Remonstrance of 1950
| Suffrage Protest of 1950 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
 Gonghae harbour, where the protest began | |||
| Date | Jan. 4, 1950 – Aug. 9 | ||
| Location | Gonghae, Hanhae | ||
| Caused by | Professional soldiers excluded from suffrage | ||
| Goals | Obtain suffrage | ||
| Methods | Embarrassing streamers and posters on Themiclesian assets; blotted flags | ||
| Resulted in | Professional soldiers permitted to vote starting next general election | ||
| Parties to the civil conflict | |||
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| Number | |||
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| Casualties | |||
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The Suffrage Protest of 1950 was a civic disobedience campaign by the Themiclesian Hanhae Expedition Force in protest of professional soldiers' inability to vote under Themiclesian law. The protesters, who obtained the acquiescence of local authorities and the military officers in charge, defaced the Themiclesian flag and other national symbols on public property, to express discontent. The government initially dismissed the protest as tomfoolery, but after sympathetic petitions were received domestically, the Themiclesian parliament amended the franchise in question, permitting professional soldiers the vote starting the next general election. The government ordered the units to restore the emblems, arrested and fined the ringleaders, and made several dismissals before the act was formally promulgated.
Franchise
Under the Representation of the People Act, 1935, all adults aged above 20 received the right to vote for members of parliament, though several categories of individuals were specifically excluded, amongst them professional soldiers. Traditionally, this is because soldiers were thought susceptible to the influence of their superior officers, so they could not represent their true opinions and thus become "honest" voters, when the vote was notionally a recommendation, from a gentlemen, to the imperial court. The concern that military officers might use their power over soldiers to demand bribes and other favours from politicians was also vocalized. Yet in 1935, suffrage protests were organized by labour unions and civic rights groups in boycott of the government's plans to introduce conscription against the Menghean invasion; the government passed the law to permit all adults not otherwise barred to vote, legitimating conscription. However, the law did not retroactively apply to individuals who were already in the military before its passage, and a legal distinction was made between conscripts and volunteers, with voting rights stripped from the latter but not the former. In turn, this is because conscripts retain their status as members of census households, upon which they are granted the ballot during elections, but professional soldiers (volunteers) were removed from their census households and placed in the military census, a legal archaicism meant to shield soldiers from other responsibilities like corveé labour when it existed. This rendered professional soldiers unable to vote, as they did not form part of a constituency.
Progress
On Jan. 4, 1950, members of the 3rd Battalion of the 162nd Infantry Regiment were meant to be making decorations to their garrison in anticipation of a visit by the Mayor of Gonghae and dinner in his honour. When the dignitary arrived, he was surprised to find out that the Themiclesian flag was defaced with white paint and flown at half-mast. As he entered his seat, he asked the commander of the battalion if Themiclesia was experiencing a national distress, which called for flying the flag that way. He was given the answer that since the soldiers were not citizens of Themiclesia (in the sense that they were not allowed to participate in government), they felt no obligation to fly its colours. The dinner progressed in a rather awkward silence, as the Mayor thought leaving before it was finished would be rude. When dessert was served, he asked if the unit was still fighting, to which the commander answered that "they will do everything they are paid to do". Disturbed, the Mayor telegrammed the Themiclesian Foreign Office about the situation, but no reply ever arrived. Presently, six other regiments adopted similar measures. The 174th Regiment replaced their flag with a giant, crossed-out ballot and bleached the patches on their uniforms bearing Themiclesian colours. The spread was particularly fast to units that were composed of veterans of the South Expedition Force, which was a volunteer force that partly consisted of conscripts who voluntarily accepted professional status and were excluded from the general elections of 1944, 1947, and 1948. These conscripts would have been permitted to vote while they were such but were deprived of the right after becoming professional.
In the Navy, the situation was slightly different. It consisted of volunteers and whose majority never voted. After 1943, the Navy's recruitment regulations permitted 18-year-olds to enlist in non-combat positions, lower than the voting age limit of 20 years. On the evening of Feb. 21, SNS Thin-Drjang, a Themiclesian ship, landed in Gonghae, after a 20-day voyage, and saw that the Themiclesian garrisons were flying bleached or defaced flags. The captain was suspicious and ordered the ship not to disembark. He telegraphed the Admiralty to inquire, and the Army replied that "nothing was functionally out of order". Not convinced the Ministry of War was fully informed, he dispatched a platoon of marines, with cameras, to investigate; they soon returned with bleached patches. Before responding to the captain about the protest, curious sailors pried information from them first. On the 22nd, the midshipmen individually suggested that they also bleach the ship's ensign; a collective petition would risk being mistaken for mutiny. The captain forbade this on the pretext that a bleached ensign could mislead other vessels into firing on the ship as an enemy or rogue ship. He explained that "being dead on a sunken ship also prevents one from voting", but conceded, under great anticipation, that bleaching the naval standard was an adequate substitute to express sympathy. He symbolically fined himself €1 for destroying public property and ordered the negatives taken to be exposed to the point of irrecoverability. Soon, the matter was telegraphed from ship to ship, and before the end of the month 29 ships were flying bleached standards (but unbleached ensigns).
Members of the Air Force were less sympathetic to the Army and Navy's actions. A disproportionately large number of them (c. 10%) were allowed to vote even before the 1935 law, since they purchased their own aircraft and thereby qualified under the property franchise, which overrode the disqualification of professional soldiers. Furthermore, since the Air Force was founded only in 1923, it was not segregated from the domestic census; its members therefore continued to be constituents of electoral districts and did vote in the general elections after 1935 and before 1950. When prompted if they would bleach something on their aircraft, most pilots replied that fuselages couldn't be bleached even if they were sympathetic. In reality, they refused to change their roudels for similar reasons why ensigns were kept intact—defaced, the aircraft could be confused for an enemy.