This article is part of a series from countries that have experienced an authoritarian turn from democracy. Access the rest of the symposium here
In her Nobel Prize acceptance speech on 10th December 2024, the South Korean author Han Kang posed the following questions: “Can the past help the present? Can the dead save the living?”
On 3rd December 2024, at 10.27pm, Yoon Suk Yeol, the president of South Korea, had declared martial law, bringing back memories of the nation’s oppressive, authoritarian past. As Special Warfare Command troops began to converge on the parliament building in Seoul, alarmed citizens rushed to the scene. Many people recalled the haunting voice of a young woman echoing through the darkness in the city of Gwangju shortly after midnight on 27th May 1980. In the preceding days, troops from that same unit had brutally cracked down on peaceful demonstrators opposing martial law in Gwangju, killing hundreds. The voice said: “Please, citizens of Gwangju, the martial law troops are advancing. Please help us... ” Many more would die.
Those who rushed to the parliament on that cold December night in 2024 had no idea what awaited them. The special troops, trained like the US Navy Seals, were fearsomely armed, their weapons menacing in the dim light. A 33-year-old man positioned himself in front of a tank, determined to block its advance towards the National Assembly. He did this despite feeling an overwhelming fear, as if he were “standing at the edge of a cliff”, he says in a Korean Broadcasting System documentary about that day.
One 30-year-old graduate student hurried to parliament and clutched the steel door of the building’s gate, trying to let the lawmakers in while stopping the police and soldiers from entering. The whirring sound of helicopters carrying troops made her realise how dangerous the situation was, but she did her best to hide her fear. A 39-year-old member of an indie band decided to go, even though he does not usually participate in rallies. Many people might not show up, he thought, as it was late at night and they would have work the next morning. A freelancer, he felt that “it’s my turn now”. People shared stories of taxi drivers refusing to turn on their meters or refunding fares on ride-sharing apps.
Once at the National Assembly, people created blockades with their bodies to obstruct the troops, providing lawmakers with the critical time needed to pass a motion—at 1.02am, with 190 votes for and none against—demanding the repeal of martial law. The establishment of a constitutional court in South Korea, with its provision for the requirements and procedures for declaring and repealing martial law, was a result of the country’s democratic transition in 1987. This transition was made possible by a three-decade-long movement for democratisation. The Gwangju massacre was central in intensifying this movement during the 1980s.
On 3rd December last year, it soon became apparent that many soldiers on the ground, and some civil servants, chose the path of insubordination rather than following orders. The military leaders did not arrest those on a list prepared by Yoon, which included politicians, a journalist and former judges. Police and soldiers refrained from using excessive force against the citizens who were protecting parliament. Some soldiers, ordered to search the National Election Commission, took their time and even paused for instant ramen at a shop.
In her Nobel acceptance speech, Han Kang continued: “When a time and place in which human cruelty and dignity existed in extreme parallel is referred to as Gwangju, that name ceases to be a proper noun unique to one city and instead becomes a common noun… It comes to us—again and again across time and space, and always in the present tense. Even now.”
Even now. The massacre of Gwangju left deep trauma but also a strong historical memory of resistance. When the country faced the shocking reality of Yoon’s attempted coup and its potentially devastating consequences, the people recalled the dead of Gwangju to illuminate the present. They put their bodies on the line again to protect the nation against democratic backsliding.
Months later, thousands of people continue to gather in Seoul and other South Korean cities every Saturday, peacefully demanding that the constitutional court uphold Yoon’s impeachment and punish those who assisted him in his abuse of power. K-pop superstar Rosé’s mega-hit with Bruno Mars “APT.” and the boy band g.o.d.’s “One Candle” echo through the rallying grounds, accompanied by waves of colourful LED cheer sticks, banners and placards of all shapes and sizes. Chants of “Impeach Yoon Suk Yeol” fill the air.
This K-pop-infused, carnival-like setting is what one scholar calls “a new political space—one grounded in a tangible sense of interconnectedness and interdependence”. It is the site of a collective act of defiance and solidarity. It unites women in their twenties and thirties, elderly farmers who have brought their tractors into the city, people identifying as LGBT+, college dropouts, individuals with disabilities, a dismissed worker from the luxury Sejong Hotel who is protesting on top of a 10-metre-high structure, family members of victims from the Sewol ferry disaster, and students from Dongduk Women’s University who oppose their institution’s decision to become co-educational. Together, chanting and cheering, they envision a world where, as one common refrain says, “no one is left behind”.
