I just ran across a story online about a Korean farmer who killed himself in Cancun during the protests, a kind of public martyrdom in protest. I didn’t heard about it it at the time, because I was so busy moving in to Jeonju and adjusting, but now that I’m reading it, I am shocked. I didn’t even know that a group of Korean farmers had gone over to Cancun for the protests, much less one of them committing a protest suicide! I can admire the strength of his will to protest, and what he gave up for his cause, but still killing himself seems somehow wrong to me. Still, it’s not for me to judge him. Here’s a snippet:
He took a patch of harsh mountain land and turned it into a thriving farm. But when Korea was flooded with foreign imports he was ruined – and last week, during the world trade talks, Lee Kyung-hae plunged a knife into his heart. Jonathan Watts on one man’s struggle against the system.
See the article, titled Field of tears, over at Guardian Unlimited.