The month that changed South Korea forever – podcast | South Korea

December was a month like no other for South Korea.

As a journalist and filmmaker Haeryun Kang explains that she was in her pajamas and ready for bed on the night of December 3 when – seemingly out of nowhere – the country’s president, Yoon Suk Yeol, went on national television to declare martial law. It was necessary, the president argued, to save the country from North Korean sympathizers and communists who had infiltrated the opposition.

It was the journalist Raphaël Rachid » he argues, a tactic straight from South Korea’s past: blaming all dissent on an imaginary enemy within. This time, however, the operation failed almost as soon as it began. Outraged politicians from the opposition and Yoon’s own party arrived at the National Assembly hours later to walk back the statement.

The unrest continued, with the removal of not only Yoon but also his immediate successor, followed by a devastating plane crash at Muan Airport on December 29 – the worst ever recorded on South Korean soil – in in which 179 people died.

As Helen Pidd It is understood that as Yoon is holed up in his residence trying to avoid arrest and the country continues to mourn the deaths of the Muan disaster, many South Koreans are struggling to imagine what might happen next.