Stop the 5·18 Backlash - 경향신문

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A long history of backlash… When will we come together?

In the SBS drama <Doctor X : The Age of the White Mafia> aired on the 24th, the protagonist ‘Gye Su-jeong’ (Kim Ji-won) and her colleagues go down to Gwangju to find a victim of the May 18 Gwangju Democratization Movement and board Bus 518. YouTube capture

I thought the May 18 Democratization Movement was at least a shared memory in our history. Judging by what is unfolding around the drama <Doctor X : The Age of the White Mafia> lately, the May 18 Democratization Movement still seems to be something we must argue and fight over even as it nears its 50th year. Why can we not find common ground even in the act of looking at a history that hurt so much? Today, Jeomseonmyeon talks about the backlash facing May 18.

Episode 6 of the SBS drama <Doctor X: The Age of the White Mafia> centers on a victim of the May 18 Democratization Movement. It features a man named Oh Sang-beom who had bullet fragments lodged in his head during May 18. He has lived for more than 40 years with pain and hallucinations as aftereffects of his injury. He also lost his older brother to helicopter gunfire. Perhaps because of guilt and trauma, he sees hallucinations of his brother as he was in life.

This is not a made-up story. The pain of the May 18 Democratization Movement still exists in our reality. May 18 merit honorees have endured trauma and lingering injuries from the martial law troops' violent crackdown. Some have suffered financial hardship because they could not properly work.

Many May 18 honorees ended up taking their own lives. Here is a portion of a 2011 Kyunghyang Shinmun article. ‘Tragic deaths among May 18 honorees have been continuing. Unable to overcome the wounds and aftereffects of torture from the martial law troops' merciless crackdown at the time, and the wall of financial hardship, they have been ending their lives by suicide. Yet institutional mechanisms to embrace their pain have not been properly prepared, so we are left merely watching the honorees make ’extreme choices‘.’

In the article, an honoree surnamed Kim was shot in the neck by martial law troops in front of the South Jeolla Provincial Government building during May 18. He suffered a severe injury that left his spine paralyzed. Life was difficult without relying on painkillers and sleeping pills. In <Doctor X>, Oh Sang-beom is also shown to have taken enormous amounts of painkillers throughout his life. By drinking herbicide, by hanging… the pain that continued after May 18 claimed many lives.

‘Oh Sang-beom’ (right·Ha Sung-gwang), a victim of the May 18 Democratization Movement who appears in the SBS drama <Doctor X : The Age of the White Mafia> aired on the 24th, sees visions of the brother who died during May 18 because bullets are lodged in his head. YouTube capture

That is not all. There are also those who, albeit belatedly, have spoken out that they were sexually assaulted by martial law troops during May 18. In 2024, Kyunghyang Shinmun covered victims' voices in the series ‘We Are Each Other's Witnesses’. Kim Sun-ok, who publicly testified that she was seized by the Martial Law Command's Joint Investigation Headquarters in May 1980 and subjected to torture and rape, gained courage from the ‘MeToo’ movement and told her story to the world. Starting with her, other victims also came forward.

Lee Nam-sun, who revealed her face and name and gave an interview, was not officially recognized as a victim by the May 18 Democratization Movement Truth-finding Committee until December 2023. She said, “It took more than 40 years to get to this point. It truly took a long time.” It has been less than three years since her victimization was acknowledged. This is why one cannot assert that the May 18 Democratization Movement is a chapter of history that has been completely closed.

Regardless of these realities, voices that dislike and feel discomfort about May 18 are louder than ever these days. A petitioner calling for a halt to the broadcast of <Doctor X> argued that “May 18 is the subject of political debate in some quarters, including differences in view between the ruling and opposition parties,” and that it is “a clearly political matter on which the left and right hold differing views to some extent.” Hate comments are being posted on the social media account of lead actor Kim Ji-won.

Although citizens of Gwangju experienced massive state violence, and its damage can still be seen, May 18 has still not gained the status of a consensual history in our society. This is despite the enactment of a special law on May 18 in 1995 and the designation in 1997 of May 18 each year as a statutory memorial day.

There was a golden opportunity. It came in 2020, when the conservative opposition People Power Party was the United Future Party and then emergency committee chair Kim Jong-in visited the National May 18 Democratic Cemetery, knelt, and choked up. Within the United Future Party, there were even statements that the spirit of the May 18 Democratization Movement should be included in the constitution's preamble. The Democratic Party won a landslide in the general election that same year. Had politics functioned, the ruling and opposition parties might have come to a magnanimous agreement on a one-point constitutional amendment. The opportunity passed, and regrettably the political environment has only worsened since.

Some say we should stop being captive to the past that is May 18. They say Gwangju should also move beyond a victim narrative. It sounds forward-looking. Yet one cannot help but ask whether, at any moment from 1980 to now, the May 18 Democratization Movement has ever been fully accepted without backlash. Whenever memory starts to fade, claims of a May 18 riot and of North Korean involvement reemerge, along with backlash that it ‘forces mourning’.

The political figure who bears the greatest responsibility in this regard recently is likely People Power Party lawmaker Lee Jin-sook. Regarding <Doctor X>, she said that “May 18 must not become the exclusive property of a particular camp or region,” yet remarks made at a forum she hosted prompt questions about whether there was any intent to accept May 18 at all, and whether it makes sense to fault a particular region for treating it as exclusive property.

In 2020, People Power Party lawmaker Joo Ho-young, who went to Gwangju with former emergency committee chair Kim Jong-in as the party's floor leader, recently demanded at the National Assembly Public Administration and Security Committee's audit that the list of May 18 honorees be disclosed. The demand to make public the names of May 18 honorees is a signature demand of those who disparage May 18. Representative Joo backed a bill proposed by Representative Lee to mandate disclosure of the list.

When will May 18 become an unassailable, unshakable chapter of history? I hope our society can have at least one value or history that everyone remembers with one mind. The May 18 Democratization Movement fully deserves to be that.

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