파면: Yoon Suk-yeol Impeached

I happened to be home, at my parents’ house, on Thursday night — Friday morning Korea time — when South Korea’s Constitutional Court issued its ruling on the impeachment of Yoon Suk-yeol. This was Yoon, the former prosecutor, who had become President on a platform of misogyny. Yoon, who, in early December, had declared martial law in a weird, disorganized, and ultimately unsuccessful self-coup. His attempted treason had gotten him impeached and indicted, but he could only be removed from office by a ruling of the Constitutional Court (which is currently made up of four women and four men; conservative, centrist, and liberal). My parents and I tuned in nervously to the Korean news. The chief justice read a long, highly technical decision, detailing the violent takeover envisioned by Yoon and his conspirators. Thousands of protesters were gathered outside the courthouse, cheering, chanting, hoping. Many of them had demonstrated for months, through snow and ice, in defense of their democracy. At 11:22 a.m., the ruling was official: 파면! Yoon was President no more. My mom whooped. My dad laughed. We all felt great relief. The wait — 111 days since the declaration of martial law — had been too long. In early June, a new president will be elected. I’m interested in 회복, the verb of choice these days: Koreans speak of a chance to “heal” their democracy, of giving democracy a chance “to recover.” —E. Tammy Kim