hankyoreh

Civic groups hold a press conference outside the presidential office in Seoul on Jan. 4 announcing plans for a mass candlelight rally calling on Yoon Suk-yeol to step down and a special prosecutor to be appointed to first lady Kim Keon-hee. (Kim Jung-hyo/The Hankyoreh)

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A year has passed since Yoon Suk-yeol was elected president. Unfortunately, it seems as if the first year of the Yoon administration will be remembered as one full of investigations by prosecutors and various blows toward the previous administration, unions, striking workers, and civic organizations.

We have yet to hear a proactive national vision, goal, or roadmap from this administration regarding important national and global agendas, such as issues that involve the economy, welfare, labor, foreign affairs, national security, inter-Korea relations, and the climate crisis.

If we examine the nature of the Yoon administration from the lenses of class, ideology, and power, it becomes increasingly clear that it is an anti-labor, far-right, and prosecutorial state. The crackdown on workers’ organizations and their declaration of rights, the appointment of far-right figures to high-level government positions, the denial of South Korea’s democratic history, the control of state institutions by former prosecutors, and the abuse of power of assessment agencies to control society are rapidly intensifying into several serious problems that threaten democracy and universal human rights in South Korea.

The penetration of the system of surveillance and punishment, both based in law, into state institutions, social organizations, workplaces, and even the private lives of citizens is perhaps the most striking change to take place since the current government took office.

Legal technocrats, who know how to use the law for personal gain, have seized political power and are using it as a base to gain access to more power in all sectors of society. Prosecutors, judges, lawyers, politicians, bureaucrats, and corporations are making their ivory towers bigger and more unshakable as they give and take laws and money.

Closely linked to this control of the judiciary are the dominant techniques of ideological stigmatization and moral injury. Mobilizing many national intelligence agencies and police to carry out “union spy” search operations and relying on the media to sensationalize those operations, poring over the accounting books of unions and civic organizations and declaring that they will be punished, are all acts of domination that seek to isolate those who do not conform to the regime from society by overwriting them with images of eccentricity, crime, and corruption. This is the reality of the “freedom” and “fairness” that Yoon speaks of.

This political situation is qualitatively different from the liberal or conservative dimension in that it threatens universal values such as human rights and welfare, tolerance, dialogue, democracy and civil liberties. Nevertheless, there is a sense of frustration and helplessness in the society as a whole, as there is no visible force and leadership to stop this degeneration and provide an alternative.

In order for our society to overcome this situation and move forward to the next stage of its history, it is necessary to understand the current situation as a downward phase in a long-term historical cycle rather than absolutizing it. Many world scholars have found long-term waves of progress and regression in various aspects of democracy, class relations, social movements and citizenship.

From this perspective, it is an important collective task for progressive and reformist forces in Korea to analyze the reasons why our society has entered a downward spiral and to consider conditions and strategies for a rebound.

From the late Roh Moo-hyun administration to the early Lee Myung-bak administration, a widespread sense of defeat was prevalent, with many thinking that politics and civil society would not recover. The 2006 local elections, the 2007 presidential election, and the 2008 general election, in which voters handed both central and local executive and legislative power to the conservatives, led some analysts to wonder if Korea had entered a period of long-term conservative dominance and rightward shift with a popular base of support.

However, the 2008 candlelight protests proved to be a decisive turning point. Since then, numerous civic communities and new social movements have emerged across the country, marking the beginning of a new historical cycle. The universal and selective welfare debate, the free school lunch movement, the Hope Bus movement for labor rights, and the “Can’t Be Okay” campaign on college campuses all emerged from this upswing. In the process, the Democratic Party’s platform, policies, and personnel have also become more progressive.

The question before us now is, why did the candlelight protests and impeachment in 2016-17 mark the end of an era rather than the beginning of a new one? During the Moon Jae-in administration, the right wing continued to push back, and progressive civil society was largely inert, with the exception of the feminist movement.

The Moon administration and the Democratic Party of Korea became increasingly out of touch with the people, and ultimately allowed a regime change that was even worse than the Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye regimes.

Has anything changed now? We may be heading back to 2016 while we continue to cry about the Yoon regime without an alternative. It is our task in the remaining four years of the Yoon administration to cast off regression and push forward to inaugurate a new upswing in Korea’s history.

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]