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A student writes a message supporting the Hong Kong protests on a pillar in the student center of Yonsei University on Nov. 18.
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Demonstrations at major Seoul universities denounce violent police suppression of protests
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A student writes a message supporting the Hong Kong protests on a pillar in the student center of Yonsei University on Nov. 18.
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“Stand with Hong Kong.” “Hong Kong’s struggle is legitimate.” “Stop police brutality.”
Seoul’s Sinchon area, which is home to numerous universities, rang out around noon on Nov. 18 with the voices of young people supporting the demonstrations in Hong Kong. Students at Yonsei University and Ewha Womans University have been organizing demonstrations and campaigns on their respective campuses in support of the Hong Kong demonstrations. Despite incidents of Chinese exchange students defacing statements of support for the demonstrations on the campuses of Seoul National University, Yonsei University, Chonnam National University, and Pusan National University, South Korean student movements expressing solidarity with the Hong Kong protests have only gained in momentum.
On Nov. 18, students from Hong Kong joined members groups like the Yonsei Korean Student Association Supporting Hong Kong and the Yonsei University Workers’ Alliance in front of Yonsei University’s main gate holding placards displaying messages denouncing the police suppression of the Hong Kong democratization movement.
“We cannot turn our backs on the citizens of Hong Kong who are fighting with a hunger for freedom and democracy,” said Lee Young-gyu, 25, a Yonsei student. “We will fight those who seek to stifle our mouths and ears with violence.”
Students played a song titled “Glory to Hong Kong” and held a silent march from the Yonsei main gate to the student union to express solidarity with Hong Kongers whose right to free speech and assembly has been stripped. Around noon the same day, students and irregular campus workers staged a “Hong Kong demonstration support campaign” in front of the main gate at nearby Ewha University. Students left Post-It notes with messages such as “I support free Hong Kong,” “I am joining the wave of solidarity. Fight!” and “I oppose violent suppression of the Hong Kong protests.”
Students compare Hong Kong’s struggle for democracy with S. Korea’s
Why are South Korean students so actively supporting the Hong Kong demonstrations? According to the students themselves, they aim to bear witness and lend support as Hong Kongers from their own age group face brutal suppression tactics. Oh Jae-ha, 26, a Yonsei student, explained, “Our peers in Hong Kong are fighting a legitimate battle, and it seems like they are enduring a lot of oppression. South Korea is a country with its own experience battling for democracy, and I wanted to lend my support as someone who is aware of our own painful struggle for democracy.”
“The images of the suppression tactics used by Hong Kong police have been shocking,” Oh added. “Those people are now facing the same things we experienced in the 1980s, the same things our fathers’ generation went through, and I think that seeing that makes you feel like you need to support them right now.”
Lee Young-gyu said, “I felt like South Korean students should take action more aggressively because we’re in a position where we can enjoy protections of individual freedoms by the state.”
Friction between S. Korean students and Chinese students defacing posters
The students’ passion has been further fueled by recent incidents in which Chinese exchange students have defaced posters expressing support for the Hong Kong protests. Speaking to the Hankyoreh on Nov. 15 while posting a memo on campus to express support for the demonstrations, a Hanyang University student surnamed Kim explained, “It seems like the Chinese government and Chinese students are more or less the same. It’s like they can’t get beyond imperialist logic.”
Another Hanyang student surnamed Jeong said, “The posters are a means of voicing opinions, and I think that if they have an opposing opinion, they should just put up another poster and turn it into a debate. Instead, some of the Chinese exchange students seem to be reacting emotionally and trying to tear down the posters.”
Han Ga-eun, 23, a student who has led a support campaign at Ewha, stressed the same day that the Chinese students responsible for defacing posters represent “a very small minority,” adding that she was “aware of other Chinese who support us, even if they aren’t being outspoken about it.”
“Since the incidents with posters being defaced, we’ve received messages of support from Korean students, and I developed this campaign as a way of carrying on that spirit by speaking out in support of the citizens of Hong Kong,” she said.
Some analysts suggest young South Koreans have been more active about expressing solidarity because of their generation’s own experience opposing illegitimate authority and bringing out a change in administrations through the “candlelight revolution” that took down the Park Geun-hye government.
“South Korea’s university students are the generation that lived through the candlelight demonstrations of 2016, so they have memories of resisting illegitimate authority,” said Kim Yoon-tae, a sociology professor at Korea University.
“Seeing the way something that started as protests against repatriation laws have turned into demands for democratization, South Korea’s younger generations have come to sympathize all the more,” he concluded.
Commenting on the recent frictions between Chinese exchange students and South Korean students over poster defacement and other issues, Kim said, “The Chinese students don’t really have experience with democracy in comparison, and the South Korean students need to understand that and use different approaches to communication.”
By Kim Min-je and Kang Jae-gu, staff reporters
Please direct comments or questions to [english@hani.co.kr]
