A worry after 1987, and Saturdays in the plaza

Many people, the writer says, had wondered why a rising like the June struggle of 1987 was not happening again, and some had even lost faith in the public of the time. The notes do not treat that waiting as emptiness. The historical experience of 1987, in this reading, was still in people’s minds, with a hope that ordinary folk would one day stand up once more. In October 2016, the notes say, a candlelight citizen revolution began, and anger and hope gathered in Seoul Plaza. The same turn, the writer adds, was not only in Seoul: candlelight meetings were held across the country, and people even arranged private appointments around them.

The writer places that season in a longer line: the April Revolution of 1960, the Bu-Ma struggle, the May 18 democratic uprising of 1980, the June struggle of 1987, and later labor and civic movements. In 1987, the notes say, people won a direct presidential election; some thirty years later, in 2016 and 2017, they filled the plaza on Saturdays, and the writer wonders whether a citizen revolution left unfinished in 1987 was reaching a first completion. The novelist Jo Jung-rae, the notes recall, once called the life of ordinary people in Korean history a bonfire of han; the writer’s stress is on how that long resistance, in this reading, helped to make the country’s democracy. President Moon Jae-in, the notes add, later said in a May 18 memorial address that his government inherited the spirit of the candlelight citizen revolution. That is reported as the writer’s account of a speech, not enlarged here.

The ninth of December, and a morning in March

The National Assembly, the notes say, passed an impeachment motion against President Park Geun-hye on 9 December 2016 and filed it with the Constitutional Court. On 10 March 2017, at 11 a.m., the Court opened the pronouncement; at 11:21 acting Chief Justice Lee Jung-mi said the president was removed. The eight justices, in this telling, were unanimous, and the decision came ninety-two days after the motion was received. The writer calls it the first removal of a sitting president in the country’s constitutional history, and that wording is left as the notes give it. Two days later, on 12 March, around 7 p.m., Park left Cheong Wa Dae and returned to a house in Samsung-dong, Gangnam, Seoul; through lawmaker Min Kyung-wook of the Liberty Korea Party, the notes say, she expressed regret at not having finished her duty, thanks to those who had supported her, and a hope that the truth would in time be made clear.

The same public mood, the writer says, pulled Park from office and into prison, and also led to Lee Jae-yong of Samsung spending time in prison. That is the writer’s claim, kept in this telling, not restated as a later official finding. The notes also look back at the Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye years as a period of corruption and of policies, in the writer’s words, that pushed democracy, livelihoods, human rights, and peace aside.

A poll that held, and rallies under another flag

Before 9 December 2016, the writer says, some conservative circles still thought that even if Park were impeached, a conservative government could be remade; there was, in this reading, a Ban Ki-moon card that had public support, and Ban later withdrew from the race, while hopes for a new conservative union in a third zone also fell away. After the motion, the notes say, the chance of a change toward a progressive government looked stronger. Conservative papers, the writer adds, sometimes spoke as if they themselves had led the candlelight, and of a nation split in two. Against the candlelight stood rallies under the Taegeukgi, which at times, the notes say, filled the street from Sungnyemun to Sejong-daero.

Even so, support for impeachment, the writer says, held between 75 and 80 percent and did not move much, and rose further once the Court had ruled. A polling firm the notes name Realmeter is cited as finding that 86 percent thought the decision was right, and 92 percent would accept it. Those figures stay in that 2017 season, and are not treated as official totals from a later year. The writer’s last stress is not only on the ruling, but on energy the notes say had been charged for a larger change. The same Korean essay, at fuller length, is on CampusDown.

Sources

1. A student essay on the 2016–2017 candlelight gatherings, the 9 December 2016 impeachment motion, and the Constitutional Court ruling of 10 March 2017.
2. Dates, the acting chief justice’s announcement at 11:21, and poll figures as the notes give them, left in that window.
3. Seoul Plaza, Taegeukgi rallies from Sungnyemun to Sejong-daero, and names the notes record, including Park Geun-hye, Lee Jung-mi, Ban Ki-moon, and Jo Jung-rae.

Last updated: 14 November 2026