S Korea’s impeached president fans communist fears and conspiracies

In the afternoon, in the month of January, a young pharmacy student, Shin Jeong Min, waited without stirring outside the Constitutional Court in South Korea, where the president of the country arrived to fight his isolation.

While Yoon Suk Yeol witnessed, she chanted with hundreds of his angry supporters and anxiety, who have gathered around him since his failed attempt to impose martial law. “He was released now. Cancel his isolation,” they shouted.

“If the president is isolated and the opposition leader is elected, our country will become one with North Korea and Kim Jong Un,” Jeong Min said. He wants to monotheally with the north and turn South Korea into a communist country.

At the age of 22, Jeong-Min emerges from the Elderly Korean Corps who have always been afraid and despised the north, and they formed the largest part of those who hold these advanced right-wing conspirators.

This generation of Koreans, now in the 1960s and 1970s, lived in the Cold War and remembered the bitterness of the destroyer of the North Korean invasion in the fifties.

When Yun declared martial law in early December, he played these concerns to justify the extraction of power.

Without citing evidence, he claimed that the “North Korean Communist Forces” had infiltrated the opposition party and were trying to overthrow the country. He said that he needed to “judge” the “judiciary”, while he was moving quickly to prohibit political activity and the status of the responsible army.

Two months after his failed coup, the anti -Communist frenzy controls Yun supporters, young and old.

Even some of those who did not give North or Communist Korea are even considering now convinced that their dynamic democracy is about to turn into a left -wing dictatorship – and that their leader had no choice but to remove democratic rights to protect them from both Pyongyang and Beijing.

“This is a war between communism and democracy.”

Another man, in his thirties, brilliantly argued that the president had to return to his post as soon as possible. “All North Korean spies will be arrested,” he said.

Such threats were very real. During the 1960s and 1970s, spies will regularly try to infiltrate the government.

In 1968, a group of North Korean commando crawled across the border and tried to assassinate President Park Chung Hee. There is still a tree over the Bugak Mountain in Seoul with lead marks from the intense weapons battles that erupted for about two weeks.

In the 1980s, during the last years of the violent military dictatorship in South Korea, the movement of extremist students on the left left began praising Pyongyang for its “superior” political system. They were classified as a “sympathetic” system.

It was also common for authoritarian leaders to accuse their political opponents of being conspiring in North Korea.

“The dominant ideological communism of the military dictators in South Korea, who used it to control society and justify the restriction of people’s freedom,” said Shin Jin Wook, a professor of sociology at the University of Chonghang.

Today, these threats were dispersed. Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons and advanced online capabilities are a greater danger, and will struggle to find anyone in South Korea who wants to simulate life in the north. The left and the political right is divided only on how to deal with their annoying neighbor.

While the conservative Athletics Party’s approach to Yoon was an attempt to threaten the north to submit to military superiority, the left -wing Democratic Party prefers to communicate with Pyongyang, believing that the two countries can coexist quietly.

The President was accused of exploiting the historical concerns of people. “Yun’s speech is almost completely identical to former dictators, and he is the first president to use this anti -Communist ideology in starkly since Korea became democratic in 1987,” said Mr. Shin.

Yun was not limited to the parliament, of the leadership of the opposition Democratic Party, of being full of sympathizers with Pyongyang, but found the idea that North Korea, with the help of China, was forged in the parliamentary elections last year.

“This is a fake news cooking Yoon to clarify the opposition and justify his completely non -democratic movement,” Wi -Song Lack told the BBC.

“We have a long history of fighting for democracy and freedom in Korea. We who were able to thwart Yun’s attempt to destroy Korea’s democracy,” referring to opposition politicians who pushed the previous forces and climbed the walls of Parliament during the martial law to vote on the proposal.

Lee Sansin, a polling expert at the Korea Institute for National Unification, said that such ideas were previously by the extremist province groups.

“These groups have been isolated. People have not noticed much,” he explained. “But because Yoon is the president, his words carry weight, and many people accepted what he said.”

This was evident in one of the following weekends that we attended last month. Away from being a friendly conspiracy theorists, everyone who talked to Yoon has changed their thinking.

“Initially I did not support Yoon, but the martial law opened my eyes,” said Oh Yong Hyuk, 57 -year -old musician, with his wife. “We can see the extent to which the leftist forces in our society.” A woman in her forties told us that she had previously had doubts about the forgery of Chinese sounds, but she looked at the case after the martial law and “realized that she was correct.”

Yun supporters often refer to the real events-how to meet former Democratic Party head, Moon Jae In, Kim Jong Un to try to organize a peace agreement; The current democratic leader, Lee Jay Meong, is being investigated to help send millions of dollars to North Korea – then use it as evidence of a greater conspiracy.

“This is a long -standing conspiracy theory that China was falsifying the elections more and more,” said Professor of Sociology. “One of the most important opinions on democracy is the hypothesis of fair and free elections, and now we have people who do not trust this. This is very severe.”

With unnecessary allegations of Yoon, his support appears to have grown. Although the majority of people in South Korea still want to remove it permanently from its position, the number has decreased. Last week, it reached 57 %Compared to 75 % per week after the customary provisions are announced.

Through his anti -Communist speech, Yun also effectively took advantage of China’s lack of confidence. Fear of North Korea now means being careful from China as well.

In the last weekends march in Seoul, many supporters exchanged their brand “stopped stealing” the fraud signs of the elections for those who read the “Chinese Communist Party”.

“I think China is interfering in all political affairs in South Korea. It pulls the strings behind the scenes,” said Joe Yun Duke, 66, who was carrying one of the signs.

According to the polling expert, Mr. Lee, “an increasing part of the public now believes that China wants to turn South Korea into a type of follower of the followers.”

For those in the twenties and thirties of age who have not had a real risk from North Korea, China is a more true threat. Last year, the Pew Research Center found that South Korea and Hungary are the only two countries in which the two countries were Young people had a more negative view than China From the old.

Zhou Jin -Man, a political scientist at Doxong Women’s University, said, unlike the information that is feeding, the concerns of young people have nothing to do with communism.

Until recently, their country has been superior to China, but as Beijing became stronger and more firm She started seeing her as a threatEspecially since the United States began to deal with it in this way.

Moreover, young people have a lot of grievances: they are struggling to find work or buy a house, and they feel resentful when they see their universities meet the needs of Chinese students.

Mr. Chu believes that communism is used as a comfortable ghost force for everyone to stir fear and hatred. This message is amplified by YouTube extreme right -wing channels, especially with young people.

“North Korea and China are my biggest concerns,” said Kim Jeong Joe, a 30 -year -old information technology developer, who came alone to a gathering. He said he used to be a leftist like his friends, and he was initially criticized for the command of the combat president. But after searching for the case on YouTube, he realized that martial law was “inevitable.”

“If I were in the position of president, I would have announced it too,” he said.

However, Wi Sung-Lac does not feel anxious politician of his party’s loss. “Although these extremist opinions are spread, they will be limited,” he said. “Most people really understand who we are, and they are eager to return to normal life.”

Lee Sang Sen is less optimistic, similar to Yoon’s supporters with “quick -growing worship”. He said that the president’s move was “very exciting.”

“It will have a permanent impact on Korean society.”

Additional reports by Hosu Lee and Leehyun Choi