{"id":4370,"date":"2026-05-19T03:37:39","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T03:37:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/holocaust-genocide\/?p=4370"},"modified":"2026-05-19T03:37:40","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T03:37:40","slug":"reflecting-on-the-gwangju-uprising","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/holocaust-genocide\/reflecting-on-the-gwangju-uprising\/","title":{"rendered":"Reflecting on the Gwangju Uprising"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Today, May 18th, marks 46 years since the 1980 Gwangju Uprising. To simply explain an event that can\u2019t be explained simply: in the wake of a military coup, students in the South Korean city of Gwangju gathered to demonstrate in support of democracy and an end to martial law. South Korean special forces sent to quell the protests responded with overwhelming and indiscriminate violence. In Gwangju Diary: Beyond Death, Beyond the Darkness of the Age<\/em>, Lee Jai-Eui documented<\/a> people having been bayoneted; charred by flamethrowers; shot from helicopters; beaten with fists and clubs; and subjected to torture and sexual violence. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the course of approximately 10 days, the people of Gwangju resisted. It\u2019s estimated that some 200,000 people took part in some way, and civilian militias wrested control of the city from the military for a stunning five days of organized self-rule before ultimately being crushed. The exact number of people killed has not been definitively determined, but estimates range from over one hundred to the low thousands. Dozens were classified as missing and have never been found<\/a>. Thousands more were injured. Further tens of thousands of students, labor leaders, journalists, and other alleged political enemies were imprisoned<\/a> in the years that followed.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
A South Korean soldier clubs a man detained during pro-democracy demonstrations in Gwangju, South Korea, 1980. This photo, taken by photojournalist Na Kyung Taek<\/a>, is among the most enduring images of the Gwangju Uprising.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Sometimes referred to as \u201cSouth Korea\u2019s Tiananmen,” the Gwangju Uprising, like the \u201cforgotten\u201d Korean War, has received relatively little international\u2014or at least, American\u2014attention in comparison to conflicts and democratic uprisings in other places. Reasons for this disparity include that Gwangju was not a famous or particularly well-off city, so the presence of foreign press during the uprising was negligible; that South Korea fell on the American capitalist side of the Cold War; and that the U.S. government<\/a> endorsed the violence<\/a>.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Any degree of national reckoning was delayed until further protest movements brought about South Korea\u2019s transition to democracy nearly a decade later. In the interim, and despite state censorship, many who had witnessed<\/a>, resisted, or been affected by<\/a> the brutal state repression in Gwangju worked to make the truth known<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1996, former dictators Chun Doo-hwan and Roh Tae-woo were tried and convicted for crimes including their roles in ordering and orchestrating the massacre of civilians in Gwangju, and a series of investigations<\/a> and truth and reconciliation<\/a> processes have occurred over the years. May 18th is now a national commemorative day in South Korea, and students learn about the Uprising in schools. But it isn\u2019t a story with a clear end. As Hieyoon Kim writes, Gwangju isn\u2019t over<\/a>\u2014because South Korea remains profoundly shaped by the events of the Uprising and the conditions that led to it; how the Uprising has been remembered and distorted; and the successes and failures of subsequent accountability processes. Most perpetrators of violence have never been identified or faced any consequences, and even Chun Doo-hwan and Roh Tae-woo were later pardoned<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We touched on this event last month, when the Center for Holocaust & Genocide Studies welcomed the University of Michigan\u2019s Dr. Jean Hong and journalist and author Raphael Rashid to speak about<\/a> President Yoon Suk Yul\u2019s December 2024 declaration of martial law in South Korea. As Dr. Hong and Mr. Rashid explained, the declaration immediately brought the Gwangju Uprising to mind<\/a> for many Koreans. As others have written, this collective memory<\/a> was instrumental in shaping both institutional and civic responses to the crisis\u2014lawmakers assembled in the middle of the night to vote to overturn the declaration, despite opposition from the military. Thousands of people flooded the streets to protest. The declaration lasted just six hours before it was lifted, and President Yoon was later impeached. Earlier this year, he was found guilty of insurrection and sentenced to life imprisonment<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It can be dangerous to put a \u201cperiod\u201d after democracy. It\u2019s an ongoing sentence, constantly being written and rewritten all over the world. Nowhere is it permanent or immune to backsliding. But when governments are held accountable once\u2014however imperfectly\u2014it can be easier to hold them accountable again. Truth and reconciliation efforts aren\u2019t just about setting the record straight on past events; they\u2019re about establishing what will and will not be accepted in the future. The people of Gwangju were not able to stop state violence in 1980, but the legacy of that violence helped shape a society more capable of confronting abuses of power in the decades that followed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here in the United States, we do not have the strongest history of holding our government to account for the wrongs it does abroad or at home. However, as Minnesota begins its own truth process to document what happened here during Operation Metro Surge, I hope that our state\u2019s resistance to authoritarianism and its search for accountability can also provide a roadmap and touchstone for the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Practice makes\u2014well, not perfect. But it can make better, at least.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kendra Lee is a project coordinator at the University of Minnesota’s Center for Holocaust & Genocide Studies.<\/em> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today, May 18th, marks 46 years since the 1980 Gwangju Uprising. To simply explain an event that can\u2019t be explained simply: in the wake of a military coup, students in the South Korean city of Gwangju gathered to demonstrate in support of democracy and an end to martial law. South Korean special forces sent to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2081,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[96814],"tags":[1090],"class_list":["post-4370","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reflections","tag-south-korea"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/holocaust-genocide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/holocaust-genocide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/holocaust-genocide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/holocaust-genocide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2081"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/holocaust-genocide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4370"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/holocaust-genocide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4370\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4376,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/holocaust-genocide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4370\/revisions\/4376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/holocaust-genocide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/holocaust-genocide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/holocaust-genocide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}