Jean Mackenzie
Seoul correspondent
BBC / Hosu Lee
Some supporters of Yoon believe that the opposition party wants to unify with the North and transform South Korea into a communist country
On a cold afternoon in January, a young pharmacy student, Shin Jeong-Min, waited tirelessly before the South Korea Constitutional Court, while the country’s suspended president arrived to fight against his indictment .
While Yoon Suk Yeol testified, she sang with hundreds of her exasperated and worried supporters, who have rallied around him since his failed attempt to impose martial law. “Release it now. Cancel its dismissal,” they shouted.
“If the president is charged and the opposition chief is elected, our country will become one with North Korea and Kim Jong one,” said Jeong-Min, citing popular theory among the most fanatic followers From President Yoon: that the left-wing opposition party wants to unify with the North and transform South Korea into a communist country.
At 22, Jeong-Min stands out from the Legion of Elderly Koreans who have always feared and despised the North, and constitute the majority of those who hold these conspiratorial beliefs of the far right.
This generation of Koreans, now in the 1960s and 70s, lived the Cold War and bitterly remembers the devastating consequences of the invasion of North Korea in the 1950s.
When Yoon declared martial law in early December, he played on these fears to justify his takeover.
Without citing evidence, he said that the “North Korean communist forces” had infiltrated the opposition party and tried to overthrow the country. They had to be “eradicated”, he said, when he was moving quickly to prohibit political activity and put the army in charge.
Two months after his failed coup, an anti-communist frenzy is seized the supporters of Yoon, young and old.
Even some who had never given North Korea or communism have thought a lot are now convinced that their dynamic democracy is about to be transformed into a left -wing dictatorship – and that their chief had no other choice than to remove the democratic rights of people in order to protect them from both of the two Pyongyang and Beijing.
“It was a war between communism and democracy,” said an office employee in his forties, who had slipped work to join the demonstration against the court.
Another man, in their thirties, categorically argued that the president had to be returned to power as soon as possible. “He will stop all North Korean spies,” he said.
Such threats were once very real. During the 1960s and 70s, spies would regularly try to infiltrate the government.
In 1968, a group of North Korean commandos crawled on the other side of the border and tried to assassinate President Park Chung-Hee then. A tree at the top of the Bugak mountain in Seoul still wears the ball brands of the intense cannon fights that raged for almost two weeks.
In the 1980s, in recent years of the violent military dictatorship of South Korea, a radical student movement on the left began to rent Pyongyang for its “higher” political system. They were labeled by the “sympathizers” diet.
It was also common for authoritarian leaders to accuse their political opponents of being North Korean conspirators.
BBC / Hosu Lee
Shin Jeong-Min is one of Yoon’s supporters
“Anti-communism has become the dominant ideology of military dictators from South Korea, who used it to control society and justify the restriction of people’s freedom,” said Shin Jin-Wook, professor of Sociology at the University of Chungang.
Today, these threats have dissipated. Pyongyang nuclear weapons and advanced cyber-hacking capacities present the greatest risk, and you would find it difficult to find anyone in South Korea who wants to imitate life in the North. The political and political right are only divided on how to manage their annoying neighbor.
While the approach of the Party of Power of the Conservative People of Yoon was to try to threaten the North in submission with military superiority, the left Democratic Party prefers to engage with Pyongyang, believing that the two countries can coexist peacefully .
The president was accused of having exploited the historic fears of people. “Yoon’s rhetoric almost completely corresponds to that of ancient dictators, and he is the first president to use this anti -Communist ideology so clearly since Korea became a democracy in 1987,” said Shin.
Not only has Yoon accused the Parliament, led by the Democratic Party of the opposition, of being riddled with sympathizers of Pyongyang, but he suspended the idea that North Korea, with the help of China, was rigged last year’s legislative elections.
“This is false news prepared by Yoon to demonize the opposition and justify its completely undemocratic decision,” a legislator of the Democratic Party, Wi Sung-Lac, told the BBC.
“We have a long history of struggle for democracy and freedom in Korea. We are those who have managed to thwart Yoon’s attempt to destroy the democracy of Korea,” he said, referring to politicians of The opposition that pushed the past troops and climbed on the walls of the parliament during the martial law to vote on the motion.
Such ideas have previously been pedaled by extreme conservative groups, said Lee Sangin, an expert in survey at the Korea Institute of National Unification.
“These groups have been isolated. People have not noticed much,” he said. “But because Yoon is the president, his words have weight and many people have accepted what he said.”
This was obvious during one of the rallies of the pro-Yoon weekend that we assisted last month. Far from being unconditional conspiracy theorists, almost all those we have spoken that we said that Yoon had changed their thoughts.
“At the beginning, I did not support Yoon, but Martial Law opened my eyes to me,” said Oh Jung-Hyuk, a 57-year-old musician, with his wife. “We can see how deeply the left forces are anchored in our society.” A woman in her forties told us that she had previously had doubts about the Chinese voting rig, but had sought the question after martial law and “realized that it was true”.
BBC / Hosu Lee
The president of South Korea, President Yoon Suk Yeol (left), is dismissed in court
Yoon supporters often underline real events – how the former president of the Democratic Party, Moon Jae -in, met Kim Jong one to try to orchestrate a peace agreement; That the current Democratic chief, Lee Jae -Myung, is the subject of an investigation for helping to send millions of dollars to North Korea – and then use them as proof of a greater conspiracy.
“This theory of the wacky conspiracy that China has faked the elections is becoming more and more accepted,” said teacher of sociology Mr. Shin. “One of the most fundamental consensus of a democracy is the premise of fair and free elections, and now we have people who are wary. It is very extreme.”
While Yoon’s unfounded claims have taken root, his support seems to have increased. Although the majority of the inhabitants of South Korea always want it to be permanently of its functions, the number has dropped. Last week, it was 57%, against 75% in the week following the declaration of the martial law.
Thanks to his anti-communist rhetoric, Yoon has also actually exploited a simmering mistrust of China. Fearing North Korea now also means being wary of China.
During a recent weekend gathering in Seoul, many supporters had exchanged their mark “stop the flight” Pacards of electoral fraud for those who read “Chinese communist party”.
“I believe that China interferes in all political affairs in South Korea. He pulls the ropes behind the scenes,” said Jo Yeon-Deok, 66, who held one of the signs.
According to the surveys expert, Mr. Lee, “an increasing part of the public now believes that China wants to transform South Korea into a sort of vassal state”.
BBC / Hosu Lee
Oh Jung-Hyuk (left) says he thinks that left forces have become anchored in South Korean society
For those who in their twenties and thirties who have never known any real danger of North Korea, China is a more credible threat. Last year, the Pew Research Center found that South Korea and Hungary were the only two countries where young people had a more negative vision of China than the old one.
But contrary to the information they are nourished, the fears of young people have nothing to do with communism, said Cho Jin-Man, political scientist at the Duksung Women’s University.
Until recently, the South Koreans estimated that their country was superior to China, Mr. Cho explained – but as Beijing became stronger and more assertive, they began to see it as a threat, all the more that the United States has started treating it as such.
In addition to that, young people have many grievances: they find it difficult to find work or to allow themselves a house and to feel resentment when they see their universities taking care of Chinese students.
Communism believes Mr. Cho, is used as a practical grove to arouse fear and hatred. This message is amplified by the far -right YouTube channels, particularly popular with young men.
“North Korea and China are my biggest concerns,” said Kim Gyung-Joo, a 30-year-old computer developer, who came alone to one of the gatherings. He was on the left like his friends, he said, and was initially very critical of the president’s martial law order. But after looking for the problem on Youtube, he realized that martial law was “inevitable”.
“If I had been in the president, I would also have said it,” he said.
However, Wi Sung-Lac, the opposition politician is not concerned with the loss of support from his party. “Even if these extreme views spread, they will be limited,” he said. “Most people understand who we really are, and they aspire to a return to normality.”
The Lee Sang-Sin survey expert is less optimistic, comparing Yoon’s supporters to “a rapid growing cult”. The president’s move was “very divisor,” he said.
“It will have a lasting effect on Korean society”.
Additional reports by Hosu Lee and Leehyun Choi
