It was a remarkably short lesson in the art of the military coup. The president of South Korea announced it at 11 at night; Parliament canceled it two hours later; The president withdrew at 4:30, even before the sun rose.
During those five and a half hours, South Korea held its breath away, because so much hung in the balance: the fate of a thriving economic power; the effect of the events in it on the explosive strategic equation of East Asia; And the very vision of a stable and developed capitalist democracy goes back to the dark days of military dictatorships.
How to seize power
We hear quite a lot about what happened in the presidential palace in Seoul during those hours. You can count on the creative Koreans to produce movies on the way to the Oscars, or at least on the way to Netflix. But one thing is clear: it was a farce.
It recalls April 22, 1961, when a group of French generals in Algeria tried to stage a putsch against President de Gaulle. The latter put on his old army uniform, sat down in front of the television cameras, and delivered the Hélas speech! Hélas! Hélas!, or ‘Alas! Alas! Alas!’, in which he rains down rains of contempt on the heads of the putschists, “whose duty, whose honor, whose reason for existence was to serve and obey”. The putsch that was about to plunge France into civil war ended with a moment of silence.
Demonstrators call for President Yoon Seok-yul to resign in front of the National Assembly in Seoul / Photo: Reuters, Lee Kitae
For example, the putsch by the veterans of the Communist Party against President Gorbachev in 1991, in a last attempt to prevent the collapse of the Soviet regime. The nominal leader of the putsch, Gennady Yanaev, was drunk, and his hands were shaking irreparably during the televised announcement of the establishment of an emergency regime. The putsch collapsed 48 hours later, and shortly after that the Soviet Union fell.
Quite a few instructional books have been written for potential dictators on how to seize power in one fell swoop, knock the opponent out of his wits or out of his mind, paralyze the foci of resistance and convince the public that this is the one. It used to be enough to seize the radio station, and broadcast from it a solemn announcement about the establishment of a National Salvation Council. Now you have to catch all the satellites floating above, and silence the internet.
Military coups have been the property of politics since the dawn of history. At the end of every democracy or republic there was a military coup, or at least a failed military coup. Until World War II, very few countries could confidently announce that “it won’t happen”. Shaika Ofir sang 55 years ago ‘And the people said: Hope, we have changed!’ The song consisted of the names of all the Syrian dictators, who were overthrown in military coups in the previous 20 years.
In Bolivia, the world champion in coups, there have been 190 coups in its 200 years of existence. For decades, coups have been the main way to change governments in important and populous countries like Pakistan and Thailand. Also in South Korea.
Is democracy a joke?
South Korea did not grow up in a democratic environment. It had a long tradition of social, religious and political authoritarianism. Its cultural identity was close to being erased during 35 years of Japanese oppressive rule, in the first half of the 20th century. Five years after the expulsion of Japan, a communist invasion almost ended the separate existence of the south.
American intervention saved him, and then his growth process began, which was slow and painful. It was run by civilian and military dictators. At its peak, the Korean miracle awaited. A country that in the 1950s was one of the poorest in the world reached within 30 years the status of one of the top 15.
At the same time, it was an embarrassing advertisement for the benefit that grows from the absence of democracy. General Park Chung Hee, who ruled it for 17 years with a very high hand, until he was assassinated by his intelligence chief, imposed on South Korea a production and labor discipline that was compared to forced labor camps in totalitarian countries. The Korean model was then a model for any general who was looking for excuses to establish a dictatorship. This model proved, apparently, that democracy is an obstacle to a developing society, which needs iron discipline to leap from darkness to light.
South Korea reached the democratic safe-coast only 25 years after Park established his dictatorship. She did so thanks to the sacrifice and courage of young people, who faced the bayonets of the army. One rebellion in 1981 cost hundreds, or thousands, of lives.
There was a clear, if not unequivocal, connection between economic prosperity and the development of democratic institutions. South Korea’s economic miracle was not the result of pure capitalism. The economy created by General Park was based on a complex model of capital rule. But his rescuers came out with free initiative and a spirit of innovation.
A destructive struggle between the authorities
In South Korea, something unusual in East Asia developed: non-conformity. Koreans have developed a culture of rebellion against convention. We see its results also in cinema, theater and music.
But South Korea did not reach the rest and the inheritance. It has a worsening economic crisis. Bitter polarization and massive corruption have plagued its politics for years. It has a constitutional regime, which tries to imitate the USA, with an executive president and a powerful legislative assembly. The result is often a destructive struggle between the authorities. Opposition parties think that their main duty is to impeach the president, or at least make him smell bad. The constitution limits their tenure of presidents for five years, and soon Liham Ness and the wind goes out of their sails.
This is what happened on Tuesday to President Yoon Suk-yeol. He still has 18 months left in the presidency. Public opinion turned against him, and the opposition controlling the parliament was about to start the process of impeaching him.
Chosun, the most prominent newspaper in South Korea, sums up the night’s drama: “Yoon declares a state of emergency, the National Assembly removes it 150 minutes later.”
What was Yun thinking and what was he hoping for when he declared a state of emergency? Did he take into account the counter moves of his opponents? Was he really ready to impose his will with bayonets, or were his hands shaking like those of Gennady Yanaev in Moscow, August 1991?
South Korea this week came close to becoming the first stable and developed democracy in our generation to surrender to a military coup. This could have been a worrying sign of things to come, especially on the eve of a new US president who had previously shown limited interest in human rights and strengthening democratic governments. The only Korean leader he was interested in was the communist dictator of the North.
Is this the end of the attempt to overthrow Korean democracy? It’s hard to know, but for the time being the Democrats are allowed to breathe easy. South Korea is not about to give anti-democratic ideas to elected leaders who are not satisfied with public opinion or the behavior of the opposition, and want to extend their rule no matter what.