As of Thursday president Roh Moo Hyun reaches the halfway point in his term and the occasion is being marked entirely by criticism. Anyone who is saying friendly things about him is talking about remorse.
There's no one to blame. They say you win the hearts of the people through their storerooms. Two and a half years ago it was the support of the common people (seomin) and young people that gave birth to the Participatory Government. They longed for a society that respects hard-working people, and they sought to find meaning in the work they did. Meanwhile the storerooms of the common people have become even emptier and more and more young people are wandering in search of work. Meanwhile skyrocketing real estate prices have filled the storerooms of those with unearned income. The growing gap between rich and poor and the relative sense of deprivation have reached dangerous levels. Roh says he has "built a stable foundation," has "expanded the social safety net," and done his best, but few are paying attention.
At times like this it is worth looking at leaders like Vietnam's Ho Chi Min. He fought two wars of liberation against France and faced a fierce attack from the United States, but he still was never called titles like "Mr. President" or "chairman." He was called "Uncle Ho" and that's how he is remembered. He never lost his warmth, even in the midst of harsh warfare. There were three principles he maintained during years of hardship that even today are the creed of Vietnamese leaders; the spirit of living together, the spirit of eating together, and the spirit of working together. Put simply, that is "living among the masses."
Roh was someone who lived out the principle of "living among the masses" during the authoritarian regimes. He felt their pain and listened to their stories and fought all that oppressed them. How about now? We do not think that he has abandoned his principles. But we cannot rid ourselves of a sense that he is trapped in the fortress called power and has lost his feeling for the real world. Belief what has lost that feeling for how things really are is empty and unrealistic. It can even be dangerous. The larger discourses he initiates indiscriminately are evidence of that.
We would like to see Roh return to the real world and listen to the wishes of working people, feel the pain of young people idling with nothing to do, and share in the frustrations of ordinary school parents. Lessening their pain most urgently requires alleviating social disparity. The reason the common people experience the worst of a bad economy is more because of the gap than because of the simple growth indicators. Solving the economic disparity and improving the distribution of wealth does not conflict with growth. Balance urgently needs to be restored, and it would also be for the sake of sustainable growth. It's a fact that in an open economic system any measures the government chooses to enact are going to be weak. But it is still the government's duty to give the forces that power the economy a sense of security and faith and to create an atmosphere were companies want to make investments.
Stabilizing the real estate market is needed not only to bring stability to the lives of the common people, but also in revitalizing the economy. It's what has to happen if all money concentrated on in the real estate market is going to move to areas that are productive. There has to be a reconsideration of the government's low-interest policy, which merely perverts the cash flow while doing nothing in the way of encouraging investment.
At Cheong Wa Dae there are currently people who teasingly say that there's only one man there who has a mouth. There are some who say once you've been in Cheong Wa Dae for six months your ears disappear and you're left with only mouth remains. With the president unleashing tasks and discussions large and small and concluding them by himself, who is going to speak up to him? He's got no one to talk to and therefore no sense of what's going on in the real world.
One hopes to see the president become the warm-hearted "Uncle Roh" who has a sense of reality.
The Hankyoreh, 25 August 2005.
[Translations by Seoul Selection (PMS)]
[Editorial] Come Back to the Real World |
