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¡°Although violent demonstrations are routine in Korea, Hong Kong citizens were stunned to see some demonstrators even kicking others,¡± Democratic Labor Party lawmaker Kang Ki-Kap told Korean reporters in Hong Kong on Monday. ¡°In Korea, too, we must create a new peaceful demonstration culture.¡± It is because of that huge gap between Hong Kong and Korea in terms of their protest culture, he said, that the leadership of the Korean Peasants Union spent a lot of time agonizing whether to lead the protest. ¡°As for the farmers, what made it difficult for them to restrain themselves is the thought they went there against many odds, spending as much as W1 million (US$1,000) each, so they felt they were not just there to do three-steps-and-one-bow and shout slogans," Kang added.
Kang was one of the 1,400-odd mostly farmers and union activists from Korea who, while demonstrating near the venue of the WTO Ministerial Conference on Saturday afternoon, swung steel pipes and wooden sticks at the local police, wrestled police shields away and attempted to overturn a police vehicle. Some 700 Koreans including Rep. Kang, not content with that, occupied five lanes of a 10-lane road until late at night, and 11 of them were arrested and indicted by the Hong Kong authorities. An elected DLP lawmaker representing farmers, Rep. Kang last month staged a 29-day hunger strike in protest against the elected National Assembly's endorsement of agreements with rice-exporting countries.
But as Kang points out, protesters armed with steel pipes and wooden clubs, street occupation in the night and attempts to overturn police vehicles are common sights when our farmers and workers demonstrate. Because of these violent protests, 803 Korean police officers were injured in 10,310 demonstrations during the first 11 months of the year. To citizens in Hong Kong, where a demonstration of hundreds and thousands of people rarely even sees any shoving, Korean-style protests were truly a shock.
The problem lies in the fact that our farmers and laborers, while addressing in their demonstrations global issues like the opening of rice markets and developed labor systems, have yet to overcome a very local style of demonstrating that relies heavily on pipes and sticks. No sensible protestors would choose such methods. In that respect, Rep. Kang's awakening must serve as a welcome impulse for our farmers and workers to nurture a protest culture that meets global standards of behavior and is therefore both lawful and effective.
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