Gerry Bevers, Tokdo, and the Heckler’s Veto

Kind words about your thoughts mean all the more when they come from someone like Kevin Kim, a/k/a The Big Hominid. Kevin, who reads and writes in fluent French, speaks fluent Korean, and creates art and books that people pay real money for, is what people call a “renaissance man.” He’s even created photoshop icons for pretty much every k-blog but this one….

Kevin links to what he calls my “awesome … ranticle” (thanks!) on the Marmot thread about the attempt by the UNIVERSITY that employs Gerry Bevers to silence his private opinions about Tokdo, arguing for the strength of Japan’s historical claim to the Tokdo/Takeshima islets. Bevers says his boss told him that the university was getting complaints about his detailed blog postings on Occidentalism, and that he should stop writing blog posts about the subject (Who is this Tokdo, you may ask?). Bevers agreed. Later, however, Bevers was called in and told that his teaching contract would not be renewed, and that Tokdo was at least one reason for the non-renewal. Bevers claims to have received excellent evaluations from his students and supervisors, but he will now have to leave Korea after living there for several decades because his visa was contingent on his employment. There is no allegation that Bevers stated or discussed his views of Tokdo on the job. He taught English.

You can read the whole discussion here. My own comments are at 78 and 112. After seeing on what level the discussion started, I had to overrule my better judgment to participate. Fortunately, my better judgment is used to not getting its way by now.

Kevin gives me too much credit with this charitable assumption:

I do think our troops should bugger out. Korea needs greater exposure to reality, even at the expense of regional stability. I don’t, however, think that groupthink in Korea is the whole story. Koreans often present a unified public face, but the private reality is far different: disagreement abounds. You don’t have to go far to see that Koreans are in engaged in spirited debate with each other about all the geopolitical topics that vex us Americans. I’m charitably assuming that Joshua’s rant is directed not so much at South Korean citizens as at elements of the Korean government (and, perhaps, at certain Korean businesses). If so, I agree with him. If Joshua is suggesting that Koreans as a whole see the big issues only one way, then I respectfully disagree. The picture is decidedly more complicated than that.

I agree, Kevin, when it comes to a whole range of subjects: trade, labor unions, wife-beating, boob jobs, Hines Ward, whether North Korea should have nukes, how many more of them South Korea should pay for, Chung Dong-Young’s IQ, whether you’d “do” Harisu if you were drunk enough, whether interracial marriage is a crime against nature, how many more years of USFK Korea should try to weasel out of Uncle Sugar, or whether Koreans should have to let its soldiers into their bars or soccer matches in the meantime. But tell me:

Tokdo probably does not qualify for an exclusive economic zone, but I believe that it has become a dissent exclusion zone. During my last visit to Korea in April, every Korean mind had duly installed the latest software updates of Yonsama 2.0 and Tokdo 7.8. No one talked of anything else. The issue was not subject to the normal partisan debate and polarization that, as Kevin notes, is present on a wide range of other issues. Even the opposition media took no notice of how obvious a pre-election political stunt it all was. The only question open to debate seemed to be whether to go to war against Japan, and I am absolutely not kidding about that. (Another question I dare you to ask in the presence of female in-laws: do you suppose Yonsama and Rain sleep in separate beds? But that’s a debate both you and Korean society can live without having.)

The mostly-good thing about censorship is that it tends to backfire unless you’re a truly dedicated practioner. As with the state’s attempt to suppress Yoduk Story, this non-state attempt to censor Bevers has already backfired, at least with non-Koreans. Exhibit A: has any Marmot post has ever generated 400 comments? A few more people (but probably not many) will read Bevers’s interpretations of ancient maps; on the other hand, far more will see just how silly, petty, insecure, and intolerant South Korean society makes itself look when “Sugar Shin” speaks for it.
I’d wager a forced march up the side of Namsan that the percentage of Americans who believe that George W. Bush engineered 9-11 to make war on the same Middle East that supposedly pulls his daddy’s puppet strings is higher than the percentage of Koreans who believe that Japan has a rightful and legitimate claim to Tokdo/Takeshima. And you can be certain that no blogger or member of the Human Rights Commission would take note of the inevitable consequences of any Korean expressing such a view publicly.

That’s not to say that most Koreans would whore out their God-given stupidity as promiscuously as, say, Pawikirogi, but it’s pretty disturbing to see how many commenters rush to blame Bevers for the “mistake” of stating personal opinions, and how much tolerance there is for South Korean society’s intolerance of any dissenting views. As I point out elsewhere, Bevers’s crime is to have believed all of South Korea’s bulls#*t about being a free society. And unless you’re willing to protect free speech against intolerant non-state actors, you won’t remain free for long. Just ask anyone who lives on Muqtada Sadr’s turf.

(By now, you may be wondering: would Joshua defend the right to engage in speech he disagrees with? Here is your answer. And when anyone shows me evidence that Bevers taught demonstrable falsehoods at his teaching job — since the whole point of teaching is spreading truth and reason — I’ll concede that you can draw a legitimate connection between his views and his job. For those who are interested, here’s a summation of the state of U.S. law on this issue.)

I should note two additional facts here. First, the school denies that the non-renewal is linked to Bevers’s Tokdo postings. Second, because Bevers had the foresight to record the penultimate conversation with his supervisor, I’m not initially inclined to believe those denials.

Bevers’s firing, though not an act of state, will stick just as the censorship of the mob usually sticks in South Korea these days: because the government selectively stays its hand when the mob puts forth a view it happens to agree with, or when it want the mob’s votes more than it wants to protect the freedom of other people to express their views. My term for this is “vicarious censorship,” but what happened in Bevers’s case is more accurately described as an example of what academics call “the heckler’s veto.” The difference between the former and latter phenomena is that with the latter, the thugs don’t even have to unpack their iron pipes.

Why I Don’t Care, Part II*

I’ll try to be succinct. I am an evangelical atheist about Tokdo: I don’t give a flying f*ck about Tokdo/Takeshima, do not care what the ancient maps say, and do not care how many Korean or Japanese government Web sites put forth various arcane arguments for possession of two tiny, barren, shit-splattered pin-pricks, with one exception: Like everyone else, I watch with dumbfounded amazement at the spectacle of this endless tide of unquestioned, unaminous, and visceral silliness. I almost forgot “ugly.” Maybe the title of one previous post would be even more succinct:

I’m amazed at how all eyes can follow the swarm of bees and yet miss the pink elephant in the room. So do you really love your country? Do you have a pair? Wanna fight the illegal occupation of half your country and the enslavement of a third of its people, even when some actual courage is required? Then go to the DMZ, or any Hanchongryon rally, and shout, “Wonsan-nun uri ttang!” Unlike Tokdo, there are actual people who live in the northern half of Korea. And uppity talk at Japan is pretty much a no-balls-required proposition, although it won’t free or save anyone. It’s even possible to do something legitimately courageous, or something simple, convenient, and practical to actually help some of them, but few will. The cries of 23 million enslaved Koreans fall on deaf ears, and will for as long as they still live. As a wise man once said,

The “quietness” of South Korea’s diplomacy with its neighbors seems inversely proportional to both the number of lives at stake and the tendency of its interlocutor to prefer to resolve disputes peacefully.