More thoughts on vigils

There is another protest planned for this Saturday at Kwang Hwa Mun in Seoul. The flier claims that 5 million people will be present. I may check it out.

Here, also, is a nice article on the level and variety of anti-American sentiment displayed at these protests. The old anti-dictatorship protests in Korea, to which this new generation of demonstrations is constantly compared, were virulently anti-American because of the continued presence of U.S. troops in Korea and the perceived roll the U.S. military played in dividing the country and in propping up the dictatorship. The current protests are different. According to the article, the current anti-American sentiment, insofar as it exists, is "practical" and issue-specific. People blame the U.S. for attempting to force beef back into Korea and other such things, but they do not seem to be rolling these all into a single anti-American hatred.

More to come.

Of Protesting: the Korean Candlelight Vigils

In my previous post I mentioned the candlelight vigils being held in Seoul currently. They are not planned in advance, but are organized over the internet with little warning. According to the awkwardly nomikered "The People's Countermeasure Council against Full Resumption of Imports of U.S. Beef Endangered with Mad Cow Disease", 65,000 people attended the June 6 protest and 20,000 people were expected for the June 13 protest outside of Seoul City Hall. The Socialist Worker claimed that there were 700,000 in Seoul on June 10, but I guess these numbers might be somewhat suspect. There has been at least a protest per week for the past month, and the crowd has evolved from a few thousand school kids to a group that cuts across all demographics. The aim of the protests, originally only to halt resumption of US beef imports, has actually expanded to encompass many political issues, including opposition to President Lee Myung Bak's Grand Canal scheme and the privatization of medical service. The protests have been remarkably effective, forcing the government to postpone US beef imports and to renegotiate with the US diplomats on the issue. President Lee has also agreed to scrap the canal if the people oppose it. The candles are intended to symbolize non-violence, a striking contrast to the pro-labor and anti-dictatorship protests of old. The protesters stay out till dawn singing old popular resistance songs.

Nevertheless, the police are cracking down heavily on the demonstrations, and there have been instances of violence. Police are using batons and tear gas, and, according to this article, from one of the pro-government dailies, protesters have damaged 58 police buses and hospitalized 16 officers. For the June 13 protest, the National Police Agency estimated that only 7,000 people would attend but that 10,000 police officers would be on hand. As I have written before, the goal was to actually outnumber the protesters. But there is something very different about these protests from the others that I wrote about. These protests are not allowed. They are contained, as much as possible, but they are not allowed.

The vigils are not sanctioned and, therefore, they are not impotent. They are, I think, actually a model for successful protesting today. They are internet-mobilized, frequent and visible. They are putting people in the streets, and they did not ask for permission to be there. They are non-violent in outlook but still a force of which the police must be wary. A good model to follow elsewhere, perhaps, except that Korea is unusual in that Seoul is the focal point of the whole country in a way that New York, for example, simply is not.

And here's a related question for my avid readers, whoever you may be: If I have the opportunity to attend one of these protests, as an observer, should I do it? I have respect for their method of protesting, but I have no real solidarity with these protesters and their concerns. The issues are not mine. I sort of think that protest is sacred, and that, if you are not actually an interested party, you should not sully the event with your indifference. I say this in light of reports I've heard that foreigners in Korea have started attending the protests just for a laugh. This seems reprehensible to me. On the other hand, perhaps it is one's duty to observe history when it is happening, like a reporter, even if it is not properly your history. What do you think?

Of Protesting

In a recent post, I said that "we need people in the streets." What do I mean by that? Is setting up formal protests on the Mall really going to change things? I'm afraid not; not unless we've got someone like Dr. King up in front of Lincoln. Cindy Sheehan ain't gonna cut it.

I don't know if you remember, but there were massive protests in both New York and DC before the Iraq invasion. Even though 77 Senators supported the war, there was a substantial chunk of the country that opposed it from the beginning. And it is a mistake to say that college students were indifferent. We made up the core group of protesters. And the protests were very well organized. Ever heard of moveon.org? Remember how they first got started: organizing pre-Iraq-war protests.

But what effect did these protests have on policy? Nada. Why? Here is my theory: Protests are not really protests when they are allowed.

I was in Kyoto recently, and I met a man from Tehran. We were chatting and walking, and we ran into a big anti-war protest. A lively, shouting group from all demographics was protesting against proposed changes to Japan's constitution that would allow for a military build-up. Shouting and dancing, brandishing rainbow flags and Che posters, the protesters stood in stark contrast to the austere Kyoto neighborhood. But the really striking thing was not the protest itself but the number of police deployed to monitor it. On all sides, the protesters were barricaded in by troops in riot gear. There was no trouble; it was a model of peaceful political action. I'm sure that the permit to protest was properly filed--the forms were filled out--and the police were only there "for the protection of the protesters."

I've seen a similar thing in Seoul. I've run into two protests since I've been here: a striking union and a very, very small protest against the Burmese junta in front of its embassy. In both cases, the police outnumbered the protesters. (In the case of the strike, this required no small amount of manpower.) But I have to wonder: can something really be a protest, if the protesters are outnumbered by the police?

The police presence sends a very evident message: you are allowed to protest. If we wanted, we could stop you. We are indulging you, indulging your eccentricities. In sum: you are meaningless.

This was the same message I got in New York in February 2003. Although the protesters greatly outnumbered the police, the protest itself was contained. It was barricaded in, forced to follow a route. There were minor scuffles between police and protesters; most of these were provoked by the protesters in an attempt to feel something--to feel like we were actually bucking the law.

If Vietnam-era protest veterans want to complain about the college students today, they should realize this: In the '60s--not only in America but all over the world--governments realized what protest can do to a democracy. To prevent such things from happening again, certain rules were put in place. The idea of protest was legalized, sterilized. In the U.S., a right guaranteed by the Constitution now has to be authorized by a local government. "Public safety" has to be taken into account. And now that authorization is required, if a protest is not properly authorized, then it is lawful for the police to stomp it out, violently. Look at what happened at G8 conferences in the '90s. And now these conferences are held in inaccessible, heavily fortified locations.

The authorization of protests killed protesting. When protests are allowed they are no longer protests.

My friend from Tehran saw the Kyoto protest with different eyes. For him, to protest is an ideal, a remarkable democratic institution that, he believes, could change his country. But I wonder if he's right. If Tehran allowed protests, and surrounded them with troops, do you think they would have any effect? Probably, they would just single out the radicals for, if not imprisonment, then at least public ridicule. If anything, the authorization of impotent protests could kill off--in seas of red-tape banality--a real anti-government movement.

So what did I mean, "people in the streets"? We had people in the streets before the war, and now I'm saying that that doesn't work. If you agree with me that we've got to do something to change our government's policy--especially about torture--then what is to be done? What should we have done, before Iraq, before Guantanamo? Should we stage illegal protests all around the country? If we did, we would be stomped out with tear gas and night sticks. Because of a subtle shift in the notion of the right to assembly, the law would be against us. If the law is against us, most likely the public would be as well.

Or, should we lobby to change the law. Something about that seems absurd to me: lobbying the government in order to allow us to protest without a permit. Still, if a bill appeared that guaranteed the right to protest without the need for government consent, I would support it. (But wait, haven't we got such a law already...?)

Or should we, like the French, fight fire with fire? The recent suburban-Paris riots actually get attention, actually affect government policy, for better or worse. Perhaps this is what protest today must be: flaming cars, baseball bats and hunting rifles. The French always seem to set the standard for protests. And there's something beautifully inarticulate about simple violence. There's no need for policy suggestions; violent rioting sends the simple, far-from-subtle message that the government is doing it wrong. No need to specify what it is doing wrong, or how to fix it.

I'm not actually prepared to do this, of course. There must be another way. But whatever we do, we cannot allow the hallowed status of our government-guaranteed freedoms to hide the fact that basic democratic procedures--protesting, and, perhaps even voting--are ineffective.

Nostra Culpa

I would not usually link to a Times op-ed piece, but I'm doing so now, not because this one is particularly timely or well-written, but because Frank Rich makes a point that I almost never hear made. Namely, WE are to blame for our country's failures. We, all citizens, are the U.S.A. We are culpable for the lives taken, in Iraq and elsewhere, as well as for the complete loss of respect and influence the U.S. has suffered around the world.

I have often consoled myself, and defended my country against Bush-haters, by saying that America has been lead astray. Or that most people in the U.S. are good, and that the mistakes made in Iraq are not representative of my country. Or, I say, just wait a few more years, and we'll vote him out.

This, I now realize, is bull shit. If the people in the U.S. wanted to change course, we would have. Bush is obviously not so secure in his power that we cannot influence him. And even if he were, his power is based solely on public approval, or, perhaps, apathy. I'm not saying that we are to blame because we live in a democracy. In the modern era, I'm not convinced that democracy functions at all differently from any other type of government. Instead, public opinion, or lack there of, is the defining feature of a country. Just as Germans enabled Hitler even if they did not all support him, by allowing Iraq to happen we are just as guilty as if we were the ones actively participating. The relevant comparison here is not Bush to Hitler. And we can no longer be consoled by the limited scope of Iraq. The conflict there is spilling over into the entire region and into all aspects of our foreign relations.

What's to be done? A society is easily poisoned when the people who govern control the press and the organization of its citizens. I'm thankful that, in the U.S., these freedoms are guaranteed, or at least not currently challenged. But a democracy of the sort we have today has it's own dangers. Power is shielded behind a legislative and executive bureaucratic system that blunts public action and diffuses responsibility. Merely voting is not enough; in fact, it can be a distraction. Our elected and non-elected employees and representatives must ask for our mandate every day when they wake up, not just every two, four or six years. By tacitly granting it, even as they mire us deeper and deeper into immoral policy, we are participating in our own demise. God bless America? God have mercy...

And free speech can be a distraction as well. It's not clear whether Frank Rich is claiming this, but he is not absolved simply by writing this piece. A spot in the Times is little more than a soapbox. Perhaps the reporters who expose Blackwater massacres are doing their part, but pundits (including me) clearly are not. There is a sense in which we are mesmerized by the free press. Because we are able to say anything, we have an excuse for failing to act. What, pray tell, has Internet mobilization achieved? We need people in the streets.