There are also those who see ominous signs of returning to a barbarous past in the attacks on PSPD by conservative groups.
“The government is going ‘all in’ in diplomacy regarding the Cheonan sinking to escape responsibility for the failure in the local elections, responding with a Cold War mentality of stressing patriotism and nationalism,” said Cho Dae-yeop, professor of sociology at Korea University. “The government’s moves go against the global trend moving to a post-Cold War mentality.” Cho also said, “It is very unfortunate that the police and conservative groups have contributed to this.”
“It seems conservative groups, who have developed a strong hostility towards North Korea and progressive forces over the last decade, have determined that with the launch of the Lee Myung-bak administration, a political and social environment has been created that allows for extremist action,” said Shin Jin-wook, professor of sociology at Chung-Ang University. “The current administration and ruling party, conservative media and New Right groups themselves say they do not deny democracy, but are encouraging ‘far-right terrorism’ by constantly throwing out issues that allow far right groups to engage in radical action.”
I assume by “radical action,” they are not referring to the Mad Cow protests, Ssangyong or Yongsan.
{ 29 comments… read them below or add one }
Per the “People’s Daily” of China:
It would appear that the Hankyoreh takes its ideas from China. I think it is truly bad form for a Korean newspaper to be promoting the interests of a foreign nation since this smells of collaboration from Korea’s Colonial Period.
Congratulations to the “Korean Agent Orange Veterans Association” for doing the job and telling these “Leftists” that they are traitors to SK.
Its really strange however in my homecountry (Australia) I am a leftist myself – supporting the “Labor Government of Australia”
and yet
in South Korea I am far right, conserving LMB and the conservative government.
However, for a country to be stable, you cannot have civic groups sending letters to the UN, informing the UN that their “own governments” petitions are wrong, when the enemy next door is doing the same thing.
Funny that Hankyoreh uses the term “barbarous” (yamanjôgin in the original article) to describe the past towards which the protests against PSPD would indicate a turn. Anyone checked the attributes that the paper has used of the torpedo attack? “Tragic”?
Craash,
I’ve had the exact same experience. In the USA, I’m a left-leaning, regulation-supporting, tree-hugging, gay marriage-attending, Noam Chomsky-reading liberal. But in Korea, left-wing activists absolutely disgust me. Which is why it’s hard for me to feel bad about whatever “terrorist threats” these PSPD ass-clowns have gotten.
It seems the Russians are going to conclude that the Cheonan sank as a result of an “internal explosion,” because the damage resembles that of the Kursk, or so says DP assemblyman Choi Mun-sun, who claims he spoke with the Russian ambassador to South Korea.
http://kr.news.yahoo.com/service/news/shellview.htm?linkid=20&articleid=2010061814574563070&newssetid=1
I bet the Hanky and other “progressive” activists are going to lap this up. Why are these fools so quick to trash their own government and the US, but they’re willing to buy anything the Russians, Chinese, or North Koreans say without thinking twice? South Korean politics has its problems for sure—but seriously—the Russian government is more trustworthy?
My favorite comment comes from foees:
Couldn’t have said it better myself.
I doubt that the Russians will argue for an internal explosion since the evidence strongly favors an external explosion.
I think that they might argue that the evidence is all circumstantial, not enough to constitute proof of the ROK’s accusation.
Jeffery Hodges
* * *
I’m a libertarian in the states and a moderate rightie in Korea.
I love how the lefties in Korea cry democracy yet when they dont get their way, they resort to childish rants and violent outbursts, while calling them “peaceful” demonstrations.
Especially that goateed asshole from the DLP who seems to be at every goddam demonstrations out there. Does he even know which one he’s at?
I agree with JH, again. I don’t think you can site Choi Mun-sun as a reliable source and then make fun of him in the next paragraph. He’s either credible or he’s not. And of course the Russians have their own credibility to think about. We’ll see.
DLB
@Craash and Granfalloon:
I hope you don’t mind if I add you both to my ever-growing collection of people who in their home countries are left of center, but who in Korea find themselves pushed more and more towards Genghis Khan. (Robert the Marmot doesn’t count – he was ever thus.)
My theory (borrowed from others) is that this is because there is no true voice for the “left” in Korea. That which is called “left-wing” or “progressive” actually translates into NK-defending (sometimes even pro-NK), ethno-nationalist idiocy.
Yuna, I would welcome a comment from you on this phenomenon.
An open invitation:
I would like to meet with any senio editors or journalists of the 한겨레 신문 anywhere and anytime. I would like to sit down with them and read a prepared statement in my best Korean (edited by a native speaker, of course), in which I tell them exactly how little I respect their intellectual honesty, and call into question their intelligence and character. I will explain that I am for fear and social justice, and how much I have been disappointed by some of the ridiculous and hypocritical things that 한겨레 신문 has written in its editorials recently.
They may then have the chance to rebut my points, or read their own prepared statement. Although perhaps, as a non-Korean, I don’t warrant being their dialog partner.
But the time has come, I think, for some non-partisan outsiders/semi-outsiders to help remove the scales from 한겨레 신문’s eyes and see just how foolish they look.
(I may need to be strapped to a chair during the meeting, in order to avoid reaching out and trying to slap some sense into them, when my patience is at an end.)
2 hamel
I understand your feelings. I even wrote a short sarcastic letter to the above-mentioned editors (as far as I remember, it was my second letter to a newspaper in lifetime). But do not harbor illusions: those people say what a majority of younger educated Koreans want to hear and believe. And future (at least, mid-term future), I suspect, belong to them. For me the emergence, unstoppable growth and tremendous power of the South Korean nationalist-socialist (note: I did not say “national-socialist”) forces is a very interesting paradox: in few countries worldwide capitalism reached so much with so little bloodshed, and in few countries it is so genuinely unpopular theoretically (when it comes to practical maters, even ideologues in Korea have enough common sense not to kill the goose who is laying the golden eggs).
By the way, the power of the pro-dictatorial (essentially, quasi-Stalinist) left in South Korean academia and journalism is one of the reasons why I do not expect Kim Il Sung to be judged that harshly by Korean historiography. Objectively speaking, he was the worst mass killer of the 20th century, second (in terms of efficiency) only to Comr. Pol Pot. Herr Hitler, Comrade Mao and Comrade Stalin come very distant second if you consider the percentage of the available victims they actually slaughtered. But due to many reasons, I do not think he will be recognized as such – at least, I do not think it will be a mainstream opinion. When Gen.Powell recently said that Kim Il Sung will not escape the judgment of history, he was day-dreaming. At all probability, the mainstream opinion will equate Kim Il Sung with Park, even though the latter was MUCH less bloody and immeasurably more efficient in running the state. Well, I do not believe in judgment of history.
At any rate, I will be happy to watch footage of your encounter with 한겨레
shamelesshighly esteemed editors.Me, above:
Crikey! What was I thinking?
“I will explain that I am for
fearpeace and social justice.”There, fixed it for myself. Oh and also, “senio editors” should of course be “senior editors.”
Well that’s burst my little bubble for today.
Prof. Lankov, thanks for your comments. I will let you know if they choose to take me up on my invitation.
Like Craash and Granfaloon I too find myself rooting, usually hesitantly, for the “conservative” side of the Korean political spectrum.
Hamel said it well:
That which is called “left-wing” or “progressive” actually translates into NK-defending (sometimes even pro-NK), ethno-nationalist idiocy.
I’d add that Korea is in dire need of more centrist politicians, although that might be asking too much from a nation that has a yin-yang symbol in the middle of its flag
For some unexplained reason this comment cracked me up, must be cos it belongs in the we’re all liberals til we get robbed category
@9 put me on that list too.
@cmm #16: you got it, brother.
DLBarch,
For the record, I don’t think Choi Mun-sun is a reliable source. When it comes to the facts surrounding the Cheonan sinking, DP lawmakers, along with “progressive” NGOs and “activists,” have proven themselves time and time again to be the least reliable sources. Already, far more reliable sources, including Western and Korean news agencies, have reported that the Russians will most likely conclude what you and Jeffery Hodges have insinuated: that they will declare the evidence directly implicating the North to be “circumstantial” at best.
My assessment of the current situation, in which the Russians are saying “all hypothesis are still on the table” while going to great lengths to insult and distance themselves from Pyongyang (President Medvedev called them “peculiar”), is that the Russian conclusion is for sale, and they are currently in talks with the South Korean government to extract the best price. If Choi Mun-soon is accurately reporting a conversation he did have with the Russian ambassador, the intent was to up the pressure on the South Korean government. But my gut instinct tells me Choi is exaggerating or embellishing something he heard.
I tend to think lefties back home who come here and are righties, are just able to look at politics without old biases and influences. The MSM and education system back home tells us a “good person” is a caring liberal. And don’t we all want to be a “good person”? In a whole new environment, people are able to have a fresh look at things. Add to that many are just out of college and getting into the “real world” where reality tends to have consequences.
I would be very very interested in what lefties back home are disgusted about with the lefties here in Korea.
Non Korean (#19), I’m not on the left, but I think that I know what foreign leftists dislike about the Korean left.
The extreme ethnic nationalism.
Leftists have generally been internationalists, but the left in Korea is unmistakeably nationalist, even racist — just look at North Korea’s racial propaganda.
Jeffery Hodges
* * *
@20 Yes, that’s a large part of it, as is the associated pro-North/anti-USA sentiment its associated idiocy (e.g. protests over US Beef, protests over 한미 FTA, and dishonest exploitation of tragic traffic incident that left those girls dead some years back, etc.).
Jeffery Hodges,
You stole the words right out of my mouth. All the talk of “pure bloodlines,” “uriminjokggiri” and race-based virtue smacks of the racialist beliefs of Western colonialists and slave owners. To Westerners—who are brought up on a steady diet of the horrors of colonialism, slavery, social Darwinism, Nazism, Apartheid, and other raced-based modes of thinking—the casualness with which Koreans throw about these ideas is disturbing and cause for concern.
Plus, it doesn’t help that “progressives” here pay lip service to progressive notions, but once in power, it’s hard to differentiate their policies from the Korean right—with the exception of their accommodationist policies towards the North.
(I’ll probably be able to provide more detailed comments after I’m done with some test I’ve been preparing for.)
Mr. Jeffery Hodges et al.:
IMHO, political “left” and “right” are misnomers, to begin with, that do not accurately describe the Korean populace who seem divided into two broad groups politically. A realignment of the “left” and “right” will come with the unification of two Koreas, or should I say, dissolution of the de facto government north of the DMZ.
Re: “ethnic nationalism” comment (apparently ascribed to the Korean “left”)
As far as I know, a nationalist is a term that usually goes hand in hand with a conservative. I wouldn’t call the “left-leaning” Koreans nationalists, rather just dupes who can’t see past all that “nationalist”, seemingly righteous propaganda and rhetoric that serves the only purpose of KJI and his machines: upholding the status quo and absolute power they’ve been enjoying since 1948.
A bit more technically, they’ve long been trapped in a serious case of identity crisis.
Jieun: it is possible for a natiuon to be both nationalist and socialist (and I don’t mean the National Socialism of Germany) – take 1970s Vietnam, China and Cambodia, for instance. Each were some kind of leftist Communist regime, but each was also quite strongly nationalist, and that led to conflict.
I was told several times that the “left” or “progressive” (진보) camp in Korea is broadly divided into 2 groups: NL (national liberation) and PD (people’s dmocracy). You can read some of these links here to get a better idea about the differences in ideology, and which group was in the ascendancy and when.
In a nutshell – NL was more nationalist than socialist, and more inclined to apologize for or defend North Korea, and be anti-American and anti-foreigner, without being economically “left.” It is this left that angers most liberal foreigners, and it is this left that so often finds its expression in street demonstrations and angry websites.
PD, however, is more in the vein of international leftist groups, sharing an internationalist viewpoint and similar economic doctrines.
What i think irks Western liberals is facing the harsh reality of the third world left, aka finding out that promoting gay rights and alternative sources of energy are not exactly high on their priorities. Their priorities generally lie in some brutish anti-West revanchisme sic et simpliciter.
And by the way i didn’t imply with my comment that Korea is still third world, i just say their left behave as Korea was still some impoverished, hopeless victim of imperialism hence they’re a national disgrace.
Count me out on this, i always found this school propaganda of nihil interest, for instance i don’t give a shit about the fact we gassed and slaughtered thousands of Ethiopians, i didn’t do it hence it’s not my responsability hence i don’t pay any compensation for it
ethno-nationalism is the common currency that binds the “left” and “right” in Korea together in their contest to determine the socio-political character of the Korean state (or, as the more cynical would say, considering that they actually share a common interest in utilizing the state to control society for the disproportionate differential benefit of their respective networks of elective affinity, in their contest to capture and wield state power for that purpose).
The traditional left-right dichotomy really breaks down in South Korean politics.
The right/left dichotomy was traditionally used to describe attitudes towards economic systems, but recently it’s being used, especially in the US, to describe attitudes towards certain social issues (gay rights, church-state separation, etc). Rightists traditionally favor limited government and free markets, but in South Korea they favor government-led capitalistic development. Leftists also favor government-led capitalism, but prefer to emphasize the role of unions and the welfare state. The old adage that rightist care about human rights in North Korea but not in the South, while leftist care about human rights in the South but not in the North is false. Both groups have proven equally egregious at curtailing civil liberties at home. President Lee’s attempts to limit free speech are nothing right-wing; need I remind everyone of Roh’s attempts to control the press by consolidating press rooms, launching tax investigations against the Chosun Ilbo and Donga Ilbo, his efforts to discredit the children of Japanese collaborators, and leftist efforts to ignore, silence, and misrepresent North Korean refugees and human rights activists?
As far as nationalism is concerned, rightists in Korea are nationalists in the sense that they are loyal to the Republic of Korea, whereas leftists are ethno-nationalists; their allegiance is directed towards the even more abstract notion of the “minkok” and all the absurdities and myths entailed therein
The South Korean dichotomy is best defined based on foreign policy: how to handle the North Korean threat. The left favors engagement, while the right favors military deterrence. It should be noted that both groups have generally negative views of the North and positive views of the US and the alliance.
I feel what we’re dealing with here – something of which we SHOULD get to the bottom sooner or later – requires days of discussion.
We’ll first need to agree on all those terminologies and designations we’ve thrown in our dialogue. It will also be imperative to go far back to the colonial era in the early 1900s during which the political landscape that we’re witnessing in Korea today had its germination. (As much as I like to dive in right now… There will arise plenty of occasions for such a discussion.)
Thank you all very much for giving me food for thought.
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