The Unceasing 1980 — Gwangju, December 3, and the Responsibility of Human Rights Cities in the Global History of Emergency Rule
KANG Sung-Hyun [Director, Peace Worlding Research Institute, Sungkonghoe University]
Gwangju was not over in 1980. On the night of December 3, 2024, when South Korean citizens gathered in front of the National Assembly to thwart emergency martial law, Gwangju was there with them. It has been forty-four years during which the Republic of Korea achieved democratization and impeached two presidents. Nevertheless, the martial law declared in 1949 has remained in force. The law was originally a product that retroactively authorized the martial law proclaimed without legal ground in Jeju and Yeosu–Suncheon in 1948. South Korea’s emergency rule was institutionalized by turning law free violence into law from the beginning. The structure that Walter Benjamin called law-making violence endured for 76 years and reactivated on December 3, 2024. Today, I want to interpret this not as a Korean aberration but as a diagnosis of the mode of governance of our time. The starting point of that diagnosis is a shift in temporal perception. Korean authoritarianism is not a concluded past but a living, functioning present structure. I call this a perspective of ‘present history’ rather than ‘past history.’ This viewpoint offers a global analytical framework that goes beyond a Korean diagnosis, running through Gwangju May 18 Movement to the December 3 insurrection, and extending to Washington and Brasilia.
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9. Conclusion
The human rights city that stands against authoritarianism and populism is not a city waiting for the completion of transitional justice; rather, it is a city that intervenes in the power structures that are alive and functioning as ‘present history.’ The challenges the citizens in Washington, Brasilia, Budapest, and New Delhi facing mirror those Gwangju is facing. Just as Gwangju in 1980 arose amidst the global simultaneous emergency rules of 1972-73, the December 3 incident in 2024 was also a Korean manifestation of global far-right populism. Therefore, the response must not be taken by a single city but by a solidarity among cities. Gwangju can be one of the key hubs of that solidarity. Gwangju did not end in 1980. Thus, Gwangju can begin anew now.
The Unceasing 1980 — Gwangju, December 3, and the Responsibility of Human Rights Cities in the Global History of Emergency Rule
KANG Sung-Hyun [Director, Peace Worlding Research Institute, Sungkonghoe University]
Gwangju was not over in 1980. On the night of December 3, 2024, when South Korean citizens gathered in front of the National Assembly to thwart emergency martial law, Gwangju was there with them. It has been forty-four years during which the Republic of Korea achieved democratization and impeached two presidents. Nevertheless, the martial law declared in 1949 has remained in force. The law was originally a product that retroactively authorized the martial law proclaimed without legal ground in Jeju and Yeosu–Suncheon in 1948. South Korea’s emergency rule was institutionalized by turning law free violence into law from the beginning. The structure that Walter Benjamin called law-making violence endured for 76 years and reactivated on December 3, 2024. Today, I want to interpret this not as a Korean aberration but as a diagnosis of the mode of governance of our time. The starting point of that diagnosis is a shift in temporal perception. Korean authoritarianism is not a concluded past but a living, functioning present structure. I call this a perspective of ‘present history’ rather than ‘past history.’ This viewpoint offers a global analytical framework that goes beyond a Korean diagnosis, running through Gwangju May 18 Movement to the December 3 insurrection, and extending to Washington and Brasilia.
.
.
.
9. Conclusion
The human rights city that stands against authoritarianism and populism is not a city waiting for the completion of transitional justice; rather, it is a city that intervenes in the power structures that are alive and functioning as ‘present history.’ The challenges the citizens in Washington, Brasilia, Budapest, and New Delhi facing mirror those Gwangju is facing. Just as Gwangju in 1980 arose amidst the global simultaneous emergency rules of 1972-73, the December 3 incident in 2024 was also a Korean manifestation of global far-right populism. Therefore, the response must not be taken by a single city but by a solidarity among cities. Gwangju can be one of the key hubs of that solidarity. Gwangju did not end in 1980. Thus, Gwangju can begin anew now.