December 16, 2024
SEOUL – Last Monday night, with a blanket, popcorn and old throw pillows on our laps, my wife Jakyung and I settled into our shared evening couch routine of getting work done on the laptops while re-binging “Emily in Paris” on Netflix for fun and mindless background diversion.
My task for that evening was to begin something I hadn’t done since 2018 — write an op-ed for The Korea Herald. I have been intimately re-studying the economy in Korea for several months — partially because my startup is looking to form its Asian hub in South Korea, and partially because we are thinking of moving to Seoul sometime in the next 1-2 years.
I was halfway into my piece on how South Korea must look to spread its economic engine throughout more of the country, to alleviate the cost burden for those in the Seoul metro, as this will solve several important challenges facing the nation. I decided it best to pick up the next morning on proposed solutions, thinking a good night sleep and large blonde roast coffee will make my writing that much better.
And right when I picked up the next morning, the unthinkable news that shocked the world occurred. While many of our good friends in South Korea were unaware of the events unfolding as they had tucked in for the evening, I was glued to the news, with excellent updates from The Korea Herald guiding me like a play by play not seen since the glory days of “Monday Night Football.”
And while many would be scared off by this volatile event as a sign that moving into a country with such perceived political instability is the wrong decision, for me the way the evening unfolded and settled up only confirmed why I want to be on the ground, for the South Korean people should hold their heads high on what the future will bring.
I am a son of Central Europe, as my mother’s parents came to the US from Poland, and my father was raised in the former Czechoslovakia during World War II. The year 1989 was incredible for an impressionable 16-year-old living in the Rust Belt of Ohio. To see the fall of the Berlin Wall, and then the peaceful overthrow of the Czechoslovak government, was incredible. Then we had to wait for the evening news, which many times was reporting 1-2 day old events. Last week’s events in Seoul were transmitted to the world in seconds.
And what we saw was a National Assembly reacting and acting just as quickly. The 190 lawmakers placed their country over their parties and their personal safety. Once the martial law decree was legitimately overruled, we saw the military on the ground respect the rule of law, and return to their barracks. And in the days since we are witnessing the unity of the Korean people in wanting their political leaders to place country over party.
The failed impeachment vote over the weekend is a setback in formulating a response that carries the seriousness it needs to have to counter President Yoon so recklessly using the most serious of mandates. The world is watching, and wondering what will happen next.
But where I truly have hope is that for all of South Korea, the actions of the people and the National Assembly on that fateful night can turn out to be a moment in history that people recognize as the most positive of turning points. Given the lateness of that evening, the protestors who bravely went to the National Assembly were comprised of the younger adults of Seoul and elsewhere. They felt the obligation to protect the integrity of their government, and they did so. It is imperative that their peaceful protests should be stopped.
This can also mean that the future lawmakers of the country will remember the night’s event as the motivator to move the country forward and to tackle the issues that need to be tackled, with the burden of entrenched bureaucracy needing to take a backseat to progress and perseverance.
And while this column is no longer dedicated to how to improve the dispersal of the country’s economy, that issue is one of those massive undertakings that can only be tackled with a new fortitude that can rebuild the will of the people.
My last column in 2018 centered on how proud the Korean people can be for the showcasing of the country to the rest of the world during the Winter Olympics. An underlying goal of the games is to promote global peace and harmony. The actions of the National Assembly over the next several months in addressing last week’s unnecessary drama can also show the rest of the world that Korea’s people-driven democracy is also a beacon for the world to see. And I hope in the coming year I can see and participate in this work first hand.
Eric Planey is CEO of SolaBlock, a US-based maker of solar embedded concrete wall systems. The views expressed here are the writer’s own. — Ed.