Thousands of people from more than 100 labor, civic and farmers’ groups held a rally in the center of Seoul last weekend, protesting the government’s push for labor reforms and state-authored history textbooks for secondary students.

The demonstration was the second of its kind following the one on Nov. 14. But unlike the first one, no violence or clash with police took place this time.

The organizers of the second protest sought to ensure a violence-free demonstration as the eruption of violence at the November rally simply justified police repression of their protests against the government.

Police also took care not to provoke the demonstrators. They kept water cannons away from them and refrained from setting up barricades using police vehicles.

The Saturday rally was seen by many as a test of whether Korea’s tradition of violent protests could shift to one of nonviolence.

It was this perception that motivated a group of 500 clergymen and believers from five religions, including Buddhism and Protestantism, to join the rally. They held prayer services and joined the march to help prevent clashes between protesters and police.

This perception was also shared by the 40 lawmakers from the main opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy, including party leader Moon Jae-in, who joined other people at the rally to form a human chain between demonstrators and the police line.

Moon stressed that the Saturday rally should be the starting point of a new tradition of peaceful demonstrations.

Thanks to the efforts of these people, the Saturday demonstration ended peacefully, raising hopes that Korea’s protest culture would change for the better in the future.

But for the protest culture to change, the progressive labor, civic and farmers’ groups that organized the rallies in November and last weekend should commit to holding violence-free demonstrations.

They endeavored to keep the Saturday protest free of violence. But we suspect that it was not because they were committed to peaceful demonstrations but because the violence at the November rally backfired. They should declare full commitment to nonviolent demonstrations.

They also need to question the wisdom of holding large-scale rallies in the heart of Seoul that cause considerable inconvenience to citizens.

They appear to think that these rallies are the most effective means of getting their messages across to the public. But what they get from most citizens is probably not support or sympathy for their causes but complaints over the inconvenience.