Special Ed Strikers

Korea is the most civilized country I have visited. For example, every time I visit there is a strike going on in downtown Seoul.

Yesterday, I was walking with my friend, a teacher who is Korean, and we saw riot police everywhere. There must have been 1000 of them, but compared to previous strikes I have seen in Korea, they looked relaxed. There were 100 police buses with cages on the window ready to take rioters to jail in case the strike got out of control. As we turned the corner around the Education Ministry we saw the strikers.

They were so cute!

"Oh no!" said my friend, already uneasy, "it's a teachers' strike."

"Really?"

"Well, not exactly," he said after inspecting their banners more closely. "It is two groups in alliance: the Special Education Teachers and the Mentally Handicapped. They are protesting a change in the law which takes away educational benefits for the mentally handicapped."

Sure enough, I looked more closely, and half the 300 protesters were handicapped: Down's Syndrome and various forms of retardation, mild and severe. They were being led by a teacher: shouting slogans and pumping their fists, completely outnumbered by riot police in front of an impervious and indifferent Education Ministry. It was one of the most poignant expressions of humanity I have ever seen.

"But why do they have thousands of riot police to control a few hundred handicapped people?" I asked naively.

"Because they are smart," he said of the retards, "and they have phones. In a minute they can organize somewhere and thousands of people will show up and start throwing stones. You never know!"