Letter from Seoul - 17

Democracy Matters

On January 6, 2021 a crowd of Trump’s Brown shirts broke into the U.S. Congress to hi-jack democracy. They failed.

On December 2, 2024, a crowd of elected legislators broke into the South Korean National Assembly to preserve democracy. They succeeded.

Democracy Matters.

It is Friday morning in the Orient, and there is an expected vote today in the South Korean National Assembly for Articles of Impeachment against President Yoon who rescinded his martial law decree after 190 gathered legislators voted unanimously against the effort to deny the Will of the People.

A poll shows 73.6% of South Koreans support impeaching Yoon, with 69.5% believing his actions amount to insurrection. Support for his removal crosses all traditional political divides, with majorities favoring impeachment even in some conservative strongholds.

In a past life, I aspired to be a social activist. This was at the tail-end of the 1960s, and so I began a major in Sociology. I’ve always been fascinated by the different ways people organize their hierarchies of power, and the family is the most important unit.

However, math is my Waterloo, and every time I face down my weakness for abstract reasoning, I’m defeated. With a preponderance of Irish DNA, it made sense to head into journalism and get paid to write. In life, one might as well do what brings us the most fulfillment – and the money will follow.

“Scribo ergo sum.”

At first, the idea of photography only appealed to me as a way to pick-up young women my age ... with the sensitive artist routine. This lasted a week, and then I realized my obvious foolishness. This coincided with encountering the work of W. Eugene Smith, Robert Frank, Mary Ellen Mark and the young Anne Leibowitz. These remain my real professors., along with a host of others too numerous to mention. I still identify as a photojournalist.

The pendulum of change never remains stagnant, and gradually shifts. The terms “left wing” and “right wing,” derived from the French Revolution and how influential people aligned themselves with revolution (left) and the ancien regime (monarchy), have become updated as prisms to view contemporary communism and fascism.

To say the only constant in how societies are organized is change is not accurate without conceding that they are all patriarchal constructs. Perhaps being a sociopath owes so much to testosterone. Who knows? In my case, the Left Hemisphere of my head is virtually vacant and so I have a fourth grader’s acumen for both math and science.

The rise of fascism in America, and other parts of the world, is at a crisis point. Emotionally, I’m an American. Physically, I live in Seoul. This is by choice, and I’m very happy with my lifestyle. I’m familiar with Korean history, yet only with an armchair understanding.

History is seldom taught in school; that’s a one-year course in national mythology – and, in the West, that means a Euro-centric rendition. The Orient? Where’s that? Genghis Khan? Who that be?

History starts at the family dinner table, when we are instructed by our parents and grandparents - through both word and deed, about our values and standards, and how we came to live in a particular spot – as immigrants from somewhere else.

President Yoon is very conservative, and very patriarchal. In fact, despite the glitz of steel and glass that signifies South Korea’s rise as the Phoenix from the ashes ... and how the country has taken the world by storm with K-Pop trends in music, fashion, TV soap operas and cinema ... this is a lot like America during the Eisenhower era (1953-1963). And, in old age, I like the level of respect and decency that Koreans display every day.

As Van Morrison says: “You don’t push the river.” And so history is one vast continuum that we try to understand in convenient periods: the Peloponnesian War, the Roman Empire, the Dark Ages, the Renaissance, The Reformation, The Age of Reason, and on and on.

The Eisenhower era of America, a time of extraordinary exceptionalism that started with the horror of wasting two major Japanese cities with atomic bombs in early August, 1945.

The Eisenhower era of boundless optimism and tangible prosperity ended in Dallas on November 22, 1963. This began both the Season of Assassins (Malcolm X, King, and RFK) and America’s Season in Hell in the jungles of Vietnam.

We’ve endured an embarrassing and shameful conga line of anemic wankers as President, from Shitweasel Richard Nixon, Lobotomized Ronald Reagan, “Blowjob Bill” Clinton, Smirking Chimp George W. Bush and Convicted Felon Donald Trump, who stole countless top-secret documents on behalf of his Russian top.

The only American President worth a damn in my lifetime is Jimmy Carter.

To understand President Yoon’s attempt to overthrow the government of South Korea, one cannot overlook the 750-year history of the Joseon Dynasty that once ruled the entire peninsula. This ended with the Japanese Occupation: 1910-1945 ... followed by the Korean Civil War: 1950-1953, which has never been formally resolved with a standard peace treaty.

And now, it has moved to the Killing Fields of Ukraine, with North Korean soldiers fighting alongside the genocidal Russians – and being killed off by Ukrainians armed and supplied in part by South Korea.

Sometimes it seems as if both our family values and those of our general culture are encoded in our DNA, and we respond accordingly. Yet that sounds too much like Fate, and the story of Oedipus. “It is written,” as Arab Muslims still believe.

Yet if we are doomed to a life of arrested development and do not have to take responsibility for our actions, then morals are irrelevant and the Rule of Law is meaningless.

I will always cast my vote for Free Will, because responsibility matters.

Morality matters.

President Yoon will likely escape being impeached and expelled from office for lack of votes from members of the National Assembly. No surprise, his idiotic attempt to seize control of the government has had a negative impact on Korean currency (the won), and tourism. Other countries have begun issuing travel warnings to Seoul, and the locals have started cancelling flights on Korean Air (the #1 carrier for international flights). And yet ... life goes on, and things seem normal. We drove by the National Assembly yesterday (Thursday) where I did my photography the day before. For us, it was our normal route home after a trip to Costco (an American brand with stores in Seoul, Tokyo, Vancouver and London), around there were no demonstrators and a low-profile police presence. The vote on Yoon is expected Saturday at the National Assembly.

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