Incheon Airport
I had been hesitant for weeks. After accepting the invitation I had a second thought and tried to call off my early availability. I was scared by the distance, and the humid hot weather of the summer of Seoul. So I declined the invitation of the Korean publisher of some of my books.
I sent him an email: “I’m too sick for this journey. I suffer from asthma, the long flight and the sultry moisture would be bad for my health.”
But my publisher, who is a very nice guy, kindly insisted: “Do you really believe that the Northern Koreans will launch a nuclear bomb while you stay here?”
The sarcasm of his message made me hit the roof.
“Do you think that I’m stupid?” I replied “I know that the Northern crazy boy is staging the menace as a ritual way to cash money from the Americans. Anyway I don’t give a shit about the nuclear bomb. I’m more concerned about my asthma than about Kim Jong Un.”
Then I overcame all my worries and I went to Seoul.
I had a great time there, as I finally saw the purest version of the desert of the.
I studied the signs of the urban environment and of the daily life, and I tried to decipher the marks left by the historical past on the skin of the present.
By the end of the 20th Century – after decades of war, humiliation, starvation and horrific bombings – both the physical and the anthropological landscape of this country had been reduced to a sort of devastated abstraction. At that point, human life and the city gave themselves with docility to the transforming hand of the highest form of contemporary nihilism.
Korea is the ground zero of the world, a blueprint for the future of the planet.
At Incheon airport two organizers of my lectures came to welcome me: the artist and architect Eunseon Park, director of the magazine Listen to the City – and the young scholar Kim Junsung.
The Airport is built on an island, and the connecting bridge runs along the sea. From the windows of Kim’s car I looked at the landscape. Chimneystacks all along the coastal line – dissolved in a mystical fog, gray on gray. Gray abstraction.
The sea has receded and the ground is grey and brownish like the sky.
Calmly, intensely, hopelessly, the ultimate abstraction invaded my soul.
History Obliteration Simulation
Although culturally influenced by the Chinese, the Korean peninsula managed to remain isolated from the rest of the world until the beginning of the past Century.
The peninsula was invaded by the Japanese Army in 1910. The annexation marked the end of the Yi (Chosun) Dynasty, which had ruled the country since 1392. The ensuing occupation was brutal, and aimed at erasing the national identity, the national language and the national pride. In 1933 Kim il Sung – supported by the Soviet Union – led a relentless small-scale guerrilla along the Manchurian border.
After the final Japanese defeat, the country was divided into a Northern entity, occupied by the Soviet, and a Southern part, occupied by the United States. While the North was ruled by Kim Il Sung, the Americans supported Sungman Rhee’s military government in the South.
A new war was inevitable, and broke out in June 1950.
The war lasted three years and was punctuated by atrocities against civilians and devastating bombings, mass starvation and countless casualties. The country emerged from the war in conditions of poverty and destitution, divided in two zones.
Two different simulations emerged from the obliteration of the past: the Juche simulation of Kim Il Sung, a sort of mystical communism with hyper-nationalist overtones, and the hyper- industrialism of Park, which led South Korea – at that time one of the poorest countries on the planet – to rapidly surge to the position of the eleventh most industrialized country in the world. I speak of simulations, because both Kim Il Sung and Park Chung Hee’s shared an imagination of the future which was based on the simulation of a no longer existing identity of the Korean people.
Traditional cornerstones of the Old Confucianism were family and respect for parents. However, in North Korea a new concept of family emerged: the work collective, the party, the National State, submitted to the unquestionable authority of a new father figure, the Great Leader, the Suryong.
The Southern simulation is based on the militaristic application of the economic creed.
The display of happiness is less mandatory in the South than it is in the Northern communist paradise, but it is strongly recommended if you ever want to be successful in the only game that counts: the game of money.
While the North seems motionless, unchangeable in the repetition of rituals that have lost all their meaning but still have to be performed immutably, Southern Korean politics have changed a great deal in the last few decades.
After two decades of military dictatorship, after the Kwangjiu insurrection of 1980 against the dictatorship, and after the elections which renovated the political elite, South Korea has known a period of democratic transformation accompanied by the explosion of the electronic revolution both in the field of production and in people’s daily life.
After two decades of military dictatorship, after the Kwangjiu insurrection of 1980 against the dictatorship, and after the elections which renovated the political elite, South Korea has known a period of democratic transformation accompanied by the explosion of the electronic revolution both in the field of production and in people’s daily life.
Yet, throughout all these transformations, the economic creed never ceased to be the common ground of identification of a society which has lost almost entirely the landscape of its physical and spiritual past.
The May 18, 1980 Kwangju Democratic Uprising
This section is taken from the website libcom.org, a resource for all people who wish to fight to improve their lives, their communities and their working conditions.
Events in Kwangju unfolded after the dictator of South Korea; Park Chung-Hee was assassinated by his own chief of intelligence Chun Doo-Hwan on Friday October 26th 1979.
In the euphoria after Park's demise, students led a huge movement for democracy, but General Chun Doo-Hwan seized power and threatened violence if the protests continued. All over Korea, with the sole exception of Kwangju, people stayed indoors. With the approval of the United States, the new military government then released from the frontlines of the DMZ some of the most seasoned paratroopers to teach Kwangju a lesson. Once these troops reached Kwangju, they terrorised the population in unimaginable ways. In the first confrontations on the morning of May 18, specially designed clubs broke heads of defenseless students. As demonstrators scrambled for safety and regrouped, the paratroopers attacked: "A cluster of troops attacked each student individually. They would crack his head, stomp his back, and kick him in the face. When the soldiers were done, he looked like a pile of clothes in meat sauce." [Lee Jae-Eui, Kwangju Diary: Beyond Death, Beyond the Darkness of the Age, p. 46]
Bodies were piled into trucks, where soldiers continued to beat and kick them. By night the paratroopers had set up camp at several universities.
As students fought back, soldiers used bayonets on them and arrested dozens more people, many of whom were stripped naked, raped and further brutalized.
Despite severe beatings and hundreds of arrests, students continually regrouped and tenaciously fought back, and the city mobilized the next day.
Paratroopers once again resorted to callous brutality - killing and maiming people whom they happened to encounter on the streets. Even cab and bus drivers seeking to aid the wounded and bleeding people were stabbed, beaten and sometimes killed. Some policemen secretly tried to release captives, and they, too, were bayoneted. Many police simply went home, and the chief of police refused to order his men to fire on protesters despite the military's insistence he do so.
On May 20, a newspaper called the Militants' Bulletin was published for the first time, providing accurate news - unlike the official media. At 5:50pm, a crowd of 5,000 surged over a police barricade. When the paratroopers drove them back, they re-assembled and sat-in on a road. They then selected representatives to try and further split the police from the army. In the evening, the march swelled to over 200,000 people in a city with a population then of 700,000. The massive crowd unified workers, farmers, students and people from all walks of life. Nine buses and over two-hundred taxis led the procession on Kumnam Avenue, the downtown shopping area. Once again, the paratroopers viciously attacked, and this time the whole city fought back. During the night, cars, jeeps, taxis and other vehicles were set on fire and pushed into the military's forces. Although the army attacked repeatedly, the evening ended in a stalemate at Democracy Square. At the train station, many demonstrators were killed, and at Province Hall adjacent to Democracy Square, the paratroopers opened fire on the crowd with M-16s, killing many more.
The censored media had failed to report the killings. Instead, false reports of vandalism and minor police actions were the news that they fabricated. The brutality of the army was not mentioned. After the night's news again failed to report the situation, thousands of people surrounded the MBC media building. Soon the management of the station and the soldiers guarding it retreated, and the crowd surged inside. Unable to get the broadcast facility working, people torched the building. The crowd targeted buildings intelligently:
"At 1:00am, citizens went in flocks to the Tax Office, broke its furniture and set fire to it. The reason was that taxes which should be used for people's lives and welfare had been used for the army and the production of the arms to kill and beat people. It was a very unusual case to set fire to the broadcasting stations and tax office while protecting the police station and other buildings."
Besides the Tax Office and two media buildings, the Labour Supervision Office, Province Hall car depot and 16 police vehicles were torched. The final battle at the train station around 4:00am was intense. Soldiers again used M-16s against the crowd, killing many in the front ranks. Others climbed over the bodies to carry the fight to the army. With incredible fortitude, the people prevailed, and the army beat a hasty retreat.
At 9:00am the next morning (May 21), more than 100,000 people gathered again on Kumam Avenue facing the paratroopers. A small group shouted that some people should go to Asia Motors (a military contractor) and seize vehicles. A few dozen people went off, bringing back only seven (the exact number of rebels who knew how to drive). As they shuttled more drivers back and forth, soon 350 vehicles, including armored personnel carriers, were in the hands of the people. Driving these expropriated vehicles around the city, the demonstrators rallied the populace and also went to neighboring towns and villages to spread the revolt. Some trucks brought bread and drinks from the Coca Cola factory. Negotiators were selected by the crowd and sent to the military. Suddenly gunshots pierced an already thick atmosphere, ending hope for a peaceful settlement. For ten minutes, the army indiscriminately fired, and in carnage, dozens were killed and over 500 wounded.
The people quickly responded. Less than two hours after the shootings, the first police station was raided for arms. More people formed action teams and raided police and national guard armories, and assembled at two central points. With assistance from coal miners from Hwasun, demonstrators obtained large quantities of dynamite and detonators. Seven busloads of women textile workers drove to Naju, where they captured hundreds of rifles and ammunition and brought them back to Kwangju. Similar arms seizures occurred in Changsong, Yoggwang and Tamyang counties. The movement quickly spread to Hwasun, Naju, Hampyung, Youngkwang, Kangjin, Mooan, Haenam, Mokpo - in all, at least sixteen other parts of southwest Korea.
Hoping to bring the uprising to Chunju and Seoul, some demonstrators set out but were repulsed by troops blocking the highway, roads, and railroads. Helicopter gunships wiped out units of armed demonstrators from Hwasun and Yonggwang counties trying to reach Kwangju. If the military had not so tightly controlled the media and restricted travel, the revolt may have turned into a nationwide uprising.
In the heat of the moment, a structure evolved that was more democratic than previous administrations of the city. Assembling at Kwangju Park and Yu-tong Junction, combat cells and leadership formed. Machine guns were brought to bear on Province Hall (where the military had its command post). By 5:30pm, the army retreated; by 8:00pm the people controlled the city. Cheering echoed everywhere. Although their World War II weapons were far inferior to those of the army, people's bravery and sacrifices proved more powerful than the technical superiority of the army. The Free Commune lasted for six days. Daily citizens' assemblies gave voice to years-old frustration and deep aspirations of ordinary people. Local citizens' groups maintained order and created a new type of social administration - one of, by and for the people. Coincidentally, on May 27 - the same day that the Paris Commune was crushed over a hundred years earlier - the Kwangju Commune was overwhelmed by military force despite heroic resistance. Although brutally suppressed in 1980, for the next seven years the movement continued to struggle, and in 1987 a nationwide uprising was organized that finally won democratic electoral reform in South Korea.
There is still some debate about the actual numbers, but the official report on the Gwangju massacre is that 144 civilians were killed during the clashes, in addition to 22 soldiers, and 4 police men; with many more being wounded. However, these figures are widely regarded as being inaccurate and played down, with some sources claiming that between one thousand and two thousand people actually died in the Gwangju massacre.
The perfect recombinant city
Looking around, in art galleries and museums, inspecting the faces of young people, their signs and gestures, I was struck by the re-design of Seoul’s visual environment.
The traces of traditional life are hidden, overwhelmed by designed life.
Social communication has been thoroughly redesigned by the cellular smartphone. Vision has been thoroughly redesigned by screens of all sizes.
The majority of people are constantly looking at their small cell-phone screens. In the land of Samsung, girls and boys are permanently connected, whenever they walk or sit or stand waiting for the subway train to approach. Their hands are busy carrying IPads, their fingertips run ceaselessly along digital screens.
One day, in a park, I sat on a bench and I looked for fifteen minutes at a group of three young girls. They were standing under a tree, each of them looking at her phone, smiling at the camera, taking pictures around, taking pictures of herself, and showing each new picture to the others. All of them were standing silently.
Screens are everywhere: big screens on the walls of skyscrapers, middle-seized screens in the station’s halls. But the small private screens of the smart-phones take over most of the attention of the crowd, calmly and silently shuffling without looking around.
After colonization and wars, after dictatorship and starvation, the South Korean mind, liberated by the burden of the natural body, smoothly entered the digital sphere with a lower degree of cultural resistance that virtually any other populations in the world. This, in my opinion, is the main source of the incredible economic performance that this country has staged in the years of the electronic revolution. In the emptied cultural space, the Korean experience is marked by an extreme degree of individualization and simultaneously it is headed towards the ultimate cabling of the collective mind.
These lonely monad walks in the urban space in tender continuous interaction with the pictures, tweets, games coming out of their small screens, perfectly insulated and perfectly wired into the smooth interface of the flow. In order to get access to the interaction, the individual has to adapt to the format, and his/her enunciations have to be compatible with the code.
Hangeul, the Korean alphabet invented in the XV Century by King Sejong, seems to be one of the sources of the late modern economic success of the country. According to many linguists and anthropologists, the exceptional ability that Koreans have to rapidly transmit digital content is an effect of the Hangeul writing system, which is ideally suited for digital technologies.
King Sejong, the fourth monarch of the Joseon Dynasty was an enlightened despot who decided to create a tool for expanding the participation of people in the knowledge of laws. He launched the Hunminjeongeum, today called Hangeul, an artificial alphabet which was intended to translate in the easiest way the sound of spoken language.
The aristocratic elite and the functionaries of court were culturally influenced by the Chinese, and did not approve the promulgation of a national alphabet, fearing that common people could threaten their power. Notwithstanding the opposition of the privileged class, Hangeul was adopted by a large part of the population, particularly by women, and in the 20th Century it completely replaced the Chinese logographic system of writing.
Hangeul is the only writing system in the world for which the name of its creator and the date of its invention are precisely known.
“Unlike other alphabetic writing systems Hangeul has a similar number of consonants and vowels. Thus, when designing a keyboard it is possible to arrange consonants and vowels symmetrically, assigning 14 keys to the consonants on the left and 12 keys to the vowels on the right. Cellphone keypads have far fewer keys than computer keyboards, but since there are only eight basic letters in Hangeul before adding strokes or combining letters, sending text messages on a cell phone using Hangeul is more convenient and accessible than is the case with other alphabets. Korea’s leading cell phone makers applied the basic principles of Hangeul in their text-input methods.” (Korea’s Unique Alphabet, p. 62).
