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Todos Somos Lee
 international |
anti-capitalism |
news report
 Thursday September 11, 2003 23:02 by writers block
THousands of protestors fought with cops and destroyed a barricade in Cancun yesterday following the suicide of kyoung hae Lee, a Korean farmers leader. A few thousand of us maybe. No more. The crowd snakes through Cancun, a neo-liberal paradise lost. Of the 600,000 people who live here fully two-thirds are transient laborers. Like a large proportion of the world’s population they exist in the twilight zone of mobile capital, industrial tourism and ecological catastrophe.
At the WTO fortification; a fence ten foot high reinforced by a matrix of steel and concrete a crowd assembles. Behind the fence, thousands of cops. The farmers electrify the mood. The Mexican campensinos push a table displaying a collection of diverse corn strains, alter-like, and are lead by one who carries a basket of kernels on his back. They say that the transgenic agenda of the WTO will mean the end of all this.
From Korea come 200 small farmers and trades unionists. This group knows how to demonstrate. The contingent provides its own free jazz accompaniment; clanging cymbals and the thud of deep drums provide the rhythm for the march with banners, costumes and deadly seriousness. They make directly for the front and attack the fence, their position announced earlier as, “What fence?”
As the fence begins to rock back and forth, the crowd takes heart. A few of the Koreans climb on top hanging banners and leading the chants of their comrades below. Kyong Hae Lee leads. If there is confusion among the assembled; are we here to take the fence down? Are we here to fight? To go through…..” Kyong has an answer – the fence must come down. A sign hangs from his neck, “WTO Kills Farmers”. He is leading the chant in English “Dismantle the WTO, conditions.” and thousands respond.
Lee turns away from us, towards the police, the WTO and the corporate media functionaries who cower among them. His right hand is raised; he plunges a knife into his heart and falls backward from the fence into the waiting arms of his astonished comrades. A scrap breaks out as militants are forced to beat back the sickening throng of photographers and journos who crowd around the body. A path opens quickly through the crowd allowing Lee to be carried to a waiting ambulance. The mood alters. The Korean contingent who have carried an ornate paper and wood construction symbolizing the death of the WTO, reassemble. They raise the prop above their heads and run at the fence, smashing into it. This gesture is repeated three times before they set it alight sending the crowd into a frenzy of rage and unity.
All week long hundreds of hours have been invested in meetings to determine what exactly we would try to achieve here. All of this obsessive planning becomes moot as the crowd joins Kyung Hae Lee and his compatriots in an unscripted but singular objective; to destroy the fence. A fence that excludes not just the farmers present here but 3.5 million Korean farmers and countless others being strangled by the policies of the WTO. The closest that these thousands of Mexican and Korean campesinos can get to the architects of their doom is seven kilometers. Seven kilometers of smooth concrete highway edged by luxury hotels full of elites from every corner of the world. Seven kilometers of luxury hotels, wet t-shirts, cheap labor, liberal investment régimes and Martha Stewart. This week they are guarded by a mercenary force of tens of thousands and they have come to Cancun to map out the continued imposition of the cash nexus over every aspect of our lives. Some peoples dreams are our nightmares.
The closest that Kyung Hae Lee could get to deliver his message was this spot seven kilometers from the source of his despair, so it was here that he came to die.
The Koreans are very hardcore and plenty join in. The fence is assaulted along the line. Over to one side the campesinos are hard at work. Meanwhile at another spot 20 meters away the Korean block are making steady progress. Scattered groups of Mexican radicals are figuring out how best to dismantle the edifice, backed up by squads of stone throwing fighters who support the engineering brigades. This is the anti-globalization movement, mixed, intuitive, and highly effective
As the WTO burns, banners hung along the fence are set alight. At two points the fence begins to buckle as the second wave of militants appears from behind. The Koreans split up, some accompanying Lee, in critical condition, to the hospital, while the rest continue to destroy the barricade. A breach is created within a few minutes and quickly the fence is peeled back. The police reinforce the breach and are kept at bay by disciplined gangs of stone throwers and street fighters. Along the 200-meter line the fence continues to be overturned and dismantled, yet the police don’t make a move. Their only attempt to charge the crowd is quickly beaten back under a shower of stones, fists, and appropriated police batons.
Kyong Hae Lee who made the ultimate sacrifice here was leader of a small farmers union, he was 54 years old, the father of three daughters and a militant revolutionary. He is not the first Korean farmer to take his own life in protest and desperation at the policies of the WTO, just the latest. In the evening we tried to figure out what had happened. We tore down the fence, we beat police and found a way to fight against these pricks here in this neoliberal nightmare zone called Cancun. The Koreans stayed overnight at the junction where Lee died, many others joined them. Trying to explain their tactics to us one of them described it thus, ‘we have specialists here’. Indeed.
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Comments (20 of 20)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20"suicide is the ultimate human expresion" as i've heard said plenty... hardly seen since the self-immolating monks of cambodia... maybe that's the next strategum, running burning bodies at barricades... heard the whole thing off npr, apparently blakbloc where there in force and more stunning than ever with tactics...
So bb, will you be offering your own burning body to be run at the barricades? Or is that just for the poor desperate bastards like Lee whose genuine suffering is just one more "fucking intense" happening for people like you to get off on?
i've often thought about suicide,not mine,but rather the notion of it.
i am amazed by the strength of .it to do that.. apply force to yourself to end all further force...it is strength borne of pain and endless despair but it's still strong....the people who we fight kill thousands everyday by signing documents,most of the upper echelon corporates have no feelings.. they have what psychiatrists describe as personality disorder.
all the cyber-revelutionaries could go to the next meeting and top themselves and they would blink,shrug and continue signing documents.
a guerilla cannot fight their way..set piece battles like cancun are a complete waste though this one sounds like it went well(because the cops were happy to let the people "win" 7 km from the action...)
the battle(and the passivists need not take that as evidence of my being "bb")must be everyday,in each purchase,and every thought...burn the ads,puncture the car tyres,sabotage.. fight your way......ignore the police barricades their importance is false.. mr.Lee realised that.. his battle was in korea on his farm....and he'd had enough
i am so pleased that the only photo in the paper was of the evacuation to the ambulance and mr.Lee was covered..beat the vultures away every time..
look at his face.
sorry to editors but this must be distributed.
look:
dead
I think the word suicide is totally unfair to people like this brave man. Suicide means (yes, I typed http://suicide.die.net/ into the address bar to get it exactly right!):
"n 1: the act of killing yourself [syn: self-destruction, self-annihilation]
2: a person who kills himself intentionally [syn: felo-de-se]"
While looking up "martyr" I found:
"n 1: one who suffers for the sake of principle [syn: sufferer]
2: one who voluntarily suffers death as the penalty for refusing to renounce their religion
v 1: kill as a martyr; "Saint Sebastian was martyred"
2: make into a martyr [syn: martyrize]"
I'm not saying that I think its nice to call people like Kyong, or even (what in English we call) "Palestinian suicide bombers" martyrs -- it feels weird to use that word -- but its probably a closer word to describe their action than "suicide".
-Eoin
PS I only brought up the Palestinian bombers because in their actions they also kill themselves. Of course I acknowledge that they also murder other people in the process -- which is quite different from Kyong's action.
Westerners have limited understanding of the social ethnic and cultural forces behind killing of self.
This week being Irish focus on "depression" means that we all come to consider for a while the problems of suicide, self-killing, and else beside.
The man whose photo I posted earlier, came from a culture which together with those of Manchuria, China and Japan though notably not Tibet nor Mongolia have history of "self-killing" for ritual or political reasons stretching back many hundreds of years.
To western eyes it seems strange that in this last year Directors of Japanese companies in trouble still resort to "ritual killing".
Western culture dismisses concepts of "after-life", "martyrdom through Al Jihad", "ancestor worship of those who redeemed family and tribal honour".
=
May we think hard why this man took the decision he took. May they who drove him to as well.
It is incumbent on all of us to make Kyoung Hae Lee's ultimate self sacrifice to have been worth it.
Honestly, whats the point in killing yourself in front of the WTO in Cancun??????? Did he honestly believe they were gonna take any bit of notice??? Do you honestly think they don't have a few jokes about it going around right now inside the conferrence????
I am not saying I won't mourn hoim, but personally I do not think it was the wisest thing to do. He has now ended his life and placed his family in a precarious position, but he never thought of that. He has now taken himself out of the equation at fighting the WTO, so they are now one enemy down. He has stopped his ability to fight for better reforms and conditions for himself and his fellow protestors.
His suicide was not a good idea, if you are dead you are incapable of besting your opponent!
It is most disingenious to believe that ones most powerful enemies are always alive, or that death ends animosity.
History abounds with examples of enemies that died but whose power continued, if I may keep this "irish", one might consider the power attributed to Elizabeth 1 by the O Neill. Or jump forward several hundred years to consider the dead of 1916.
As I have made quite an effort to point out, western culture does not readily understand the attitude to "self-killing" which is typical of the Far East. It is not beyond reasonably assumption that though dead, Kyoung Hae Lee now has more power in the eyes of his community, I shall for the purpose of illustration push the point, if he was a rural Korean, then it is over 80% likely that his family and community accept ancestor worship, and the ritual "self-slaying" to right wrongs and redress honour.
suicide is easy? it's for cowards?
I'd like to see you try it!
Did I miss a meeting? Was there a vote I was unaware of? Suicide is the way of a coward, someone who cannot see a way to continue living. If this man did this at home he would be another statistic. But this guy shouts some word of change and we wet ourselves with talk of Martyrdom.
BULLSHIT!!!! Is it Martyrdom if you kill youself and claim it's for the cause. He didn't die because of his opponents. He died because he killed himself. No one else to blame but himself. Do not glorify suicide. It's the taking of ones on life. These people ought to start taking responsability for their own actions. Suicide is suicide!
It is generally believed that those who genuinely commit suicide(as opposed to attention seekers) do so as it seems to be easier than living their lives. I did not feel I needed to explain my response. and just because I do not possess the way with words off most of the people who post on this board, does not mean that my point is any less valid.
to travel halfway around the world and face those who caused your despair to plunge a knife in your heart in spite of everything they do and conspire to do-
you would prefer perhaps he hung himself in his field where only his wife or kids could find him? (Lee, incidentally, was a father...)...
poor seanin is hanging by a thread, himself, a lonely alcoholic he has only IMC for a crutch to make himself feel important, without which he would most likely fade from existence... ignore him...
suicide is suicide is suicide is suicide is suicide is suicide is.........
Don't waste too much effort responding to seainin, he's obviously deranged. Just give him the occasional dig, and then concentrate on more important things. He does get boring after a short while.
`I hope this will be a chance for the government to think about our agriculture industry one more time,’’ said Lee Goh-wun, daughter of the South Korean activist who killed himself protesting against a meeting of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Cancun, Mexico.
Lee Kyong-hae, 56, committed suicide in Cancun on Wednesday in protest against the WTO’s motion to force Korea and other developing countries to open their agricultural markets.
``It wasn’t out of personal greed or fame. My father died because he truly believed that the nation’s farmers were suffering and because he loved the farmers so much,’’ the 27-year-old daughter said during a telephone interview with The Korea Times yesterday.
A Native of North Cholla Province and three-term member of North Cholla Provincial Assembly, Lee has always worked to better the country’s farming industry, according to his daughter.
Lee, who graduated from Seoul National University in 1974, was a farmer until a few years ago when his farm was auctioned off due to his growing government debts.
``Having experienced his own financial difficulties, he realized every other farmer in the nation was going through such difficulties due to the worsening market conditions for the farmers,’’ she said.
The farmer-turned-activist then focused his attention on fighting to protect the nation’s farming industry and farmers.
In November 1990, Lee paid a protest visit to the headquarters of the WTO in Geneva, Switzerland. Again in March this year, he visited the headquarters to protest against the organization’s continued efforts to open up the country’s agriculture market, and on Sept. 5, he went to Mexico never to return.
``Whenever he went abroad to work against the WTO, he would call us every day to assure us that he was okay. This time he called when he arrived in Mexico but that was the last time,’’ Lee Goh-wun said.
Lee argued her father’s death was purely out of his love for the nation’s farmers instead of showmanship as some claim. ``Would a parent plan to kill himself knowing that his daughter is going to get married in a few days?’’ Lee argued.
Lee, who was set to get married on Sept. 28, decided to postpone the date in order to keep working for her father’s cause.
``My father always believed that if the agriculture market of an agriculture-based country, such as ours, collapsed, the nation would collapse,’’ Lee said. ``He also said that our family would also collapse if our country collapsed.’’
``In terms of our family, I am very sad at my father’s death, but I think it is more important to continue my father’s purpose,’’ she said.
Lee’s bereaved family, including his eldest daughter and her husband, arrived in Mexico yesterday to bring his body back to Korea. The family will return here on Thursday and a massive funeral ceremony in the name of all Korean farmers will be held to pay respect to Lee for what they see as a noble effort to protect the underprivileged farmers on Sunday.
I would certainly not state that this man is a martyr. I mean that cheapens a word, a martyr would be someone killed for a noble cause. I doubt if it would include people who kill themselves for what they perceive as a good cause. If that was true then the September 11 Highjackers are martyrs and are in the same league as your good friend Lee here. Its the same bloody thing. He took his own life for no good reason. Their society has an ancestory worshipping thing, Great, why didn't he pray to his great-grandaddy to topple the mighty WTO for him. Taking his own life was stupid and in all honesty the dumbest and most simple minded thing he could have done. and If you guys think its so noble and are so in love with the notion, then why don't you all just go and top yourselves outside Shannon or outside the Dail. If its such a great idea and helps change so much then why ain't all y'all doing it. Go on, Top yourselves in the name of peace!
Thank you DrBinoche for your very valid point. If it's such a great idea why are the rest of the protester on this site following suit. I'll answer that one though, it's because you like protesting. I'll say one thing for Lee, at least he cared more about his beliefs than you moaning piss-ants. Stop moaning and show some courage in YOUR convictions. Standing on a street in front of an Airport or the Dail with well thought out slogans is not really protesting. Take a risk, damage a plane, kill yourselves, whatever you need to do. Just stop moaning on this sit as if showing off your historical knowledge of other countries really matters to anyone. GET SOME FUCKING BALLS!!!!!!!!
The word being used here in Canc to describe Lees death is inmola, from the verb inmolar, to sacrafice oneself in struggle. Unfortunately we dont have such a term in English. But this is alos indicative of the culture of
so linguistic limitations of englishdisallow us from truly having balls, or allocating semantic meaning to the word martyr without making personal moral judgements.
Maybe a little chomsky helper could write an essay.
Well if Martyrdom is purely decided by the person who is making a point, then by all extents and purposes you can claim Hitler is a Martyr coz he did after all believe in an idea and he did die for this idea. Never mind that the idea was horrible and disgusting, he is by your own points of definition a Martyr. So are the 19 Hijackers for Sept 11. The two kids who shot up Littleton Colorado during the Columbine Massacre are Martyrs as they died for a belief. I mean where is the line drawn between Martyr and idiot.
Theoretically if Bush died in his sleep tonight hes a Martyr. All of the US Soldiers who die in Iraq providing they believe in why they are there are Martyrs. I don't doubt that you will claim that all of the innocent civilians killed during this conflict are Martyrs. And while I will not state that all of them are Martyrs as I, like yourself do not always know the full extents of how these people die, will concede that if they die in an accident or are killed by the forces by some means and they are truely innocent, then they are Martyrs. I am just pointing out that I do not believe that Mr Lee deserves the title of Martyr anymore than a soldier who dies in combat deserves it. Technically speaking everyone is a Martyr to you guys. I don't think the word was meant to be taken this lightly and I doubt if people would appreciate it being taken so lightly, but thats what your observation leads to.