What Arab Spring nations can learn from Korea's democracy building

Professors Seo Jeong-min, right, and Sherif Heikal of Hankuk University of Foreign Studies talk about the Arab Spring at Seo’s office in Seoul on Feb. 24. The Korea Times organized the discussion to find possible lessons from Korea’s past struggles to help the region achieve democracy, as this year marks the fifth anniversary of the resignations of several Middle Eastern leaders following the popular uprisings there. / Korea Times photo by Kang Hyun-kyung

By Kang Hyun-kyung

Democracy doesn’t happen overnight, and freedom doesn’t come free. A free democracy is the result of decades or even centuries of continuous, collective effort and the sacrifice of countless lives.

Political observers say such lessons that were evident in the establishment of democracy in South Korea may also be applied to Middle Eastern countries that have been going through radical political changes after a series of uprisings.

Triggered by the self-immolation of vendor Mohamed Bouazizi in December 2010 in protest of the repressive Tunisian government, the Arab Spring spread rapidly to neighboring nations and overthrew some of the long-serving, corrupt leaders there.

Seo Jeong-min, a professor of Middle East politics of Hankuk University of Foreign Studies (HUFS), said the series of uprisings in the Middle East have something in common with the massive protests in Korea in 1960 following the fraudulent presidential election that same year.

“Both of them are bottom-up revolutions that led to the ouster of authoritarian leaders,” he said. What happened after those revolutionary events in Korea and the Arab Spring countries is also similar — democracy remained an unfinished business, Seo said.

“In Korea, we had to wait another 27 years to see the June 29 Declaration, a milestone political event that showed how the nation achieved a democracy with the Korean people given their right to elect their president directly,” he said.

The 1987 Declaration is regarded as a victory for democracy because it showed the surrender of authoritarian leader Chun Doo-hwan in the face of massive protests. Chun took power through a coup amid the political instability that followed the assassination of military general-turned-President Park Chung-hee in 1979. Earlier in 1987, Chun announced an indirect presidential election, which angered students and citizens and prompted them to protest against the Chun administration and demand free, direct elections. For several months, anti-government rallies took place all across the nation, causing the Chun government to back down. On June 27, Chun’s protege, Roh Tae-woo, read a prepared statement promising to hold direct elections.

Seo said the Arab Spring is a historic event in that it represents the first citizen-led uprisings in the Middle East. However, he said democracy building there could take longer than in Korea because the countries face more challenges, such as nation building and integration, two issues that Korea didn’t have in 1960.

Five years have passed since Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was forced to step down in January 2011. However, Tunisia is regarded as the only success story of Arab Spring because it achieved some degree of freedom of expression and transitioned smoothly to a democracy. The other Arab Spring countries — Libya, Syria and Yemen — are still mired in conflicts that have only worsened over time.

Egypt held free elections following Hosni Mubarak’s forced resignation in February 2011, weeks after the spread of massive protests against the long-serving president’s corruption and economic mismanagement. But the country’s economic woes still persist even after the elections of Mohamed Morsi, who was in power for a year before he was ousted, and current President Abdel Fatttah el-Sisi.

Professor Seo said technology played a critical role in the spread of the popular protests across the Middle East. “There was no social media in 1960 when the April 19 uprisings occurred in Korea. The Arab Spring protestors’ use of technology makes them different from the Korean democracy fighters over five decades ago,” he said.

The April 19 uprisings in Korea refers to a series of popular protests in 1960 against the then Syngman Rhee government following the fraudulent presidential election on March 15, where Rhee’s protege defeated his political rival with a surprisingly wide margin of over eight million votes. The protest first drew the massive participation of citizens in the southeastern port city of Masan after the discovery of the body of a 16 year-old high school student, Kim Ju-yeol, who was killed when a tear gas canister struck him in the eye during the demonstrations. Angered by Kim’s death, students and citizens took to the streets and called for Rhee to take responsibility for the fraudulent election. The uprising spread quickly to other cities all across the country and eventually led to the ouster of President Rhee.

Chang Myon, the leader of the opposition Democratic Party, took power, but owing to his administration’s inability to handle state affairs, the political instability continued. The democracy was short-lived, and the persistent chaos prompted a military coup a year later that put President Park Chung-hee in power for 18 years.

Sherif Heikal, a professor of the Department of Middle East and North Africa at HUFS, noted that the April 16 uprisings and the Arab Spring are different because they occurred in different contexts. The popular protests in Korea in 1960 demanded democracy, whereas the wave of rebellions in the Middle East were caused by a more complex web of reasons, including corruption and various economic and social grievances.

However, the Egyptian professor said there are lessons that the Arab Spring countries can learn from Korea’s experiences with democracy. According to him, Korea, just like the Arab Spring countries, faced two obstacles to democracy — political polarization and authoritarian leadership —that it ultimately overcame.

“Political clashes between Islamists and liberals and a strong state are two barriers to democracy building in the Arab Spring countries,” Heikal observed.

He declined to use the popular term “seculars,” saying “liberals” are more accurate. According to him, Arab liberals include seculars and other political forces, such as the supporters of the civil state, which he said stands between the secular and theocratic state.

He said the differences between Islamists and liberals are so deep that narrowing their differences in the near future seems unrealistic, and these insurmountable differences pose a challenge to democracy building there.

Heikal said a strong state is a popular governing style in the Middle East where the legislative and judiciary institutions are in place but are sometimes bypassed by leaders when setting and pushing for national agendas.

“Some Western scholars refer to this as ‘coercive apparatus,’” but I disagree,” he said. According to him, political leaders are tempted to abuse their power in the name of national security, external threats and emergencies, and this abuse of power hampers democracy in Arab Spring countries.

The scholar said democracy in Korea came with the abolition of decades of authoritarian leaderships, and this phenomenon can be a lesson for the Arab Spring countries seeking to establish democracy.

Meanwhile, Seo said Korea’s experiences show that achieving democracy is a time-consuming, painstaking process that sometimes requires a lot of sacrifice. “Don’t forget that it took 27 years from the April 16 uprisings for Korea to achieve the right to hold direct presidential elections.”

Seo said that to facilitate democracy, the Arab Spring countries need to prioritize overcoming its economic woes.

“It’s natural that people have high expectations of those who came to power after the uprisings, and thus, the new leaders there are facing rising demands from the public,” he said. “If they are unable to show economic progress to assure the public that their lives will improve, these leaders could face the consequences.”