Anti-American 'Beef' Protests Continue

Anti-American Beef Protest

Typical Photo from June Protests

Still Applicable Today

(Image from Brisbane Times)

The Korean 'left' still has a beef with American beef . . . or seems to.

Robert Koehler -- aka "The Marmot" at that online center of expat scuttlebutt The Marmot's 'Watering' Hole -- informs us that Scott Burgeson attended Saturday night's anti-beef protest, which has morphed into a "peaceful defense of South Korean democracy against the Lee Myung-bak dictatorship" (to borrow Robert's ironic manner of expression).

The Reaganite libertarian Robert Koehler and the postmodern leftist Scott Burgeson have rarely agreed on Korean issues but seem to find themselves in surprised agreement on the beef protests. Robert directs us to this post by Scott (aka known as Wang Baeksu [= "King White Hands," or King of the Slackers]), which reveals this about the protest in downtown Seoul:

At around 8pm, about 1,000 protesters had occupied the main intersection at Chonggak so that no cars could go through. After a while, the police opened the street (Chongno) by marching in a forward straight line, but with restraint and without hitting anyone that I could see. For some reason, after about 30 minutes the police decided to retreat, and one large line of police started retreating towards Ch'onggyech'on. Thus, they had left the entire intersection of Chonggak open again to the protesters, without arresting anyone or anything.

As the police were retreating, many protesters started charging at them and actually hitting them with their fists. There was the usual media frenzy, of course, flashes everywhere and whatnot. The most hilarious part was that the protesters were actually shrieking "Violent police!" as they were hitting the police! I thought this was just absurdly ironic and nothing else until I saw that one slight young policeman had been knocked unconscious by the protesters and had to be carried to the sidewalk and laid down. He was out for a while and eventually regained consciousness (volunteer protest medics and other police were attending to him), but couldn't stand up, so after waiting about 15 minutes an ambulance finally came and took him away.

Of course, none of the usual suspects were there to document all this, like Hankyoreh, MBC or KBS. I asked several protesters why they were complaining about the violent police when they were hitting police first, and they all whined, "The police started it!" like third graders. Remember: THE POLICE WERE RETREATING when this poor young guy was KNOCKED UNCONSCIOUS!

I couldn't figure out an easy way to leave a message at Scott's website, so I posted a comment at Robert's site:

At Berkeley during protests in the early 80s against apartheid, the hardcore left used to stand at the back of protesting crowds and hurl rocks over the heads of the other protesters to hit the police.

Why?

Why, to foment revolution, of course.

My Berkeley friend Scott Corey, who wrote his thesis on political violence, had watched this sort of behavior on the part of the radical, hardcore left in Berkeley.

Similarly, when we doctoral students were protesting UC Berkeley's decision to rename Teaching Assistants as Graduate Student Employees -- for we were the TAs who would lose bargaining power through that name change -- I listened to one of our organizers complain about the hardcore left trying to infiltrate our ranks and incite violence.

My conclusion was that the radical left's main goal was to exacerbate divisions in society in the interest of class warfare, a point implied in an earlier post of mine, "Lying for the truth," for I quote there from Stephen Koch's long essay, "Lying for the truth: Münzenberg & the Comintern" (The New Criterion, Volume 12, Number 3, November 1993), who says this about the Communist protests 'defending' the two Italian-born American workers and anarchists Ferdinando Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti:

The Communist goal was never to save the lives of Sacco and Vanzetti. Acquittal would have dissolved the whole political point. Katherine Anne Porter, like hundreds of writers and artists of the time, participated in the Boston deathwatch. She reports an exchange with the Comintern agent who was her group leader, Rosa Baron, "a dry, fanatical little woman who wore thick-lensed spectacles over her accusing eyes, a born whiphand, who talked an almost impenetrable jargon of party dogma . . . . I remarked . . . that even then, at that late time, I still hoped the lives of Sacco and Vanzetti could be saved . . . . 'Saved' she said, ringing a change on her favorite answer to political illiteracy, 'who wants them saved? What earthly good would they do us alive?'"

In response to what I'd read, I commented:

Ms. Baron's remark is either the profound cynicism of the nihilist or the deep conviction of the true believer that every deception is permitted in pressing forward toward the utopian 'truth' . . . and maybe both at once.

This same attitude seems to characterize the hardcore Korean left as well.

Gypsy Scholar visits the police...

Police Encounter

"Please police me, oh yeah, like I police you..."

(Image from Wikipedia)

On Friday afternoon, I had a brief encounter with the Korean police.

It started like this...

On Wednesday afternoon, I received a phone call from a certain Korean man who proceeded to remind me of an experience way back on the evening of September 14, 2006 during the 31st anniversary celebration of Papua New Guinea's independence, an event that I attended at Seoul's Grand Hyatt Hotel and that I happen to have blogged upon:

I had an ... exciting encounter with a journalist from the Korea IT Times. I happened to be alone for a moment, sipping an Australian shiraz and musing about maybe testing that special Arabicas roast [imported from Papua New Guinea], when a Korean man approached me to introduce himself. He was a perceptive fellow, for he already had me pegged as a professor and asked if I taught literature.

In our ensuing conversation, he learned that I had previously taught at Hanshin University. At this point, he became animated and informed me that he had majored in German at Hanshin. I responded by switching to German, and he impressed me not only by replying in German but also by continuing our talk in that language.

I say "impressed" because many Korean students in Korea are not especially serious about their major, and one often meets people here who know very little about the field that they 'studied.'

Anyway, I was just about to hand him my card, when a rather burly fellow who was clearly deep into his cups came over, grabbed the journalist, spoke some angry words in Korean, and began pushing the poor fellow. Astonished by this sudden irruption, I could only stare as my conversation partner was pushed halfway across the room. Other people intervened to separate the two, the aggressive man was escorted out, and my journalist returned to accept my card and supply his own before exiting with determination in his eyes.

To be frank ... the Korean fellow didn't specify all of these details. Rather, he mentioned being a reporter for the Korea IT Times and reminding me that we had met at a celebration "On the Occasion of the 31st Anniversary of the Independence of Papua New Guinea," to which I had been invited by Ambassador Kuma Aua.

All of the details then came flooding back ... vaguely. I was drowning in them, but rescued by the Korean man on the other end of the line, a lifeline:

"You remember the attack?" he inquired.

That, I recalled clearly. "Yes," I confirmed.

That established, the man reminded me that he had attended Hanshin University, where I had taught (an important connection for Koreans, for whom connections mean everything), and asked me if I would be willing to act as a witness of the attack.

I agreed.

Now, I agreed -- of course -- more out of abstract principles than due to any particular connection that I might have with this fellow. I had seen what appeared to be an unprovoked attack, the apparent victim needed an eyewitness, and I felt that testifying was my duty.

As I remarked, rather abstract.

Of course, I had to rope my wife into this. At first, she was skeptical and gave me that 'look' that says "What are you thinking?!" But after she had spoken to the man himself and learned that he had been attacked three fricking times by the same implacable fellow, her Korean heart was touched, and she wanted to help the poor man.

I -- by this time -- was wondering, "Uh ... three times? What have I gotten myself into? Is Mr. Implacable going to come looking for me?" So much for abstract principles...

Nevertheless, on Friday afternoon, I went to Samseong Subway Station to meet my wife on her way back from teaching, and we walked to our scheduled meeting in the nearby police station, where the poor man looked so relieved to see us appear. He shook hand with me, bowed to my wife (the obvious boss, I guess), and thanked us profusely for coming to help him.

Soon, we approached the policeman who bore responsibility for posing the questions. He took one look at me and sighed, "Oh no, not a foreigner!"

But he soon learned that I was a professor at Kyung Hee University and married to a Korean, which seemed to help rehabilitate me ... a bit.

After instructing the Korean fellow to go out, he asked what had happened. I recited the dry details -- which you can derive from the description above by deleting all of the adjectives.

My wife waited until I had finished telling everything, which wasn't much, and then translated.

Afterwards, the policeman typed and typed.

Then, he asked my wife to proofread what he had written. She looked at it and smiled. After reading through, she explained, "It's written up as a report of the policeman posing questions that you answer." As if he had interviewed me!

The 'legal' truth will thus differ from the actual truth. Granted, the policeman did ask a follow-up question. I had described the aggressor as having pushed the man who had asked me to testify on his behalf.

The policeman asked, "Did the alleged aggressor strike the victim with his fist?"

I replied, "I did not see this happen."

The policeman asked this more than once. Each time, I testified that I had not seen that sort of violence. At length, the policeman appeared satisfied. Actually, he seemed to have the opinion that a mountain was being made of a molehill (if I may ascend into cliché).

My wife and I were then allowed to leave ... after I had signed my statement and been duly fingerprinted. (Was I the criminal?)

Outside, we spoke again with the man who had called me. He was very grateful ... until he learned that I hadn't witnessed the aggressor strike him a blow. At that point, he appeared ... deflated. He wasn't less grateful, but he looked as if he felt that he had lost his case. I guess that I was supposed to have seen fisticuffs. I had not, however, witnessed any ... though my line of sight may have been obscured.

At any rate, that was my 'exciting' Friday afternoon encounter with the Korean Police...