[Column] President Park doesn’t know

Posted on : 2016-01-18 17:17 KST Modified on : 2016-01-18 17:17 KST

Three years into the job, South Korean President Park Geun-hye still doesn’t seem to know what it means to run the country, or what it means to be the president. It’s obvious that, when her presidency comes to an end two years hence, she will still be ignorant of those things. Indeed, she’s probably ignorant of her own ignorance.
Park doesn’t seem to understand how South Korea’s economy got to be like this, or what ought to be done to help the economy recover. She doesn’t seem to know why young South Koreans are having a hard time, what is making them give up, or what should be done to help them. She doesn’t seem to know why the majority of South Koreans think that this society is unequal and unfair.
Park doesn’t seem to know what the future has in store for this country. Even though she is always bandying about the phrase “economic crisis” for political reasons, she doesn’t seem to know that a severe economic crisis is on its way.
Park promised to pare down household debt, to set up a comprehensive government program that would provide free daycare and nursery school for children up to the age of five and to relieve people’s concerns about the cost of education, but she doesn’t seem to remember that she made such promises.
Park doesn’t even seem to recall that these were her first three pledges when she ran for president. She said that she never made a promise she couldn’t keep, that she had carefully assessed the financial feasibility of each and every one of her promises and that she had staked her political future on keeping her word, but she doesn’t seem aware that she said any of that.
Park doesn’t seem to realize that she’s completely absorbed in politics, ignoring her responsibility for running the country and improving the people’s quality of life. She thinks that running the country and improving the people’s quality of life mean pursuing her political goals and fighting her political battles; she thinks that the opposition party and the “impure” sections of the public are only pursuing their political goals and fighting their political battles when they call on her to run the country and improve the people’s quality of life. She doesn’t seem to realize that the opposite of this is true.
Park doesn’t seem to know that she has broken more promises to the public than anyone else. She doesn’t seem to know that, for working-class South Koreans, she is the worst political traitor of all. She doesn’t seem to understand that she is the politician who most deserves to be judged by the people.
Park may think that, since she isn’t engaged in politics, she doesn’t have a political career to put on the line. She may think that, since she doesn’t remember the promises that she herself made, she isn’t responsible for them.
After all, this administration has been particularly adept at cutting slack to people who play dumb. When problems have occurred, the ministers and Park herself have feigned ignorance and claimed that they had never been briefed. Rather than taking responsibility, she has busily put on a victimhood charade.
Park doesn’t seem to understand that she ought to have known what the business of the president is. She doesn’t seem to know that, if she didn’t know what she ought to have known, she had no business being president.
Park doesn’t seem to know that the “highest level of partnership” that she has been claiming as a diplomatic accomplishment was a lie for the domestic market and that, when push comes to shove, neither China, Russia, nor the US is on South Korea’s side. She doesn’t even seem to know that the comfort women settlement was a bad idea.
Park doesn’t seem to know that she learned everything she knows from her father, former president Park Chung-hee. She doesn’t seem to know that what she learned are 19th century methods that only work in a 19th century context and that this is the 21st century.

Lee Dong-geol
Lee Dong-geol

Park doesn’t seem to know that young people today say they can see Park Chung-hee in Park Geun-hye. She doesn’t seem to understand that the generational nostalgia for Park Chung-hee turns into generational hatred for the man 20 years down the road. She doesn’t seem to know that that is the surest way to erase Park Chung-hee from South Korean history.

Park made her ignorance on all these points clear in her public statement and press conference on Jan. 13. Since she doesn’t know any of this, the situation is hopeless.

The solution is quite simple. We have to stop trusting the sophistical argument that you have to take before you can give and start looking at the problem from the perspective of the vulnerable. The economy of exploitation must be replaced with an economy of tolerance and co-existence.

I would be worried about having to endure two more years of this, if the implosion of the political opposition didn’t make me concerned that we might have to endure seven more years.

By Lee Dong-geol, Visiting professor at Dongguk University business school

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