A lasting 'Net legacy - Korean
anti-Americanism By Jeffrey
Robertson
SEOUL - As the administration of
South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun winds down and
assumes its "lame duck" status, the question of
its historical legacy is coming to the fore. Of
all the issues that Roh has faced as president,
two themes have dominated from the very beginning
- the Internet and anti-Americanism.
Blogs
and Internet chat rooms were the genesis of Roh's
campaign. They brought a virtually unknown
candidate to the presidency. With little
background in national politics, without an
prestigious education and from a less than
privileged background, Roh could not have been
elected without an overwhelming youth vote and its
Internet coordination.
Today, Roh-Sa-Mo
(the Korean-language abbreviation for the
Roh
Lover's Society) has become
an Internet legend. On polling day, bulletin
boards, chat rooms and cell-phone text messages
urged eligible voters to vote for Roh, boosting
the usually complacent youth vote. Perhaps for the
first time in the Internet age, a dedicated band
of "netizens" had influenced an election result.
But four years on, with the US-South Korea
relations under constant pressure, blogs and
Internet chat rooms may leave Korea's first
"Internet president" with a less favorable legacy.
Parallel to Roh's Internet-based victory
was the growth of a more sinister form of
Internet-based political consciousness -
anti-Americanism. After a June 2002 accident
involving a US military vehicle, which resulted in
the deaths of two South Korean middle-school
students, Korean-language anti-American websites,
chat rooms and blogs flooded the 'Net.
Despite apologies ranging from those
involved in the accident all the way up the chain
of command to US President George W Bush,
anti-Americanism continued to spread rapidly. With
South Koreans spending an average of more than 47
hours online per month, according to Internet
monitor ComScore, making the leap from the Web to
everyday life was only a matter of time.
Jarrod Anderson, a New Zealander residing
in South Korea, remembers 2003 as the first time
it actually paid to be non-American: "After years
of being refused teaching jobs because I didn't
have an American accent, suddenly job offers were
pouring in because I didn't have one!"
Anti-Americanism during the period had a
darker side as well. Residents recollect
shopkeepers refusing to serve them, harassment on
subways and even physical abuse. In one widely
reported and particularly disturbing event, two
American servicemen were abducted from a Seoul
subway station by a throng of university students,
removed to a university campus and forced to admit
to "crimes" against Korea. Anti-Americanism
particularly affected those there to defend South
Korea, the United States Forces in Korea (USFK)
and their dependants.
Since that time
American expatriate residents have lived with
anti-Americanism popping its ugly head up in every
issue under the Roh administration, ranging from
the esthetic value of a statue of General Douglas
MacArthur in a rather remote park to the
relocation of US military headquarters away from
Yongsan, in downtown Seoul.
Unfortunately
for Roh, the Internet continues to promote
anti-Americanism as his most enduring legacy.
Translated and interpreted, the Korean-language
anti-American websites, blogs and chat rooms that
were once at the core of his support base are
beginning to filter through to the United States.
More and more Americans are catching up with the
situation in South Korea. In a country that
remains far behind South Korea in Internet
connectivity, few care about an Internet-based
election victory, but many care about
anti-Americanism.
Isaac Roberts (not his
real name) manages the website USinKorea.org, a
site dedicated to exposing what he views as the
hypocrisy of South Korean anti-Americanism. The
website is replete with images of anti-American
demonstrations, translations of anti-American pop
songs, and extracts from the South Korean media.
It receives a steady stream of interest
from users in both South Korea and the United
States. While Internet statistics show that
Roberts' site is not overly popular, with an
average of 2,400 views per day, they also show
that users look through a considerable amount of
the content.
What started out as a
personal project to inform Americans unfamiliar
with Korea as to how "the commitment they offer to
Korea each year is received in that society" is
making the jump from the Internet to politics.
Sites such as USinKorea.org have become a source
of on-the-ground information for campaigners on
the other side of the Pacific.
Roberts'
site provides human-rights campaigners and other
lobby groups in Washington with an informed
on-the-ground source. Targeted mail by these lobby
groups give the website even further reach, until
ultimately one 15-minute view by a political
adviser sets the political dominoes in action. In
reference to images on USinKorea.org, an e-mail
from a Capitol Hill staffer posted on one of the
now many blogs covering events in South Korea
noted, "These continuing developments in South
Korea worry people in Washington."
While
not in the majority, there are influential
thinkers in the United States who have long
advocated the removal of US forces from South
Korea. US isolationism may be forgotten across the
globe amid today's "global war on terror", and
particularly in South Korea, but its rich
intellectual and highly influential history cannot
be underestimated.
The Cato Institute, a
highly influential think-tank, has long published
papers, such as those by Ted Galen Carpenter and
Doug Bandow, that call for the removal of USFK and
the renegotiation of the alliance commitment.
Leaving South Korea to defend itself is
justifiable, argues Cato, because of the
substantially decreased threat from North Korea,
the relative superiority of South Korean forces,
and the growing irritant that the maintenance of
USFK presents to the US-South Korea relationship.
English-language websites that highlight
the level of anti-Americanism that exists in South
Korea to a US audience give credibility to its
argument. In fact, Roberts maintains that this is
one of the major complaints that he receives
regarding his website. "About one in 10 letters
[is] from expats [including some GIs] complaining
that I might make others anti-Korean by focusing
on only one aspect of the society."
But
the aim of Roberts, in his own words, is simply
"to give Americans [voters] enough information to
make an informed decision about whether our huge
commitment to Korea is worth it or not".
The Internet, which contributed so much to
the initial success of the Roh administration, may
be contributing to a less than enviable legacy.
Ultimately, Roh may be remembered not as the South
Korean president who was elected through the
Internet, but as the South Korean president who
was present at the beginning of the end for United
States Forces in South Korea.
Jeffrey Robertson is a
political-affairs analyst focusing on
international relations in Northeast Asia. He
currently resides in Seoul.
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2006 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved.
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