As the sentence “To list them all would exceed the space available,” taken from “Step Down, Right Now,” a statement issued by twenty-three professors at Korea National Open University on November 26, 2024, repeats, we feel recurring problems and recurring realities alongside a weariness repeated beyond the available space. Yet, like a website that requires scrolling to reach what comes next, the sentence hidden beyond that insufficient space seems to announce a new phase. We still believe that repetition ultimately ends in change. As the German-born Jewish thinker Hannah Arendt said: “Every revolution ends with the attempt to establish a new political order, not just to negate the old world, but to imagine and create a new one.”

Statement by Korea National Open University Professors: Step Down, Right Now

Throughout the past two and a half years of his term, President Yoon Suk Yeol has consistently shown incompetence and irresponsibility. He has allowed Kim Keon Hee, Myung Tae Kyun, and others to manipulate state affairs, leaving the people governed by unofficial influence rather than law. He has evaded responsibility for the Itaewon disaster, which claimed 159 lives, and is heightening military tensions on the Korean Peninsula through failures across foreign and security policy, including the Russia–Ukraine war and relations with North Korea. Meanwhile, his prolonged neglect of the medical crisis and severe anti-labor policies are driving people’s lives to the brink. There are numerous further instances of unreasonable regression across democracy, the economy, the press, human rights, society, and culture, but to list them all would exceed the space available.

At his public address and press conference on November 7, the president remained insincere throughout. Having reached the limits of their patience, people began filling the streets two days later and have continued every weekend to demand his resignation. Treating this lightly will bring even stronger resistance.

We give a final warning to Yoon Suk Yeol, who has acted as a benighted ruler rather than a president. In accordance with the orders of the sovereign people, accept a special counsel investigation and step down immediately. We hope you will thereby avert the worst catastrophe.

November 26, 2024
The twenty-three signing professors of Korea National Open University
Kim Seonggon, Nam Gihyeon, Park Donguk, Park Mijin, Seong Yeonju, Yeo Gyeongjin, Lee Dongju, Lee Uchang, Lee Junseok, Lim Jaehong, Cho Seunghyeon, Jeong Minseung, Jeong Yeongil, Jeong Junyeong, Jeong Hyeonsuk, Choi Seyeon, Choi Jeonghak, Han Jongdae, and five others, listed in Korean alphabetical order

Venue: REALATION SPACE
Address: 1F, 46 Bongeunsa-ro 114-gil, Gangnam-gu, Seoul
Dates: February 26–March 16, 2025