Changing History towards Crisis Narrative – On Far Right’s Historical Revisionism in South Korea

Abstract

This article investigates the December 2024 South Korean martial law crisis to elucidate how far-right forces weaponize historical revisionism to construct a “crisis narrative”. Against South Korea’s democratization, the far-right intellectual “New Right” movement emerged to counter liberal and progressive paradigms by justifying past authoritarian dictatorships and framing liberalization of society as an existential threat to the nation. Through a discourse analysis of primary sources, specifically far-right historical writings, publications, and manifestos, this study demonstrates how this historical revisionism operates not merely as distortion of the historical facts, but as a political project fabricating an illusion of impending national ruin. This narrative systematically stigmatizes democratic institutions and civil society as internal enemies, instigating a de facto civil war mindset, which perceives liberal parties, labor unions, feminists, LGBTQ+, people with disabilities, immigrants, and refugees, etc. as enemies threatening the nation, thereby justifying violence against them. Furthermore, by examining primary sources directly related to the 2024 crisis, including President Yoon Suk-yeol’s martial law decrees, public addresses, and extreme-right agitators’ speeches, this article reveals how this exact crisis narrative actively functioned to legitimize the unconstitutional suspension of the rule of law and incite violent riots.