https://statuskuo.substack.com/p/seoul-searching
"South Koreans remain in shock and are furious over what just took place in
their country. But the rest of the free world is looking upon their handling of
the coup crisis with broad admiration. Democracy defeated dictatorship in
Seoul, and it only took a few hours.
Over the course of one night, South Korea lurched from democracy to martial law
then back to democracy, a head spinning chain of events set off by its
embattled president, Yoon Suk Yeol. Both the tensions that led to his power
grab, and the way democratic forces battled back, carry significant lessons for
other democracies, including ours here in the U.S.
For today’s column, let’s travel to the other side of the world and look upon
the world’s 13th largest economy, South Korea, which is a key and strategically
vital democratic ally of the U.S. with growing soft cultural power in music,
television and entertainment. To modern observers, that country feels an
unlikely place for democracy to be forced to take a hard stand, and quite a
stand it was. But South Korea’s past experience with military rule provides a
valuable context for why so many could rally so effectively against an
autocratic power grab.
In looking at what happened, I’ll also discuss the political and societal
gridlock in South Korea and draw some interesting and even startling parallels
to our own in the U.S. The fact that the people of South Korea nearly lost
their democracy overnight and the takeaways around how they actually kept that
from happening are important lessons for anyone working to stop autocracy and
fascism."
Via Kevin O'Brien.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
