Candlelight Revolution Scandal Analysis

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In the late 2016, a political scandal burst out in Korea and shocked the world. The well-known Choi Sun-sil scandal infuriates the Koreans and caused a large-scale protest in which hundreds of thousands gathers and called for the impeachment of President Park Geun-hye, named the Candlelight Revolution. Regarding the causes of Candlelight Revolution, the scandal of former president Park and Choi Sun-sil was not the only reason that caused it. Koreans has been in lots of hardships since a long time ago, they have experienced numerous times of living under the rules of corrupted and incompetent leaders, such as King Seonjo who abandoned the people during Japanese invasion and Chun Doo-hwan who killed hundreds of protesters during the Gwangju …show more content…

Millions of Koreans which includes roles of labour unions, university student unions, farmer unions, left-wing parties, families of the Sewol ferry disaster victims, feminist groups and citizens from all walks of life join the demonstration (Tai, 2016). Unlike the previous protest in history, the Gwangju Uprising, Candlelight Revolution is a bloodless revolution in which it had been described as ‘peaceful and orderly’ (Tai, 2016). They chose to demonstrate in a peaceful way with the methods of Civil resistance, protest marches, picketing and demonstrations (2016–17 South Korean protests, 2017). Furthermore, the protests are open to the world. Thanks to the advanced technology nowadays, smartphones turned demonstrations into photographs and shared on different social media channels, which literally everyone get to comment and know about the political situation in Korea, it provided a platform for all Koreans and the world to spread their views towards the Candlelight Revolution, in which it definitely helps the demonstrations and Korea to take a great step toward true democracy (Chang, 2017). Owing to the advanced technology, the government can no longer kept it as a secret like Chun Doo-hwan did for the Gwangju Democratization Movement by holding tight restriction of the