As they went ahead, the living now follow!
May is a month of great significance for every progressive across the world. May 1, the International Workers’ Day, remembers the martyrs of the Haymarket massacre and reaffirms the struggle of the working class. May 9, Victory Day, celebrates the defeat of Nazi Germany in Europe. May 17, the International Day Against Homophobia, commemorates the World Health Organization’s removal of homosexuality from its list of diseases, recognizing the LGBT community and their rights. A little bit more than halfway through the month, we have already passed through many great moments in the history of the worldwide struggle for peace, justice and human dignity. It is by remembering these moments that we gather the strength to carry on, and in the end win.
For the people of south Korea, the month of May is the symbol for our struggle for democracy. Throughout the 20th Century, power changed hands from the US military to Rhee Syngman, from Park Chung-hee to Chun Doo-hwan, but the regime always kept its relentless repression of political freedom and labor movements. The names of the President changed, but his iron grip was at the people’s throat all the same. In 1980, faced with yet more years of martial law, the ordinary citizens of Gwangju rallied into protests calling for democracy and unification. The military, sworn to protect the people, replied with paratroopers armed with machine-guns, with snipers in helicopters, with tanks rolling in the street. On May 18, the citizens took up arms to defend themselves. They organized their communities. They fought, bled, and died.
The film Good Light, Good Air, only recently released in the cinemas, showcases the parallel between south Korea and Argentina, each on opposite sides of the world. The cruelty of the military regimes were almost mirror images. When the Korean soldiers were stabbing civilians with bayonets, the Argentinian soldiers were kidnapping children. When the Argentinian airplanes were throwing students into the ocean, the Korean helicopters were raining bullets on citizens. However, both regimes met their inevitable defeat by the organized and determined masses, driven by the memories of loss and suffering. The June Revolution in Korea remembered the citizens of Gwangju. The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo in Argentina remembered the disappeared children.
The lesson here is twofold. The first is that our struggle, wherever we are, is one. All across the world, we fight the same battle against the forces of power and violence that seek to rob us of our freedom and dignity as human beings. The bullets that murdered the Gwangju citizens, and the bullets that today murder Palestinians, are exactly the same down to the millimeter. Racial and sexual discriminations, imperialism, capitalism, are many heads of the same beast. The second is that our memories give us strength. To forget is to give up, and to give up is to fail. Without remembering our yesterday, we cannot organize today, and we cannot win tomorrow.
The struggle has continued, continues, and will continue!
As they went ahead, the living now follow!
