Since I hadn't seen much in the way of touristy sights in
Seoul I decided to visit one of the palaces around the city center. I returned to the area where James and I were
doing the admin the day before.
I hadn't been there 5 minutes when I fell slap in the middle
of a protest. I’d learned a lot about
the social unrest in Korea from a Frenchman, Julien Bally. Julien is a freelance journalist (amount
other occupations I gather) living in Japan.
He is based there with his girlfriend two weeks in a month. In the remainder of the month he travels
abroad covering various stories.
There is a lot of friction between the government and
various groups within Korea. The way
that I understand it the government,
whichever party is in power, sits firmly in the hands of big business. This is true for any (democratic?) state
around the world, but exasperated in Korea by the hugeness of big business and
the relative small geographic area of South Korea. Samsung, Hyundai, Kia, Daewoo and LG are just
a handful of the powerful international brands home to Korea.
Julien was reporting on the apparent gross human rights
violations inflicted on a group of people (illegally?) evicted from their homes
in an area earmarked for development by a large bank. The victims were being intimidated by thugs
and rapists employed (?) indirectly from the bank while the police and government
turned a blind eye. Bought by the bank?
The protest I witnessed was by a group of paraplegics
wheelchair bound. They had been promised
certain civil services. After the
promise was made the government said they must pay for the services themselves. I’m not sure on the facts here but it was
still interesting seeing how the polices reacted to the protest. The protesters wanted to interrupter the changing of the guard, nothing significant in the grand scheme of things, just another tourist attraction.
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