These people are truly a violent, racist hate group. Those who use violence should either be punished to the full extent of the law, or we should conclude that the Korean government has made a decision to tolerate hate and violence for cynical political reasons.
Update 3: Like I said, triangulation. Here’s a comment from a senior ruling party assemblyman:
It’s no longer desirable to amplify clashes and tension over the statue issue”¦ Now is the time to focus our racial purity as energy to bring about intra-Korean reconciliation and cooperation and peaceful reunification.
Oddly enough, that part of the quote appears to have been lost in translation in some of the Korean papers. Here’s the Chosun Ilbo’s version:
Uri Party standing committee member Chang Young-dal told a meeting of legislators the people calling for the removal of the statue revealed a “deep ethnic purity” and warned the party to watch out for “ultra-rightists” latching on to the statue issue to band together and ratchet up tensions.
Of course, you can’t really beat the original German.