The Seoul of democracy is under threat

A state of emergency is declared in *South* Korea.

(Yes, even during a shocking news event I’m going to make bad puns. I’m a dad. It’s in my nature.)

There’s an early Simpsons episode in which Kent Brockman is reporting from an animation studio in South Korea, “where American cartoons are made,” showing tired, underfed and overworked animators slaving away on The Itchy and Scratchy Movie at point of bayonets.

This was a joke at the expense of The Simpsons itself (which was, and probably still is, animated in Korea) but some South Korean viewers and officials were upset about their country being portrayed as a poor, dictatorial backwater.

“Idiot! You made Smithers Black in that scene!”

Indeed, the country had transitioned to multiparty democracy, hosted the 1988 summer Olympics, and had industrialized to the point where it was exporting cars (cheap and shoddily built ones, to be sure, but cars nonetheless) to the United States.

But this was all kind of new. For much of its existence, South Korea had been as much a dictatorship as its Stalinist enemy in Pyongyang. Had you visited both Koreas a decade after the armistice, you’d have come away with the impression the Communist North (long the more industrialized half of the country, and heavily subsidized by Moscow) was much more prosperous than the agrarian South.

That changed in the seventies and eighties, as the South Korean economy took off like a rocket while the Kim family-owned enterprise up North began to stagnate. With this increased wealth would come democracy by the mid-eighties.¹ And then the country’s rise to economic and cultural superpower accelerated, to the point where K-Pop and Squid Game and Samsung phones are everywhere and Hyundai has a luxury car brand.

From the Pony to this in forty years.

While fearing for the fate of liberal democracy in Trump’s America and a Europe in which the far right was once again becoming respectable - and even here in Canada, where left-Islamist mobs bray for “Zionist” blood in the streets of our major cities - it never occurred to me that one of Asia’s most established democracies would revert to authoritarianism.

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But that’s what appears to be happening today:

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol declared martial law in an unannounced late-night TV address Tuesday, accusing the country’s main opposition party of sympathizing with North Korea and of anti-state activities.

The last time a South Korean president declared martial law was in 1980, during a nationwide uprising led by students and labor unions.

In the surprise announcement, he cited a motion by the opposition Democratic Party, which has a majority in parliament, to impeach top prosecutors and reject a government budget proposal.

Soon after, South Korean lawmakers voted to block the martial law decree, with 190 of the 300 members of parliament voting to overturn the measure.

The National Assembly chairman Woo Won-sik labeled the president’s announcement “invalid” following the unanimous vote and called on him to “immediately lift” the emergency measures.

Woo, a member of the opposition liberal Democratic Party, added: “The people should … rest easy. The National Assembly will defend democracy with the people.”

It was not immediately clear what effect the vote will have but under South Korean law, the president is obliged to comply.

Yoon had labeled the opposition’s actions as “clear anti-state behavior aimed at inciting rebellion.” He further claimed these acts have “paralyzed state affairs and turned the National Assembly into a den of criminals.”

He described martial law as a necessary measure to eradicate these “shameless pro-North anti-state forces.” He justified the decision as essential to protect the freedoms and safety of the people, ensure the country’s sustainability, and pass on a stable nation to future generations.

The president assured the public, “We will eliminate the anti-state forces and restore the country to normalcy as quickly as possible.” While acknowledging that martial law might cause some inconvenience, he promised efforts to minimize its impact on the public.

While Yoon did not clarify what specific measures would be taken, Yonhap reported, citing the full military decree, which bans all political and parliamentary activities and allows arrests without a warrant.

The decree also prohibits “denying free democracy or attempting a subversion,” and outlaws “fake news” and “manipulating public opinion.” People who violate the decree can be arrested or raided without the need for a warrant, Yonhap added.

Citing the same document, Reuters reported that “strikes, work stoppages and rallies that incite social chaos” are also prohibited. That includes doctors who had been engaged in a walkout; they have been ordered by the decree to return to work within 48 hours.

To be clear, I am no expert in South Korean politics, outside of the country’s shameful inaction against its squid-game problem. Many liberal democracies have “emergency” laws which suspend civil liberties at times of crisis, and have even used them, only to end the state of emergency when the crisis has passed.²

And I certainly wouldn’t put it past North Korea to have many infiltrators and sympathizers active in Seoul, even in political circles. A country which sends garbage balloons southward is capable of anything.

It’s possible there’s a real emergency here, and that Yoon will end his state of emergency once some actual North Korean agents have been arrested, assuming his state of emergency amounts to much of anything in the first place.

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Yes, all of this is possible.

Or it could be something we’ve seen many times before, in which a scandal-ridden, politically diminished leader uses the nuclear option to remain in power at all costs.

It’s happened many times in Asia and Europe and Latin America. And in January, 2021, it came much closer to happening in the United States than many people would have thought possible. (Oh, and the guy who tried it will once again be President in a month or so.)