[KS] Egypt and Gwangju 1980

[george katsiaficas]

Dear Werner,

Your sentiments were most ennobling. I, too, was disturbed by the appearance
of the view that caused you to send in your first email. The disparagement
of "mobs" has a long history, most notably in the late 19th century in the
work of Gustave LeBon. In his book, The Crowd, he thoroughly criticized the
American Revolution and democracy as "mob rule." LeBon followed in the
footsteps of learned Harvard professor Crane Brinton, who (spinning Plato's
recommendation for good government) referred to George Washington and Thomas
Jefferson as "philosopher-killers." Of course, such antiquated views are
outdated--or perhaps not?

George 


> From: Werner Sasse <werner_sasse at hotmail.com>
> Reply-To: Korean Studies Discussion List <koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws>
> Date: Sat, 19 Feb 2011 15:07:46 +0000
> To: list korean studies <koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws>
> Subject: Re: [KS] Egypt and Gwangju 1980
> 
> 
> Dear Roald ( and dear Scott, as it matters)
> maybe I was to much upset about the wording.
> To be more specific: The mad cow demonstrations started as a rather small
> movement but turned into a real mass movement soon because of the way the
> authorities handled the demonstrations. Scott is right in the respect that
> after - was it 3 weeks, was it a month?- the case of mad cow had turned into a
> serious anti-president and anti-certain-newspapers- movement some splinter
> groups turned violent. By then the slogans of anti-mad-cow had been dropped
> almost entirely in favour of anti govt and anti-newspaper slogans.... However,
> as long as the mad cow thing was the main topic there was no violence on the
> part of the demonstrators, in other words ther was no MOB. What made me react
> was Scott's  "during the Mad Cow Protests of 2008"... see below.
> Yes, and thank you for your good wishes to have survived this winter: it
> helped that I had run away to Thailand...
> Best, Werner
>  
>  
> I can't speak to earlier protest movements in South Korea, but certainly there
> were moments during the Mad Cow Protests of 2008 in Seoul when the supposedly
> peaceful "vigils" degenerated into outright mob-like behavior. Whether the
> widespread, unprovoked violence displayed by many protesters on many nights
> was calculated (to provoke reactions from the riot police, and thereby
> generate propaganda imagery in support of the movement) or "spontaneous" is
> moot, since to outside observers, the impression was the same, and in line
> with the following dictionary definition:
>> 
> 
>  
> 
> 
> Date: Sat, 19 Feb 2011 10:41:11 +1100
> From: Roald.Maliangkay at anu.edu.au
> To: koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws
> Subject: Re: [KS] Egypt and Gwangju 1980
> 
> 
> Dear Werner,
> 
> Good to read you! I hope you¹re enjoying the end of the long cold winter
> there. I hear it was a particularly mean one.
> 
> Anyway, I am probably misreading something here, but it seems you¹re saying
> Scott is lying about being assaulted by a group of people, and I find that a
> bit hard to take in. I don¹t think he was referring to the entire movement as
> a mob. Korean protests in the past few decades have shown us that wanton
> violence does occur. I remember one entire floor at the Lotte Department floor
> being levelled after the protesters, who started their protests only a week or
> so earlier, were told their demands would not be met. It¹s a common phenomenon
> this unorganised, uncharacteristic mob violence, as I am sure you know (also
> coming from a footballing nation). I think it¹s important to really consider
> all the elements (of frustration), and that does mean taking into account the
> entirety of the movements we study and discuss and not ignore the little group
> acts of violent indiscretion simply because they do not fit the big picture.
> Those splinter groups are interesting as well, but their aims may only be
> loosely connected to the aspirations of the main group. If I were assaulted by
> a group of people I probably wouldn¹t use a three-letter word, to be honest.
> However, that is not to say, of course, that we must regard all of the
> protesters as a mob, because I would strongly reject that.
> 
> Just my two cents worth...
> 
> Best wishes,
> 
> Roald
> 
> 
> 
> Op 18/02/11 7:19 PM, Werner Sasse <werner_sasse at hotmail.com> schreef:
> 
> 
> Scott, can you, please, stop this!
> Your comments are simply disgusting in the way they picture these people.
> I lived within the cordon the riot police had drawn all the time during these
> demonstrations, and I was unfortunate to see the aggressive behaviour of the
> riot police once darkness had fallen.  And really, the sheer mass of the
> police in their war like outfits was a provocation in itself already. It
> definitely reminded of late Park Chung Hee's times.
> The demonstrators were students, middle class mothers with their babes, and
> men of all ages in dark suits right out of their offices. Their behavior was
> agitated, showing how upset they were (and not about the Mad cow thing that
> triggered the demonstrations, but about the way the government behaved), but
> certainly not  "disorderly and intent on causing trouble or violence".
> You may  not have liked the demonstrations. That's o.k. But, please, do not
> use this kind of language.
> Werner Sasse 
>  
>  
>> Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2011 17:55:30 -0800
>> From: jsburgeson at yahoo.com
>> To: koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws
>> Subject: Re: [KS] Egypt and Gwangju 1980
>> 
>> --- On Wed, 2/16/11, Frank Hoffmann <hoffmann at koreaweb.ws> wrote:
>> 
>>> The term "mob" has a specifically negative and outdated taste
>>> to it ... being a term for mafia as well as being mafia slang
>>> itself on the one hand, and in its older British usage, I
>>> think, reflects a rather elitist view, but was then also
>>> picked up by late 19th and early 20th century communists to
>>> refer to masses in a negative way, masses that are being
>>> manipulated, dehumanized -- non-legitimized masses so to
>>> say. That is at least my understanding. You used it in that
>>> same way, as I read it, and it was irritating to see that in
>>> your report dealing with Korean protests against U.S.
>>> imports etc.
>> 
>> I can't speak to earlier protest movements in South Korea, but certainly
>> there were moments during the Mad Cow Protests of 2008 in Seoul when the
>> supposedly peaceful "vigils" degenerated into outright mob-like behavior.
>> Whether the widespread, unprovoked violence displayed by many protesters on
>> many nights was calculated (to provoke reactions from the riot police, and
>> thereby generate propaganda imagery in support of the movement) or
>> "spontaneous" is moot, since to outside observers, the impression was the
>> same, and in line with the following dictionary definition:
>> 
>> mob |mäb|
>> noun
>> a large crowd of people, esp. one that is disorderly and intent on causing
>> trouble or violence : a mob of protesters.
>> 
>> The pattern of reckless violence and provocation continued well into 2009,
>> such as when protesters "celebrating" the one-year anniversary of the Mad Cow
>> Protests stormed the Hi! Seoul Festival performance stage at Seoul Plaza,
>> forcing its cancellation, and continuing to run amok in Myong-dong on many
>> other nights. I was there on most nights and witnessed all of this first-hand
>> myself, and on one occasion when attempting to photograph some of the more
>> egregious transgressions of the protesters, was physically assaulted by no
>> less than half a dozen different protesters at once.
>> 
>> Surely it is the task of historians to view and write history with eyes wide
>> open, rather than willfully whitewashing it (whether with fancy verbiage and
>> semantics or otherwise), given that the evidence is easily accessible to
>> anyone looking for it?
>> 
>> --Scott Bug
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>        
>