hankyoreh

staff photographer)

Working-level inter-Korean meetings are underway leading up to North Korea’s participation in the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics. But the conservative opposition parties are already busy trying to find fault with everything, including the idea of South and North Korean athletes making their joint entrance under the Unification Flag.

On Jan. 11, Liberty Korea Party leader Hong Joon-pyo told Blue House Senior Secretary for Political Affairs Han Byung-do that “South Korea should carry the Taegukgi [the South Korean flag] and let North Korea decide what flag it’s going to carry, whether that’s its own flag or something else.”

After Culture, Sports and Tourism Minister Do Jong-hwan said that South and North Korean athletes would carry the Unification Flag if they agreed upon a joint entrance to the Olympics, Bareun Party leader Yoo Seong-min asked Do on Jan. 15 to “take back the remark in question and declare that we’ll carry the Taegeukgi.”

Speaking about this issue on Jan. 16, People’s Party leader Ahn Cheol-soo said that “we need to show the symbol of our country” and that he is “completely opposed to the North Korean flag.”

People’s Party leader Ahn Cheol-soo speaks at the 10th University Students Leadership Academy held at the National Assembly on Jan. 16. (by Kim Chang-kwang

We can’t help wondering whether these people who are so staunchly opposed to the Unification Flag and the North Korean flag for various reasons expect North Korean athletes to march into the games under the Taegeukgi.

South and North Korea have made joint entrances to international sporting events on a total of nine occasions, from the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney until the 2007 Asian Winter Games in Changchun, China. On each occasion, athletes from the two sides have marched in under the Unification Flag. The same flag was used in international competitions held in South Korea, namely the 2002 Asian Games in Busan and the 2003 Summer Universiade in Daegu. The Unification Flag has long been a symbol of inter-Korean reconciliation. How could that be called an insult to the Taegeukgi?

There’s already squabbling about a North Korean band performing in the South, too. Conservatives contend that a North Korean concert could function as propaganda for the regime. That’s probably what Pyongyang wants to do, and it will try to exploit this opportunity to burnish its image in South Korea and in the international community, as well as to loosen North Korean sanctions, if only slightly. But how many South Koreans are really going to be hoodwinked by North Korean propaganda at a concert?

Are these conservatives really still so insecure about democracy here? It’s pathetic to see how close-minded they are, grasping for any excuse to gripe about details such as the joint entrance, unified team and North Korean concerts, which haven’t even been finalized yet.

It’s true that when South and North Korea come together, there tends to be some arguments and awkwardness. That’s especially true considering that the administrations of Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye did nothing but instigate conflict over the past nine years. Now that we’ve been through all that, we need to build understanding of each other. We need to adopt the attitude of moving forward, one step at a time, toward peace and coexistence. How can we sustain these meetings without a little discomfort and a few concessions? It’s time that we showed a little magnanimity and maturity, as befits the host of the Olympics.

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]