President Lee Myung-bak yesterday called for the nation to move toward a ``deeper democracy,” one that can solidify ``social unity.”
One can’t help but notice something awkward in Lee’s remarks, contained in his speech, read by Prime Minister Kim Hwang-sik, to commemorate the anniversary of the Gwangju Democracy Uprising. We don’t want to appear to be tripping up the presidential words, but it seems democracy could be considered closer to diversity than unity.
Lee might have had an excessive regional split surrounding massive state projects in mind. But we hope this minor verbal contradiction does not reflect an unconscious ambivalence about democracy. Lee has not attended the ceremony since taking office and has had prime ministers read his speech in years previous.
Koreans remember the May 18, 1980 incident with utter bitterness, in which a ``new” military elite brutally suppressed the democracy movement in the southwestern city, taking hundreds of innocent lives. It prolonged the military rule, which began with a coup d’etat 50 years ago Monday, by 12 to 17 years, depending on how one sees the former Kim Young-sam administration, which was a union of military and civilian political forces.
The May 16, 1961 coup in turn oppressed the budding democracy born by the students’ uprising a year ago, under the pretext of restoring social order and national unity.
All this makes mid-May the most symbolic period for Korean democracy.
Many say there should no subjective mood in the grammar of historians. We agree. People who have lived the same era should share responsibility for their times, in good ways or bad. But they should remain alert against any attempts to belatedly justify, or even idealize, the past misdeeds and those who committed them, including military dictators and their cronies. This is in part not to disgrace the reputation of people who sacrificed themselves and not to repeat past mistakes.
Some conservatives’ moves to revive former Presidents Syngman Rhee and Park Chung-hee in this regard should not move beyond the objective reassessment of their merits and demerits to idealizing their dictatorial rule.
They say the nation cannot live in the past forever but move forward, an argument few could dispute. But forgiving of the past and making a new start has a precondition: The remnants of the undemocratic part should genuinely reflect on the past. It’s exactly the same as Koreans demanding their former Japanese colonialists to truly repent their past wrongdoings before calling for opening a new era together.
The least the former flunkeys to dictators can do is remain quiet. Currently, too many such free-riders are talking about democracy.
Wise men say democracy, like Rome, cannot be built in a day. Koreans have found it comforting to see the successive governments, even including those led by general-turned-President, Roh Tae-woo, keep moving away from the days of Rhee and Park.
A far less hopeful sign is the regression seen in some corners of this country, such as its global ranking in the freedom of speech going backward to the level of the 1960s. The dictum that history repeats itself is least welcome as far as Korea’s democracy is concerned.