hankyoreh

President Park Geun-hye speaks at a forum in Seoul on Feb. 23

From becoming the first daughter when she was 9 years old to acting first lady at 22, from a member of the National Assembly at the age of 46 to the president at 60, President Park Geun-hye has always seen her father as being solely a symbol of the modernization of South Korea who had no personal ambition. On several occasions, Park has made comments that suggest she views her life’s mission to be reassessing her father’s life and correcting the distortions.

In her 2007 autobiography, she wrote, “The slander against my father continued, and I couldn’t just stand by and watch. As I saw it, my father had no personal ambition other than for his country, the Republic of Korea. Driven by the desire to correct these mistakes and to clear my father of this bad name . . .”

Park is the main source of the momentum behind efforts by the Blue House and the Saenuri Party (NFP) to take over the production of Korean history textbooks despite the objections of historians, educators, and civic society. The Saenuri Party is aggressively countering that there are no grounds for the argument that state-issued textbooks will justify the Yushin constitution, glorify past administrations, or toe the government line.

But given the various remarks Park has made trying to rationalize the May 16 military coup and the Yushin constitution as “unavoidable choices” and claiming that her father was not a dictator, the daughter’s drive to rehabilitate her father is perpetuating concerns that she will try to change history textbooks.

“The May 16 incident was a revolution to save the country. If it hadn‘t been for the May 16 incident and the Yushin constitution, the Republic of Korea wouldn’t have been able to survive. The country was on the verge of collapsing, so I don‘t understand why people say that he shut down democracy,” Park said during a two-hour interview in 1989 after ending 10 years of seclusion in her home.

Responding to criticism that her father held power for a long time as the Yushin dictator, Park expressed strong concern about the historical information that students were learning. “It’s such a huge distortion to lead children to that conclusion,” she said.

“I hoped that my father would step down after revising the Yushin constitution and live out his days in peace,” Park Geun-hye said, subscribing to the idea that a dictator who had served for 18 years would have willingly given up his power. But she bluntly dismissed Park Chung-hee’s time in the South Korean Workers’ Party - a historical fact that she didn‘t experience - as “untrue.”

Even after entering public life as a politician, Park Geun-hye’s attitude changed little. In the autobiography that she released before running in the presidential primaries for the Grand National Party (now the Saenuri Party) in 2007 - titled “Despair Tests Me and Hope Moves Me” - she expressed her antipathy for “distortion” and “betrayal.” “As if brutally disparaging and denigrating my father‘s accomplishments was not enough, they attacked his character while he was in the grave, which was going too far,” she said.

The only times that Park Geun-hye has made comments that show hesitation or express partial regret about the May 16 coup and the Yushin constitution are when she is facing a political crisis. One good example was her repeated remarks about “two verdicts” in regard to the People’s Revolutionary Party Incident before the presidential election in 2012.

In 2005, psychologist Chung Hye-shin concluded that Park Geun-hye was a puella aeterna - an eternal girl - with a father complex. “Park Geun-hye says that her father was not just a father but a compass, teacher, and thoughtful guide who taught her how to see the country and the world,” Chung said. “It goes without saying that her view of history and her personal views also come under the influence of her father complex.”

“She is probably no different from when I analyzed her then,” Chung told the Hankyoreh in a telephone interview on Oct. 16.

By Kim Nam-il, staff reporter

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