[Column] Conservative labeling of “Pyongyang Olympics” is height of irony

Posted on : 2018-01-27 20:33 KST Modified on : 2018-01-27 20:33 KST
Right-wing media and politicians attempting to undermine the Moon administration with red-baiting tactics
Cho Won-jin
Cho Won-jin

I had lunch once with a high-ranking Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism official back in the summer of 2008, in the early days of the Lee Myung-bak administration. The official told me, “The competition by local governments to attract international conferences has gone overboard. You saw it with the World Championships in Athletics in Daegu, the Formula 1 event in South Jeolla Province, Incheon’s bid for the Asia Games . . . and now Pyeongchang is trying to get the Winter Olympics? Even when it’s the region that’s behind the bid, it ends up translating into a huge state investment. I don’t get why the press hasn’t said anything about this.”

The reality turned out to be different: the Lee administration went all out bidding for the Olympics in Pyeongchang. The President himself attended a general meeting of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and granted a special pardon to Samsung Group chairman and IOC member Lee Kun-hee on the grounds that it would help the bid. It was the first time since the Republic of Korea was established as a government that a pardon had been extended to one man alone. There is no cause to disparage Lee’s dedicated attempts to win the Olympics for South Korea. Predecessor Roh Moo-hyun did the same thing in 2007, giving his all to support Pyeongchang. After three attempts, Pyeongchang finally won the chance to host the Games, which are now almost upon us.

But it’s strange: now the same conservative politicians and media that claimed we should do whatever it took to win the bid and hold a successful event are now doing their best to diminish the Olympics and find faults. It all started when North Korea decided to participate in the Games and Hyon Song-wol arrived in South Korea.

It’s surprising enough that Hyon visited in person at the head of a preliminary review group, but that seems to reflect the hopes North Korean authorities are hanging on the celebratory performances. Depending on how you look at it, it could be seen as expressing hope for the regime propaganda effects – which explains why the conservative politicians and press are in such a tizzy about the so-called “Pyongyang Olympics.” But if North Korea is achieving some propaganda aims with its South Korean performance, are we really getting nothing in return? To look at things objectively, the direct and concrete benefits for South Korea are far larger and longer-term than the uncertain benefits the North is after. I’m speaking of the economic effects of a successful Pyeongchang Olympics.

North Korea may get criticized as a rogue state, but countries around the world all try to make it a part of their events. It means potential box office, with North Korea’s participation drawing media attention from around the globe. If a few hundred North Korean performers make Pyeongchang look like Pyongyang, it will translate into that much more media focus on Gangwon Province and Pyongyang around the world, which could help establish them as premier South Korean tourist destinations once the event is over.

The cost-benefit calculation may have been put on the back burner for now amid the giddy mood as the Olympics draw near, but I for one am worried about the “Olympic curse” visiting itself over the long term once the torch is extinguished. Like it or not, there’s no promotional strategy at the moment to match the North Korean delegation’s visit to Pyeongchang.

Conservative media’s Olympic narrative has changed considerably

To be sure, some may claim that a successful event is not reason enough to compromise our identity. But let’s take a look back at Lee Myung-bak’s one-man pardon of Lee Kun-hee for the sake of the Pyeongchang Games. The conservative media and the politicians of what is now the Liberty Korea Party welcomed it with open arms, calling it a “practical decision” by a leader who was not “hung up on causes.” A JoongAng Ilbo editorial at the time said, “We welcome the [administration’s] determination that national interests take precedence. If an individual is absolutely necessary for a great national event, then we should be doing whatever we can for him beyond a mere pardon.”

You have to wonder where that burning desire for a successful Olympics has gone now. If “national identity” is something that is none the worse for wear when Constitutional values of social justice and equality before the law are compromise but fatally undermined when North Korean athletes and performers come to visit, then who does this “identity” exist for anyway?

Diminishing support for reunification

The fears that North Korean propaganda activities will somehow contaminate South Korean society are unfounded. For evidence of that, we need look no further than the outcry from the younger generation over the unified inter-Korean team. The argument that South and North Korea should be unified as members of the same race is losing support by the day.

In another sense, this means a major task not just for South Korea’s conservatives, but for its progressives too. The days of endless tears over divided family reunions are passing. How much “damage” can North Korean performances really do in such a climate? The truly appalling thing is that the opposition politicians and conservative media are certainly aware of this. To go ahead and referred to these as the “Pyongyang Olympics” anyway shows that their only aim is to undermine the current administration with red-baiting tactics.

The “Pyongyang Olympics” aren’t what we should be worried about. Instead, we should be focusing on the large and small controversies that flare up around the North Korean delegation and performers during the event. When conservatives’ indiscriminate North Korea-phobic actions mix with Pyongyang’s rigid stance, who knows what kind of issues might erupt?

 leader of the Korean Patriots Party
leader of the Korean Patriots Party

In addition, differences between South and North mean that actions on either side have the position to unwittingly wound the other. It’s only through practice with grinning and bearing it – with overcoming the problems and growing accustomed to them – that we can broaden our exchange and cooperation. Hopefully, the Pyeongchang Olympics will provide just such an opportunity.

By Park Chan-su, editorial writer

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

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