"When I first came to Korea in the early 1990s I was at the campus of Korea University. At that time I first encountered the social, anti dictator, pro North Korea groups on campus. Once I discovered small pamphlets with the words of Kim Ill Sung in one group's meeting room. I wondered and looked for how could they be pro North Korea. At that time there were demos every day all day on campus with combat police and teargas. They were protesting the Uruguay Round trade talks and were anti government and anti American. Of course they liked me.
I came to understand that there was not one group but an umbrella of groups from moderately to far left including the violent labor unions, that were working together. I began looking into who they were.
Over the years I have watched them and looked for the points that tied them together. What I found was they all believed in a few common things.
1. Anti government (dynasty)
2. Anti conglomerate (yangbang)
3. Anti foreign influence in Korea (American)
4. Pro all things Korean
I named them the progressive umbrella group.
When I researched the Donghak rebellion I found that their political ideology was the same. I simply put two and two together.
Latter I watched the Mad Cow affair. When Lee Myung Bak lifted the ban on importing beef from America the progressive umbrella group manipulated the public's emotional reaction into huge candle light demonstrations calling for Lee to step down. The entire public as young as middle schoolers were mobilized against Lee. The media, the internet and text messages were used to spread the most ridicules rumors against the administration. One popular one was that Lee Myung Bak had sold the Dok Do islets to Japan. It went on all summer week after week. Lee Myung Bak refused to resign and served out his term.
Park Geun-Hye is the natural born enemy to the left and they began to organize against her even before she became a cannidate for president. Of course her father was their mortal enemy before he was assassinated . Once she took office they began demonstrating against her and calling her to resign immediately. The demos were small but consistent every weekend in downtown Seoul. I watched them march around with flags and banners and bullhorns but everybody ignored them. We are talking only 2-300 demonstrators. They had various issues but none caught on with the public. The momentum began to build with the tragic ferry sinking. The public was very upset and the progressive umbrella group began to blame Park. Now they had an issue that could be manipulated but there was no real traction evidence wise.
It wasn't till last fall that a minor corruption scandal broke it wide open. The bribery scandal seemed to lead to top officials at the Blue House but it didn't explode until accusations of shamanism and cronyism stuck to the president herself. Since last fall the rumors of outrageous behavior have filled the airwaves and cyberspace getting more far out each day. Many Koreans only could say "shame" again and again.
Now, was this affair an orchestrated attack against Park by the progressive umbrella group? Absolutely! Has there been any wrong doing in the Park administration? Absolutely. Is the general level of corruption, influence peddling and cronyism in the Park Administration greater then in the rest of Korean society? That's a judgment call.
Donghak was a mix of Christian, buhudist, Taoist , and traditional Korean shamanism. It was anti dynasty, anti yang ban and anti foreign. It promoted all things Korean and made a religion and a political movement out of it. Although. With the help of Japan, the dynasty chrushed the rebellion and executed the leaders, the ideology lived on. This mix of religious and political ideas gave rise to new and very unorthodox forms of belief. The Tai Ping rebellion in China gave us the younger brother of Jesus. In Korea the idea that Jesus would return in the flesh and would be born in Korea began and was not uncommon among fringe Christian groups during the Japanese occupation.
The basic ideas of the Donghak movement split into many small religious groups each with their own emphasis on a particular religious idea. The main dong hak group changed their name to 전도교 the way of heaven and turned away from revolutionary politics to focus on social and national development. They established a headquarters in Seoul and had their largest membership in Pyongyang.
The basic ideas of anti government , anti foreign and pro all things Korean coalesced into a form of extreme nationalism. When the western ideology of dialectical materialism was added to the mix it became explosive. The resistance to the Japanese was split into two groups, the royalist who dreamed of a return to the old dynasty and the progressives who wanted a whole new order. This drama played out throughout the peninsula, in Manchuria and China as well as Japan Hawaii and the world. By the time of liberation the various groups turned to fighting each other. In the north an obscure guerrilla leader Kim I'll Sung who had thrown in with the soviets was installed.
The current political situation.
The progressive umbrella group who hate Park Geun-Hye are pushing their advantage to remove the president as soon as possible and put a leftist in the blue house.
They are not communist. The declared candidates are from the main opposition party and other left of center progressive parties. The ruling party is somewhat crippled by the ongoing turmoil surrounding the president. The president is delaying the impeachment process in order to give the Conservative party more time to get their shit together. The fat lady has not yet sung. There is a large number of folks, mostly in their 50s to 70s , who are conservative and very likely to vote.
To call the progressives communist is to be ignorant of Korean history. Those farthest to the left are pro North Korean not because they are pro communist but because they are extreme Korean nationalists. Their view does not reflect the view of most South Koreans. The problem is they are adept at building coalitions with other progressive groups such as the labor unions.
Previously posted:
You guys need to know that the most important event in modern Asian history was the meeting of East and West. When the European powers arrived, the circumstances of that meeting has greatly impacted the history of East Asia ever since. The main East Asian nations are China, Japan, and Korea. Each of these nations were in a long downward spiral when the outsiders suddenly showed up. China was huge and had been a great civilization for a very long time but it was in decline politically, economically, and socially when they encountered the west. It was a lopsided meeting. The industrialized west was able to dominate China in a shameful way.
The same could be said about Japan Korea. The west arrived with their ocean going ships, guns, and cannon. More important they had technology, political ideology and new religions. They were sure they were superior to the natives. The ways the three countries reacted to the onslaught were different but the results were much the same.
The Taiping and Boxer uprisings in China, the Dan Hak rebellion in Korea and the Meiji Revolution in Japan were all in response to the imperialism from the west, as well as the simultaneous crumbling of the old dynasties and power structures in the east. Modern Asian history, including World War 2, the division of this peninsula into north and south, the rise of and the victory of the Communist Party of China, are all results of this same dynamic.
This is the beginning point for understanding the current political situation in South Korea."
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