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Candlelight and the Yellow Ribbon: Catalyzing Re-Democratization in South Korea

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Nan Kim
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Abstract

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As an outcome of the ongoing re-democratization movement in South Korea, the recent success of the Candlelight Revolution provides valuable perspective for those grappling with the crisis of democracy in the U.S. Tracing an unexpected material link to the 1986 People Power Revolution in the Philippines, this article also seeks to explain the relationship between the 2014 Sewol Ferry Disaster and the Candlelight Movement, a connection readily taken for granted among most South Koreans but often perplexing to those outside of Korea.

Keywords

democracyre-democratizationprotest movementsSewol disasterCandlelight Revolutionimpeachmentmaterial cultureKorea
Type
Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 15 , Issue 14 , July 2017 , e4
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2017

References

Notes

1 Tim Meisburger, “Korean Elections: A Model of Best Practice,” The Asia Foundation, April 20, 2016. See also, Stephen Costello, “South Korea Steps Up as the US Steps Back,” East Asia Forum, June 13, 2017.

2 Kim Ji-hoon and Park Su-ji, “How million-strong candlelight demonstrations are being organized,” The Hankyoreh, December 6, 2016.

3 Jenny Choi, “The Color Yellow,” Harvard Political Review, May 7, 2014.

4 Jiyeon Kang, Igniting the Internet: Youth and Activism in Post-authoritarian South Korea, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2016, p. 152. See also Sun-Chul Kim, “South Korea's Candlelight Protests,” East Asia Forum, February 7, 2017.

5 Cho Hae-joang, “The Spec Generation Who Can't Say ‘No’: Overeducated and Underemployed Youth in Contemporary South Korea,” positions: east asia cultures critique 23.3 (2015): 437-462; Lee Soon-hyuk, “The Ironies of South Korea's Digital Generation,” The Hankyoreh, March 19, 2013

6 Jamie Doucette & Se-Woong Koo, “Pursuing Post-democratisation: The Resilience of Politics by Public Security in Contemporary South Korea,” Journal of Contemporary Asia, 46.2 (2016), p. 200.

7 “South Korean President Park Geun-hye dismissed by constitutional court in unanimous decision,” South China Morning Post, March 10, 2017.

8 Kim Rahn, “Sewol Raised as Park Sinks,” The Korea Times, March 23, 2017.

9 Jae-Jung Suh, “The Failure of the South Korean National Security State: The Sewol Tragedy in the Age of Neoliberalism,” The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol. 12, Issue 40, No. 1, October 6, 2014.

10 Park Su-ji and Ko Han-sol, “Sewol survivors say their mistake was making it off the ferry alive,” The Hankyoreh, January 9, 2017.

11 Heo Seung, “Yellow Sewol ribbons have become a symbol of rebellion,” The Hankyoreh, April 22, 2015; Seohui Stephanie Park, “Politics of the Yellow ‘Sewol’ Ribbon,” Korea Expose, April 16, 2017.

12 Gerald E. Parsons, “How the Yellow Ribbon Became a National Folk Symbol,” American Folklife Center, Summer 1991.

13 George Mariscal, “In the Wake of the Gulf War: Untying the Yellow Ribbon,” Cultural Critique (1991) p. 98.

14 Elfren S. Cruz, “The Yellow Ribbon,” The Philippine Star, February 26, 2016; Michael Francis C. Andrada, “Untie/Anti-the Yellow Ribbon,” Philippines Humanities Review 14.1 (2012) 49-73.

15 John Burgess, “Thousands Protest Rule in South Korea,” The Washington Post, March 16, 1986.

16 Geum, Key-Sook and Hyun Jung, “Color Continuity and Change in Korean Culture,” in Color and Design, edited by DeLong, Marilyn and Barbara Martinson, pp. 125-140, London and New York: Berg, 2012.

17 Matikas Santos, ‘Yellow’ is color of protest in Hong Kong,“ Philippine Daily Inquirer, October 2, 2014.

18 Cho Il-jun, “Survey finds South Korean youth among the unhappiest in the world,” The Hankyoreh, February 12, 2017.

19 Gooyoung Kim, “Eros Effect as Emergency Politics: Affective and Networked Politics of Agonistic Humanism in South Korea's Sewol Ferry Disaster,” New Political Science 38, no. 2 (2016): 160–177.

20 See Owen Miller, “South Korea After Park,” Jacobin, May 18, 2017.

21 Ock Hyun-ju, “Candle Revolution: How Candles Led to Park's Impeachment,” The Korea Herald, December 9, 2016.