President Yoon Suk Yeol’s shock declaration of martial law revved up South Koreans from 0 to 100.
Within hours of Yoon’s late night announcement on Dec. 3, protesters massed on Seoul’s streets and lawmakers were so frantic to block the decree that they climbed over the fence of the legislature. A few days later, the president barely survived an impeachment attempt. The following weekend, officials once again gathered to oust Yoon. This time they succeeded. On the roads, thousands of demonstrators screamed with joy and released balloons into the air.
For much of the world beyond South Korea, the intensity of the past couple of weeks is a hard-to-fathom episode in a nation that’s fought hard for democratic rights and clearly refused to part with them. But beyond raw anger at a government many feel has failed them, the swiftness of Yoon’s fall also gestures at the culture of South Korea, which has rapidly industrialized in recent years partly through maximizing efficiency and a head-on approach to solving conflict, for better or worse.
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