Oppositionist's Comment Reveals Pitiable Political Sense, Level
It was only months ago political parties agreed to stop the ugly war of rough, reckless words between their spokespersons. The opposition Grand National Party broke the ceasefire Wednesday - over an unthinkable issue and in an outrageous way. At a parliamentary briefing, GNP spokesman Yoo Ki-joon said, “The coup d'etat in Thailand is not entirely someone else's affair, but should serve as an object lesson to us.” His ruling party counterpart shot back, “What kind of nonsense is this?”
This, however, seems to be more than just a word play: The GNP mouthpiece compared President Roh Moo-hyun to ousted Thai Prime Minister, Thaksin Shinawatra. What all these add up to is little short of encouraging the military to do what its Thai counterpart did. Albeit way short of reaching Thailand's proportion, Korea had its share of military revolts _ in 1961 and 1979 _, which set the nation's constitutional clock a century back. How further should we run backwards?
In some ways, the GNP's response revealed what the conservative party has in mind subconsciously. After all, its presidential hopeful, Rep. Park Geun-hye, is the daughter of general-turned-president Park Chung-hee, who ruled this country between 1961 and 1979. Its current leader is a protege of Park's Military Academy junior, former President Chun Doo-hwan. So the GNP's hurried apology appeared to be more of a damage control than any genuine reflection of its undemocratic ideas and behavior.
Come to think of it, one has only to look into Yoo's mentality to see how the three decades of military rule influenced average Korean's way of thinking. The Web pages of some conservative newspapers were all but plastered with surfers' ripples instigating military actions. Actually, the papers themselves had published articles calling for unconstitutional change of power, directly or indirectly, written by own columnists or outside contributors. Regrettably, this is where Korea's democracy stands.
Summing up, some Koreans' responses to Thailand's political upheaval show both their political consciousness and level. We have criticized the Roh administration's amateurish and sometimes arrogant conduct of state affairs, but nothing should interrupt constitutional rule. Democracy is nothing unless its constituents respect rules and learn how to coordinate difference of view through peaceful means. The GNP leadership should fire its spokesman, because his mistake is more than just a slip of tongue.
The largest opposition will see little problem in finding Yoo's replacement among its “38” deputy spokespersons. It is hard to know why the GNP needs so many mouthpieces, when only one could cause so much trouble. Does it have something to do with popular jeering that the GNP has to do nothing but sneering Uri's mistakes to regain power? Yoo's gaffe leaves a bitter taste that reminds Koreans of their political immaturity in many ways.
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