South Korean politics got weird in the last week or so when their president declared martial law. Basically it all went something like this…
President Yoon: I’m declaring martial law because of the North or something.
Military: Woohoo!
South Korean public taking to the streets: Yeah nah, get fucked with that.
South Korean opposition politicians: Yeah, what the people said.
Yoon: OK I’m undeclaring martial law now.
Military: What?
Opposition: We’re gonna impeach your arse.
Yoon: I’m terribly sorry, I didn’t really mean it.
Opposition: Don’t care. Impeaching.
Ruling party: Hmmmmmmm… no. Not happening.
Everyone else: What the fuck?
Ruling party: Look, we’ll block him from leaving the country for some reason. Will that do?
Everyone else: …No?
Military: You really should’ve just let him go ahead with the martial law thing.
Everyone: Oh fuck off.
Meanwhile in Syria, decades of misrule by the Assad family appears to have ended over the weekend after a rebel advance came out of what appears to have been fucking nowhere:
Crowds of people waved the Syrian revolutionary flag and pulled down statues and portraits of the president and his father, Hafez, while celebratory gunfire and car horns echoed around Damascus on Sunday as an astonishing rebel advance reached the capital.
In photos and videos of families reunited with loved ones long lost to the dark of the regime’s notorious prison system, people cried and clung to one another in disbelief at their newfound freedom. Others gleefully ransacked the presidential palace, marvelling at the abundance of luxury goods and designer cars in a country where 90% of the population lives below the poverty line.
Just hours before, it was announced that Assad had fled the capital in a private plane and that his regime had fallen. On Sunday evening, Russian state news agencies reported that the president and his family were in Moscow and had been given asylum on “humanitarian grounds”.
The major road linking the Lebanese city of Beirut to Damascus was lined with discarded army uniforms on Sunday after Syrian army soldiers discarded them upon realising their leader had abandoned them after 54 years of his family’s rule over Syria.
Lots of happy people in Syria right now, obviously, and, equally, a lot of people probably worried about what happens next. No guarantee, after all, that whoever now fills the vacuum will necessarily be an improvement, or that it won’t be a case of meet the new boss same as the old boss. We remember how well this worked in Russia back in 1917, after all…
