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The dichotomy between the perception of North Korea as an oppressive hierarchical dictatorship and South Korea being some web-based utopia that personifies all the things we appreciate in the West is, in the words of Vladimir Nabokov: “The kind of absurd delusion, like when a hypnotized person makes love to a chair”. South Korea is a military dictatorship, and despite brief periods surrounded democratic uprisings that nearly toppled the government in the late 80’s, the leadership there has ruled by crushing and imprisoning opposition, restricting the media, rewriting history to exclude the democracy movements, and devastating the lives of working people (arresting hundreds of Union leaders, and violently putting down labor unrest). Many don’t even realize that until the 90’s there was barely the pretense of democracy in the ROK.

In 2008 the government in the ROK implemented restrictive requirements for real name internet posting. Bloggers that have revealed the incompetency of the regime have been hunted down and prosecuted. Activist/poet/blogger Yang Hyung-ku was arrested for advocating reunification and Juche thought. The government uses a system of citizen policing to find people that expresses sympathy toward the North, and arrests them, this being despite that half of the country in an anonymous poll said that the ROK should assist North Korea in the occasion of a US invasion (from a 2005 poll). Visiting the North also results in years of imprisonment, including most recently activist No Su-hui. The 2MB government (a popular derogatory nickname for Myung-bak Lee) regularly replaced heads of media outlets (like KBS and MBC) with his government cronies, and repressed stories critical of the regime or its policies. Google admitted the government pressured it into deleting footage of ROK government officials -running a brothel-. Historical mentions of movements like Gwangju and Jeju have been eliminated, the government justifying such actions by claiming these uprisings were led by communists. 

Mass gatherings have been illegalized as of may 2009, the government supporting this decision said such disruptions could “have negative effects on the nation’s economy”. It has regularly and brutally utilized this policy.  All demonstrations relating to the ROK’s partnership with the Japanese are especially off limits, and no demonstrations of any kind are allowed within 300 meters of the Japanese embassy. 2MB also agreed to hand Dokdo island to the Japanese, and hid the decision from the people. If you do not realize the severity of the Korean government collaborating with the Japanese, ask any Korean about for details. 

The government has been caught manipulating polls to show that people support their actions. Citizens rights to hold press conferences have been criminalized.

Despite having their first female president, the ROK has one of the lowest levels of female legislators on the planet, 4%. The UN development report in 2000 South Korea ranked 63rd out of 70 in terms of gender equality. Women make barely half of what men make. Only 20% of professors are women, and the majority of these teach in the home economics department. There are an estimated 2 million sex workers in the ROK, and about 80,000 brothels. Sex work accounts for 4% of the economy, more than electricity and gas combined. 83% of South Korean men have had relations with sex workers. 

The vast majority of the South Korean people want to see the country reunified (83%), and Pyongyang has been more than willing to meet with the South. A poll conducted in 2005 asked South Koreans who was responsible for the division of the peninsula, the response was the United States (35.3%), followed by Japan (35.2%), and (China 13.4%). Note that the DPRK is not on this list. The ROK has consistently acted against the vast majority of its citizens, and if it had not been propped up by the U.S. it would have fallen long ago. The solution is not to subjugate the other side to the same ruling elite, but to finally allow the people of Korea to reunify on their own terms, as they have been attempting to do since they were divided. 

This is by no means an exhaustive list, feel free to add.

[Data is sourced and compiled from Katsiaficas’ “Asia’s Unknown Uprisings: Vol. 1]