By Jon Dunbar
They say that when all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. Or from the perspective of the Korean government, if you have a nearly unlimited supply of conscript riot police, every problem looks like a riot.
I've lived in Jongno-gu for just under two years, where civil unrest can have a great impact on daily life. The police are always around, as are activists, but whenever a political cause reaches critical mass, the riot police come out in great numbers. The alleys and streets of my neighborhood, Gye-dong, swell with young, fresh-faced police conscripts, and police buses form walls trapping me inside my neighborhood.
It's a fact of life, whether we're talking about labor movements, Sewol protests or the more recent demonstrations held on Nov. 14 and Dec. 5. I tolerate it because I'm sympathetic to many of their causes and respect their right to demonstrate, and I also admit that watching the downtown area descend into a police state can be a mesmerizing spectacle.
But how effective is the police presence at these events? Granted, it is necessary to have traffic police on duty and to patrol the access routes to Cheong Wa Dae, but unless the police are there to keep apart competing protest movements, as happened earlier this year during the Gay Pride festival, they don’t seem to be discouraging people from assembling ― and indeed their presence may even exacerbate matters.
The tactics used by police and protesters seem to draw out these conflicts, increasing the numbers who attend and escalating the intensity of events in a vicious cycle of countermeasures and public outrage. What starts as a minor civil dispute can grow to a national issue. And the fate of these political causes is determined not just by the worth of the messages delivered, but also by the responses of the police. While not everyone might care about or understand a particular issue, many more will come out and take a stand against the authorities. Many come to stare into the face of police oppression. I suspect the most successful activist leaders recognize the value of conflict with the police as a means of increasing recruitment to their movements. Yet somehow, the police keep reacting the same predictable way.
So when I want to see how seriously to take a political cause and how big it will grow, I look at the scale of the police presence as an indicator.
The police will turn up for any scheduled demonstration, no matter how peaceful, sometimes in shockingly large numbers. The worst I ever saw was the aftermath of the Yongsan Disaster in January 2009, in which a tense rooftop siege in an urban renewal zone between people evicted from their premises and the police ended in a catastrophic fire that killed five protesters and one police officer. Days later, I visited the area and witnessed a memorial ceremony held for the five dead evictees. In attendance were maybe a dozen middle-aged people, also forced to leave their homes and businesses. They maintained a standing vigil on that corner by Sinyongsan Station where hundreds of riot police buses on both sides of the wide street had formed walls that stretched in both directions as far as the eye could see.
I’ve seen this pattern repeated several times on a far larger scale, especially during the mad cow protests of 2008 which began by opposing imports of American beef alleged to be tainted with mad cow disease, but gradually evolved into a grudge match against the police and the president.
I suspected this pattern would be repeated following the November protest, when the police turned downtown Seoul into a labyrinth of riot police buses and put one 69-year-old protester into a coma with their water cannons. Then they tried banning the Dec. 5 rally, only to be denied by the Seoul Administrative Court. Not to mention the President’s comments on masks and terrorism, heavily derided by the public. Participating social activist groups could not have asked for better promotion of their event.
Before the latest protest last weekend, many anticipated more violence. Instead, the police response was muted, with bus walls set up to defend Cheong Wa Dae rather than choke out the whole downtown district again. Protesters wearing masks gathered in Seoul Square and marched toward Boshingak Belfry, before continuing on to Seoul National University Hospital without incident. Certainly there were no terrorist acts or violent clashes with police. The protest went on and concluded peacefully under its own steam.
It makes me wonder: what if the next time there was a huge protest, no police came? I mean yes, defend Cheong Wa Dae, but if the people start rallying and there's no strong oppositional police force, where will they go next? I suspect they would have a nice big peaceful picnic in downtown Seoul, with some grandstanding speeches and musical performances, and then everyone would pick up their trash and go home feeling engaged with the state rather than enraged, their movement remaining focused on its concrete goals.
The writer works for The Korea Times as
copyeditor.