Thai boys and Sewol children

By Jason Lim

Thank God they were found. The 12 boys and a coach from a local soccer team were found inside flooded Thai caves after going missing for 10 days. As each day ticked by, there was mounting dread that the boys would never be found. They would either be drowned already or, even worse, desperately clawing out the last days of their short lives in sheer terror against the unrelenting darkness and water.

Just like the Sewol victims.

Although the situations are vastly different, the dread that gripped me upon hearing about the missing boys was a painful echo of what could have been for the Sewol kids. I am not saying that the Sewol victims could have been saved. The ship sank with such speed in cold, churning ocean current that rescue would have been incredibly difficult in any case, even if everything went right.

Then again, finding twelve boys trapped inside a complex cave system more than 2 miles from the entrance isn't exactly easy. Add in rushing, flooded waters, the pitch darkness, and sharp edges of jutting rocks, then danger for the divers were clear and present. Even after several days, when sensible but cruel logic dictated that it's probably a recovery operation rather than a rescue, people persisted in their hope. They didn't give up. They tried. And they found them.

But what if the rescuers hadn't found boys? Would this situation then have been the same as Sewol? No, because everyone would know that it wasn't for the lack of trying. Even if the boys never came back, the world would have witnessed the whole nation of Thailand come together, supporting the families as they went through their emotional trauma and waiting with them with baited breath and sincere prayers for a safe return. It would have been a unifying moment and a healing occasion.

If only Sewol had been that. Instead, Sewol became a target of division, exposing the rot at the core of Korean society like never before. Who can recall without revulsion the protesters mocking and gorging themselves on food in front of Sewol families on a fast? How about deriding the victims by likening them to fish cake, hidden behind the cowardly anonymity of the internet?

Much of this was driven by the powers-that-be whose only concern and client was the president. In order to protect the president from any criticism over her lack of leadership and actual absence during the incident, official organs of the government were mobilized to create and spread narratives that belittled the loss, maligned the families, and drove a wedge deeper into a gaping wound.

All of which shouldn't have been a surprise. What Park's administration did was a logical extension of the national narrative that drove South Korea during its Miracle of the Han River days whereby individuals were forced to take a back seat to the overwhelming national mandate to modernize and industrialize at all costs. Individual rights were a luxury that couldn't be afforded. In fact, the individual existed only for his or her ability to become uncomplaining cogs inside the huge machine that demanded sacrifice from everyone.

The other side of this coin was the deification of the leadership that ruled with a condescending patriarchy, resolute, nurturing, and omniscient, but with an unspoken threat always looming underneath, telling all to listen shut up, work, and don't make waves.

And it worked. But there was a price that had to be paid. Machiavellian pursuit of money, growth, and success became the overriding value that allocated resources, organized social capital, and assigned communal values, even dictating what emotions people were allowed to express lest they interfere with the national wealth-building.

As such, much of the criticism against the Sewol families was that they were greedy and selfish for wanting to fight for a transparent inquiry into the incident and hold people accountable. They were damaging the economy with their negativity. They wanted more compensation from the insurance companies and government. They wanted free college education for their surviving children.

Behind these criticism was the unspoken accusation. How dare they put their individual tragedies ahead of the communal good. Shut up and sit down. So your kids died. Don't make such a big deal out of it. Just take the money. By the way, do you know how much it would even cost to recover the ship?

What the government didn't understand was that the whole people had suffered a collective trauma through Sewol. It wasn't just the families of the victims. In fact, the freezing waves that entombed the Sewol students came roaring back with the people's outrage as a vast sea of candlelight that swallowed the last administration whole. But what a fearful sacrifice.

Once again, I am unspeakably relieved and happy that the Thai boys were found. But the joy I feel is inevitably tinged with grief over what might have been for the Sewol students.

Jason Lim (jasonlim@msn.com) is a Washington, D.C.-based expert on innovation, leadership and organizational culture.