The Taegukgi rallies, also known as the Pro-Park rallies, were a series of counter-candlelight rallies supporting the former president of South KoreaPark Geun-hye. The Taegeukgi protestors, or the Taegeukgi crowds got their because they vehemently swung or wore South Korean flags during rallies. On October 26, 2016, the first candlelight protest was held, demanding Geun-hye to step down from office. Since then, an estimated 18 million protesters over the course of 6 months gathered in Gwanghwamun Plaza to demand the resignation and impeachment of former president Park Geun-hye. The demonstrations continued until Geun-hey was dismissed from presidency in March 2017, even after the Constitutional Court confirmed the National Assembly's call for impeachment. Public anger centered on Park Geun-hye's role in political corruption regarding his personal acquaintance, Choi Soon-sil, and her role in unlawfully intervening with state affairs and coercing conglomerates to contribute large sums of money to Choi's own foundation. Pro-Park advocates, also known as 'silver patriots' representing an older generation, believed anti-Park forces were the pro-North Korean sympathizers and manipulated by biased media. To them, what they were doing was for the protection of liberal democracy that they think they had contributed to rescue from direct communist threats in the past.
Controversies
Conservatism
The Taegeukgi protests have been remarked as the first massive political assembly by the conservative camp after the democratization of South Korea. Taegeukgi crowds do not support Geun-hye's policy or political vision. In the 2012 South Korean presidential election, Geun-hye won with a majority 51.55% of votes. Geun-hye's party, the Liberty Korea Party, had leaned toward the conservative end of political spectrum so this attracted many conservative voters. However, when Park's change in political corruption was uncovered, 85% of Korean citizens agreed to impeach her from presidency. In addition to this, a large number of conservatives joined the pro-impeachment rallies for a long period of time, which proved that not only the liberals, but also a majority of conservative supporters of Geun-hye turned against her. The “good past” of Taegeukgi protestors had been projected through Geun-hye. Most of the key participants of the rallies were the generation that played a key role during the time of industrialization and high economic development of South Korea under the former dictator Park Chung-hee.
Taegeukgi and other flags
From demonstrations against Japanese imperial rule to the democratization movement in 1987, waving Taegeukgi elicited patriotism and strong resistance to unjust persecution. However, as Taegeukgi protestors began to vehemently swing Taegeukgi, it is more and more becoming a symbol for the extreme right-wing activism. In the 1970s, Park Chung-hee, a former dictator of South Korea as well as the father of Geun-hye, gained a number of advocates through modernization of South Korea. When Jung-hee took power through a military coup, he used Taegeukgi to legitimize his dictatorship and to a right-wing ideology. Chung-hee treated all the other dissenting voices of his policy as pro-communism and that were to be eradicated in the political arena. One thing Chung-hee actively propagated was “the Reds” which refers to an expression of hatred toward North Korean communism. Chung-hee also exploited this notion to oppress any political critiques. Waving Taegeukgi is a strategy of the extreme right Taegeukgi protestors employed to represent their own definition of patriotism, democracy and nationalism and merged it with a sense of nostalgia of their glorious past. The flags of the United States or pro-Trump slogans were also rampant during the rallies. This is because Taegeukgi crowds have faith that the US's military intervention prevented communism to override the South during the Korean War. The US flags therefore symbolize more than an ally of South Korea. To Taegeukgi protestors, the US is expected be hawk-eyed against left-wing forces and any other pro-North Korea sympathizers.
Participation
Number of protestors
On March 1st Movement Day, the Taegeukgi rallies were held. The main organizer of Taegeukgi protests, National Rebellion Movement Headquarters to Dismiss Presidential Impeachment, reported the 15th anti-impeachment demonstration participation was over 5,000,000. This estimate had been criticized to be absurd because Seoul’s population is 9,904,312, Busan has population of around 3,500,000, Denmark has population of 5,600,000, and Norway has a population of 5,200,000. The issue of estimating participants emerged on January 13, when the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency announced not to release estimated number of participants. The police had released an estimated number of participants, but as protests with conflicting interests are held simultaneously and the participation numbers have had aroused confusion, police publicly reported not to count the numbers. Police operated a security force for safety and prevention of unexpected collisions at the protest site. The purpose of counting the number was an essential part to approximate numbers of tactical units to be dispatched. Police used the Fermi method. The Fermi method is estimating the number of people per area with an assumption that 5-6 people can fit in 3.3 square meters. As such, the police estimate the number of people according to their internal needs, so strictly speaking, it is not the 'official announcement' of the estimated number of people. The size of the gathering is often a public concern, so the media has only made its own estimates available to the public.
Paid participants
The broadcasting network JTBC, based on the testimony of participants and leaders of pro-Park groups, reported on January 26 that pro-Park Taegeukgi crowds were paying people to attend rallies so as to inflate the number of participants. General members of the Korea Parent Federation could receive KR₩20,000, and the pay was sometimes raised to ₩60,000. Some people in financial difficulties, including the homeless, could be paid ₩50,000 if they took a shower and tidied their appearance. Any young women with babies could receive ₩150,000.
