When the sweet sound of protest is no longer sweet
One clear and pleasant morning this week, I broke from my usual commuting routine and climbed Mount Inwang — one of the mountains in downtown Seoul — before heading to work.
April is a fine month to do something like this. Inwang was breaking out in green and had thoughtfully dropped white blossoms on the wooden steps at the crux of the climb, making me feel quite welcome.
Reaching the summit 338 meters up by the south face route, without supplementary oxygen, I was rewarded with a view of Seoul and Gyeonggi Province.
What a good thing to do, I thought. And what a beautiful day. But then, rising up from somewhere downtown, came the familiar sound of a man, or possibly a recording of one, yelling into a loudspeaker. I couldn’t make it out, but I did hear the words “Yoon Suk Yeol.” The tone was that kind of urgent frenzy, as if we were all being told the North Koreans had invaded and that we had to get out quick. I guessed it was some God-fearing soul, or an earnest group, either in Gwanghwamun or in a vehicle going up Sejong-ro, recommending the death penalty for the former president whose trial for insurrection is underway.
To be honest, the theme didn’t interest me. Whatever the cause, none justified the decibels. I was feeling violated.
It was to get worse. After the descent, largely down man-made steps, I got into the car and drove to the office. There I was greeted by the regular demonstration, which has been going on every Wednesday for 20 years, at the comfort women statue. The speaker was a woman. She had a small audience and could have just chatted with them. But she chose instead to yell and punch the air, her eye on a video cameraman filming from in front of one of the police buses lined in front of the construction hoarding that is in front of the empty site that used to house the Japanese Embassy.
I walked away and into my office building, thinking negative thoughts on behalf of the 10,000 other workers in the area. I was wondering whether it might not be time to inform the protesters that World War II is over. But that would make me a right-wing pro-Japanese foreigner and that’s not a recommended accusation to take on. Then I heard the speaker shout “Yoon Suk Yeol.” I wasn’t sure what he had to do with comfort women or whether, in fact, this was interference from another demo.
So, why is our columnist going on about this, you might wonder. Isn’t protest in downtown Seoul part of life’s rich pattern? Is participation of this sort not preferable to apathy? Well, yes to both. But catching it on a mountain summit on a quiet and pleasant morning made me see it for what it is. An intrusion.
Why do we have to put up with so much political yelling and screaming in this city? This isn’t just a comment about noise levels. It’s about influencing one another. You might even say it’s about bullying.
The fact is that in Korea, we are passive. The office workers in my hood never complain about the demo noise. We all just let it become part of background sound effects, like traffic, office chatter and birds outside (now that it’s spring and we can open the windows). I’ve never even seen a driver wind the window down and shout at people who routinely cause traffic jams because of their street protests.
If this were Edinburgh — I use this example because the Scots are not reserved — protesters wouldn’t get away with this. Somebody would stand in front of them and tell them to shut up. Those outdoor church service-type political protests in Gwanghwamun that take up all but one lane of the street wouldn’t be possible because the faithful would be scared off by the foul language of people driving by.
This passivity in Korea is an odd thing because Koreans are not shy people. It’s something to do with authority. If someone gets up on a stage with a mike in their hand, people seem to treat them like their teacher. God knows why.
The trouble with our passivity is that it normalizes street action as a default way to address political and social issues. You’d think by this stage in our democratic development, we’d let such things be dealt with through courts and media and the like. But I guess the streets are taken to precisely because we do not sufficiently trust those alternative avenues.
So here’s the dilemma — street protest is noisy and intrusive, but it’s a right, and sometimes it’s necessary. So, how about this idea: no artificial amplification? Silent protest? Or at least quiet enough that it doesn’t waft up and bother people on the mountains.
Michael Breen (mike.breen@insightcomms.com) is the author of "The New Koreans.” The views expressed here are his own.