Truth

A coup can happen during the dead of night or in the glare of daylight

/ Rudy Owens / 1 Comment

I woke up this morning, like many in the United States, almost in shock to learn a mostly stable and modern democracy, South Korea, also known as the Republic of Korea, was under martial law, by the unilateral decision of President Yoon Suk Yeol, made late on December 3, 2024, around 10:30 p.m. (KST).

President Yoon Suk Yeol of the Republic of Korea announcing martial law, on television

It was around 6 a.m. Pacific Time, December 3, as I was taking in the morning news and still waking up, when I heard the first news stories on my radio.

And then, about six hour later, around 4:30 a.m. (KST), December 4,  following a courageous vote of defiance  by the members of the National Assembly of the Republic of Korea, including the majority liberal Democratic Party and his own minority People’s Power Party, President Yoon lifted his declaration formally during a cabinet meeting.

All of this happened in darkness.

Most of the country was asleep when the South Korean military forcibly entered and surrounded the parliament building. They were filmed landing on the building with military helicopters and entering the building by force.

My immediate reaction was like the opinions of many regional observers—total disbelief.

You mean the land of K-Pop, high-tech electronics, Kia and Hyundai automobiles, not to mention a growing soccer powerhouse, was again in the throngs of political instability after mostly decades of calm?

How could this happen so fast in a country of more than 50 million people, and also host to nearly 30,000 U.S. service personnel.

It felt completely improbable, and yet it was real.

I needed to trust my senses and my awareness that the world is in the middle of unprecedented change.

The hugely unpopular President Yoon provided an erratic message to justify his decision. He called the actions necessary to protect the country from “North Korean communist forces” and “antistate forces,” and to “rebuild and protect” the nation from  “falling into ruin.” The message could be coming from other comparable strongmen vying for power globally, anywhere.

According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Yoon’s  decree, made under Proclamation No. 1 at 11 p.m. (KST), December 3, the following measures were implemented while the short-lived decree lasted:

  • All political activities, including the operations of the National Assembly, local assemblies, political parties, political associations, gatherings, and protests, were banned.
  • Any act that denied or attempts to subvert the democratic system were prohibited, including fake news, manipulation of public opinion, and false incitement.
  • All media and publications were subject to the control of the Martial Law Command.
  • Acts of social disruption, such as strikes, slowdowns, or gatherings, were prohibited.
  • All medical personnel, including interns, who are on strike or have left their medical posts were required to return to their duties within 48 hours and serve diligently. Violators would be punished under the Martial Law Act.
  • Except for anti-state forces and those attempting to subvert the system, innocent citizens would be provided with measures to minimize disruptions to their daily lives.

And then it was over the afternoon of December 4 (KST), with some opponents calling for the arrest and impeachment of President Yoon.

For me the developments appeared absolutely stunning, inside a country with no clearly visible threat, either from the militarized Communist North Korea, led by dictator Kim Jong Un, or any other nation. It was experiencing relative political and economic stability.

Though President Yoon had rescinded the martial law, the world saw how some of the national armed forces faithfully carried out its orders at the nerve center South Korea’s democratic government. Later in the day, after my workday ended, I had time to catch up on news developments and saw footage of South Korea’s military personnel in full body armor breaking into the National Assembly building to take control of Korea’s legislative branch. It was surreal footage, yet also familiar.

Three coups happened in three democracies over four short years.

All of this had painful echoes of the last two major coups I saw covered live on television in even larger democracies: the United States and Brazil.

The U.S coup, to prevent the peaceful transition of power on January 6, 2021, under the urging of President Donald Trump, led to a coordinated and violent assault by Trump supporters at the U.S. Capitol, trying to prevent Joe Biden from being peacefully being affirmed as the 46th president of the United States. It happened in broad daylight, with the world and nation watching live.

It also resembled the right wing coup in Brasilia, Brazil, at the National Congress, when supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro, in broad daylight on January 8, 2023, overran the country’s capitol compound, trashing the Brazilian Congress, Supreme Court, and Presidential Palace, to prevent the transition of power to president-elect Lula de Silva. It also failed like the U.S. insurrection.

At the end of the day I shared a post on one of my social media feeds. I wrote: “Democracy, it requires the people to say: ‘No.’ Coups now are looking more routine. After today, what’s next?  USA: January 2021, coup attempt. Brazil: January 2023, coup attempt. South Korea: December 2024, coup attempt.”

You can bet all democracies and autocracies took notes how easy this was and what happened in Seoul, South Korea.

It took courage and the elected legislative leaders in this vital democracy in east Asia to challenge the elected president’s dead-of-night seizure of power by military force, without even a credible national, military, economic, or even public health threat.

So, will the next assault happen in daylight, like in the United States and Brazil, or again in the dead of night, like South Korea? More importantly, will the next effort succeed?

What really matter are the stories we tell ourselves

/ Rudy Owens / Leave a comment

“The only stories that matter are the ones we tell ourselves.” I bet you have heard that one before. It is a living, breathing idea that permeates the blogosphere like oxygen. The idea is also rooted in so-called positive psychology, whose adherents include Dr. Martin Seligman, who has written pop psychology books such as Learned Optimism.

In fact the American nation is built on a myth of self-made individuals writing their own narratives and reinventing themselves, regardless of what the facts may say. The power of the myth and the power of the story trump irritating details. History, as the old saying goes, is always written by the winners.

"Declaration independence" by John Trumbull. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Declaration_independence.jpg#mediaviewer/File:Declaration_independence.jpg

Radical revolutionaries, America’s founding fathers, slaveholders and capitalists, brilliant leaders who sought to create a more perfect union? What story is the one that matters? “Declaration of Independence” by John Trumbull. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

I think there is a great deal of truth to this idea. As a former and sometimes frustrated reporter, I struggled to ensure my facts were 100 percent accurate. I wanted truth to defeat the fabrications of bureaucracies that did not want to reveal their poor stewardship of the public trust or criminals who would swear they had nothing to do with crimes for which they were charged. That was not their story.

It was clear from my personal experience, not to mention research, people who are masters at this art believe their stories to be the only truth that matters, facts be damned.

Today I found numerous examples of this concept percolating on multiple blogs.

  • One woman writing about breast cancer in her blogs notes, “But here’s the thing we should never forget. We are the author of our own stories.  For every perceived weakness we possess, we posses huge potential too. We get to choose which story we will tell ourselves – a story that will lift us up or knock us down.” No surprise her blog is called “Recreateyourlifestory.com.”
  • Still another blog called Postive-living-now.com notes, “Few things have a greater influence over our lives than the stories we tell ourselves. Tell yourself that you’re a victim and you are. Tell yourself that you’re destined for success, and success is likely to become your destiny.”
  • And yet another called Igniteyourlifenow.com urges readers to “focus on a story that you have been telling yourself and rewrite it so you can create a positive change, enjoy a new experience and become a better you.”

You also can buy books like one titled The Stories We Tell Ourselves, which you likely guessed is a self-help psychology book you can buy online.

No doubt all of us have stories for ourselves, our friends, our coworkers, our spouses, and strangers. The narrative we choose to believe likely reveals more about our character than we are comfortable admitting. Perhaps what matters as much as the narrative are the intentions driving the choice of stories. Those truly are ours alone to own when we go about our storytelling, especially to ourselves.