By Deauwand Myers
President Moon is a politician. Let us start there.
Politicians hold an interesting place in a democracy's psyche. They inhabit the space similar to celebrities. We build them up to tear them down. We hold them to standards impossible to maintain. Like police officers, we act as if politicians are enlisted from some other-where, some distant constellation where human faults and frailties are not present.
There are honorable politicians; there are honorable police officers and famous people, and the majority of them are more good than not.
Yet, perhaps because we place power and prestige upon them, and they reap the financial and/or psychic privileges attendant to said prestige, it may be right, at least in aggregate, to expect more from them than, say, a dental hygienist.
Politicians shape our societies from the policies they pass. Police officers, their authority enshrined by the power of state, hold our very lives in their hands. Celebrities inspire our dreams, inhabit our fantasies, entertain and delight us.
Alas, they are, all of them, human. Perfection will invariably escape them.
It wasn't five years ago that then-candidate Moon promised anti-discrimination legislation, protecting the poor, women, sexual minorities, and young people.
Yet, in a recent presidential debate, he concurred with his conservative counterpart that gay people aren't good for Korean society, a shocking and damning turnabout from a human rights lawyer who knows better; and a political miscalculation.
President Moon lost the prior election to now-disgraced, ex-President Park because of economic nostalgia for her authoritarian father. It is doubtful that anything then-candidate Moon could have said would have changed his political fate.
Venality, hubris, and opportunism are often bedfellows to politicians, and yet even with this knowledge, President Moon's sinking to such leechy depths as to affirm the aforementioned homophobic and hateful rhetoric doesn't bode well for those he claimed to see as fellow human beings. It is, in a word, shameful.
Further, some of President Moon's candidates for ministerial posts have dubious past records: indiscretions of tax evasion, residential address obfuscation, or financial impropriety.
All of these were pronounced to be non-starters in Moon's selection of high-ranking government officials. And yet, here we are, as with ex-President Park, wherein her choices for cabinet positions were mired in similar scandals.
It seems to me that in a country of over fifty million, well-qualified people can be selected without them having the baggage of poor decisions.
President Moon has an opportunity to unite the various left and center-left parties, and the constituencies thereof, and create a better future for Koreans.
His decisions may very well affect the course of world history, especially when considering his policies in regards to rapprochement with North Korea.
As with his comments on sexual minorities and cabinet appointments, President Moon has vacillated about his thoughts on this matter. As with most of those on the left of Korea's political spectrum, he finds the stringent, non-engagement strategy of conservatives like President Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye unpalatable.
Yet, the alternative, the controversial Sunshine Policy of his political predecessors, presidents Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun, was a failure. The North Korean defector and political journalist Kang Chol-Hwan, who spent nearly a decade in one of theNorth'snotorious prison camps, asserts that President Kim Dae-jung, and all those who subscribe to the Sunshine Policy, are incorrect.
In short, the tenet held by most of South Korea's political left, (of which President Moon is a very much a part, having served in President Roh Moo-hyun's administration in a variety of high-ranking positions, including chief of staff and legal counsel) that of robust engagement with the North, is ineffective and counterproductive.
Unconditional humanitarian aid funneled to the North has not and will not lead to peninsular peace. The idea that such aid ameliorates the agonizing and stark living conditions of most North Koreans is grossly naïve and misguided.
In his 2005 "Wall Street Journal" piece, "Give Us an ‘Eclipse Policy,'" Mr. Kang writes, "it is important to understand that North Koreans are starving not because of a lack of aid from South Korea or the U.S., but because they are deprived of freedom. Giving aid only throws a line to the government, and prolongs starvation, surely a perverse outcome."
Mr. Kang's piece predicted a collapse of the Kim regime in the near future;sadly, an outcome that has not yet occurred. In truth, disengagement works only insomuch as engagement harms. War, most probably, will be the only resolution to the question of the DPRK's existence.
President Moon is smart, well educated, and experienced. He's not a neophyte or political novice. He's not a social gadfly or a provocateur. His political ideology is refreshingly humane. He's served for presidents and as a national assemblyman. I hope these inconsistences are short-lived, for all our sakes.
Deauwand Myers holds a master's degree in English literature and literary theory, and is an English professor outside Seoul. He can be reached at deauwand@hotmail.com.
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Politicians hold an interesting place in a democracy's psyche. They inhabit the space similar to celebrities. We build them up to tear them down. We hold them to standards impossible to maintain. Like police officers, we act as if politicians are enlisted from some other-where, some distant constellation where human faults and frailties are not present.
There are honorable politicians; there are honorable police officers and famous people, and the majority of them are more good than not.
Yet, perhaps because we place power and prestige upon them, and they reap the financial and/or psychic privileges attendant to said prestige, it may be right, at least in aggregate, to expect more from them than, say, a dental hygienist.
Politicians shape our societies from the policies they pass. Police officers, their authority enshrined by the power of state, hold our very lives in their hands. Celebrities inspire our dreams, inhabit our fantasies, entertain and delight us.
Alas, they are, all of them, human. Perfection will invariably escape them.
It wasn't five years ago that then-candidate Moon promised anti-discrimination legislation, protecting the poor, women, sexual minorities, and young people.
Yet, in a recent presidential debate, he concurred with his conservative counterpart that gay people aren't good for Korean society, a shocking and damning turnabout from a human rights lawyer who knows better; and a political miscalculation.
President Moon lost the prior election to now-disgraced, ex-President Park because of economic nostalgia for her authoritarian father. It is doubtful that anything then-candidate Moon could have said would have changed his political fate.
Venality, hubris, and opportunism are often bedfellows to politicians, and yet even with this knowledge, President Moon's sinking to such leechy depths as to affirm the aforementioned homophobic and hateful rhetoric doesn't bode well for those he claimed to see as fellow human beings. It is, in a word, shameful.
Further, some of President Moon's candidates for ministerial posts have dubious past records: indiscretions of tax evasion, residential address obfuscation, or financial impropriety.
All of these were pronounced to be non-starters in Moon's selection of high-ranking government officials. And yet, here we are, as with ex-President Park, wherein her choices for cabinet positions were mired in similar scandals.
It seems to me that in a country of over fifty million, well-qualified people can be selected without them having the baggage of poor decisions.
President Moon has an opportunity to unite the various left and center-left parties, and the constituencies thereof, and create a better future for Koreans.
His decisions may very well affect the course of world history, especially when considering his policies in regards to rapprochement with North Korea.
As with his comments on sexual minorities and cabinet appointments, President Moon has vacillated about his thoughts on this matter. As with most of those on the left of Korea's political spectrum, he finds the stringent, non-engagement strategy of conservatives like President Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye unpalatable.
Yet, the alternative, the controversial Sunshine Policy of his political predecessors, presidents Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun, was a failure. The North Korean defector and political journalist Kang Chol-Hwan, who spent nearly a decade in one of theNorth'snotorious prison camps, asserts that President Kim Dae-jung, and all those who subscribe to the Sunshine Policy, are incorrect.
In short, the tenet held by most of South Korea's political left, (of which President Moon is a very much a part, having served in President Roh Moo-hyun's administration in a variety of high-ranking positions, including chief of staff and legal counsel) that of robust engagement with the North, is ineffective and counterproductive.
Unconditional humanitarian aid funneled to the North has not and will not lead to peninsular peace. The idea that such aid ameliorates the agonizing and stark living conditions of most North Koreans is grossly naïve and misguided.
In his 2005 "Wall Street Journal" piece, "Give Us an ‘Eclipse Policy,'" Mr. Kang writes, "it is important to understand that North Koreans are starving not because of a lack of aid from South Korea or the U.S., but because they are deprived of freedom. Giving aid only throws a line to the government, and prolongs starvation, surely a perverse outcome."
Mr. Kang's piece predicted a collapse of the Kim regime in the near future;sadly, an outcome that has not yet occurred. In truth, disengagement works only insomuch as engagement harms. War, most probably, will be the only resolution to the question of the DPRK's existence.
President Moon is smart, well educated, and experienced. He's not a neophyte or political novice. He's not a social gadfly or a provocateur. His political ideology is refreshingly humane. He's served for presidents and as a national assemblyman. I hope these inconsistences are short-lived, for all our sakes.
Deauwand Myers holds a master's degree in English literature and literary theory, and is an English professor outside Seoul. He can be reached at deauwand@hotmail.com.
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