"Underlying a lot of the resentment that I, personally, see every day is the perception that the U.S. base realignment helps elites, it helps city-slickers, it screws common people and it screws farmers, renters, and laborers."
Everyone I've talked to that actually attended the protests this weekend said they were "mostly" or "entirely" peaceful. NPR reported "mostly" peaceful protests, as well. I have no doubt that some people scuffled with police. I don't suppose that there would have been 20 arrests if someone hadn't.
However, the Korea Herald reported that "thousands of activists staged violent protests" - but the pictures in their own article were of people running from a few police who had their batons raised (how they all got in that position, I do not know, as I was not there), and a big group of people with their hands raised above their heads, mid-clap, looks like. Generally, I trust NPR more than any other news source, short of some trusted friends who were present at a given event and my own eyes. This time, I can't rely on my eyes, but both my friends and NPR agree that the protests were 'mostly' peaceful, so i have to wonder about the Herald story.
True, 6,000 people in Seoul and 3,500 people in Pyeongtaek (according to the Herald) is a lot of people. It's also true that at one end of a crowd things can be going very differently from what's going on at the other end. I've definitely seen that happen. But... to characterize the whole affair as 'violent'? I don't trust it.
Also, somewhat significantly, in the Herald article, the people protesting are "activists", not humans or citizens who are angry. (The term "activist" gives the feeling of a group of obsessed, organized, attack dogs, or perhaps sincere, committed, well-intentioned, yet nutty college-age persons, depending on where you stand. But it's definitely not a neutral word).
In the Herald photos, I do see a good many college-age-looking people, but also several that look rather closer to middle age. Not that someone middle aged can't be an "activist", but "activist" is usually a label tossed at "rash youngsters" to try to discredit what they're saying as irrelevant because they're too young to know any better. (Surely you've heard it before, the "leave the governing of the country to the professionals" type rhetoric that leads away from democracy and discussion and towards a loss of civil liberties and right down the path to a totalitarian government?) Well, in my personal experience witnessing these base protests, it hasn't at all been "youngsters", up to recently.
For example, in February, at the big rally in Daechuri on the 12th (I'm pretty sure it was the 12th) I think I was the only person there under 30, excepting all the kids with their parents. I also saw a lot of older folks, and there were not just a handful of really, really older folks. (The octogenarians being silly, rash, foolish young "activists", without the wisdom to participate in discussions affecting them, no doubt). Actually, in my experience, shy of one very vocal Catholic priest, none of those people were "activists" in the sense that the mainstream media usually uses the word. They were just people who were saying they didn't like a government plan. (Just checking, but that is still compatible with democracy, isn't it?)
Anyhow...
Much more significantly, I thought, right next to the big headline "Thousands stage anti-U.S. base protest", was an article headlined "Satellite images show active reactor in N.K.", along with satellite pictures with some boxes and arrows drawn in, alongside some explanations purporting to be of North Korean nuclear weapons facilities.
Well, that finishes it. Never mind that we were shown similar photos 100's of times before which turned out to be wrong! From Clinton's bombing of a damned aspirin factory in Sudan, to accidentally bombing Kurdish weddings, to Iraq's supposed WMDs, this kind of 'intelligence' is apparently not accurate - at least, not accurate enough to base any kind of policy or lethal attack on.
But the simple placement of the articles was certainly the whole message: "Shut up you silly peaceniks - let the Big Boys in Big Government take care of everything..." Yes, the message is perfectly clear: "These anti-U.S. base protesters are nuts! North Korea's after us with nukes! We obviously need America to defend us from the North."
Well... congratulations to the mainstream media once again for using fear-mongering and hysteria to attempt to suppress democratic debate.
(Yes, I know "the activists" can be, and often are, also hysterical.)
The arguments of the anti-U.S. base protesters are varied and nuanced. Every possible issue, from food sovereignty (take away farmland, and you increase the problem of having to import even more food, making you vulnerable to becoming an economic colony), to pollution, from anti-colonialism/anti-imperialism to anti-militarism are of course trying to use this plan to open up the public discussion about the US involvement in Korea and/or fight the realignment. There are even a good number of 'hippy-do-gooders' who just want to save the farmers involved.
Underlying a lot of the resentment that I, personally, see every day is the perception that the U.S. base realignment helps elites, it helps city-slickers, it screws common people and it screws farmers, renters, and laborers. Not just in Daechuri, but there is also unrest brewing in Godeok, where my friend M.'s family has lived for generations, (so they tell me) where the Korea Land something-or-another Corporation is harassing her family to sell their land (which they don't want to do, in principal and also at least in part because they say they couldn't buy comparable land elsewhere for the sum offered. Sound familiar?) for some development project connected to base realignment (which no one who M. knows can even seem to get the solid details on). There is displeasure showing up also in Songtan, where development projects are causing all kinds of irritation, at least among the people I meet with and work with every day.
The call for Korea to defend itself (i.e. for U.S. forces to leave) is not new. A 700,000 man standing army, a 5 million man reserve force, billions in industry and infrastructure and brand-shiny-new weapons, all contrasted with the admittedly, absolutely starving and impoverished North, should indicate that the South can defend itself. The North and South have engaged in diplomatic talks (especially the much-lauded 2000 Inter-Korean summit at which then-president Kim Daejung and North Korean dictator Kim Jongil jointly declared to work for peace on the peninsula), and engaged in massive business investment (Gaeseong Industrial Complex, in the North). The North and South are in the process of opening an inter-Korean railway, and sent a joint team to the Olympics. The South has even gone so far as to officially stop calling the North the nation's "main enemy". Yet somehow, things are so dangerous that the U.S. must stay? At least, that's the analysis that I hear over, and over, and over from the Koreans I live and work with. More than a few Koreans have told me they feel embarrassed that the U.S. is still here after over 50 years. (Something about 'National pride', or so they say.) Others say it's annoying and embarrassing, but the soldiers, as individual people, spend so much money, they couldn't bear to see them go. I also hear Koreans (taxi drivers, actually a lot) saying they "hate America, why doesn't Yankee go home?" and in the next breath, contradict themselves and say they "need US soldiers' money to make a living."
No one knows what will come of the base realignment or of any eventual withdrawal of U.S. military forces, but dismissing and deriding the concerns of a fairly large number of people seems like a very bad idea. In the news media (which should, of course, be less a corporate venture and more a conduit for healthy democratic discussion), in any 'democratic' government anywhere, and in any process of decision-making that affects others, to dismiss the anger of people who feel they have been wronged is to create frustration and resentment. To create frustration, and then follow that with any kind of police repression is to ask for violent eruptions.
The news media, both in the U.S. (as this is just a few U.S. bases and a few thousand U.S. troops we're talking about) and in Korea, need to be responsible, and report on the legitimate and perceived grievances of the people being affected. Both societies need to openly discuss their needs and wants. Together, in transparent dialogue, both peoples need to address the issue and abandon the secretive, top-level negotiations and enforcement by violence and threats that all parties have engaged in which have caused the present unrest.
and the crops and other plants grow on, unaware of the destruction around them, it seems...
