Even as recently as when Grand National Party member Rim In Bae used abusive and vulgar language towards a female staff member in the National Assembly speaker's office, one still hoped you would not have to see that kind of behavior there any more. During the Assembly's annual audit of government affairs GNP representative Joo Seong Young used sexually abusive language at a drinking party. GNP member from Daegu Koak Sung Moon threw his beer glass at someone. At a regional meeting of the Advisory Council on Democratic and Peaceful Reunification, GNP member Park Gye Dong threw his beer glass at deputy chairman Yi Jae Jeong because Yi had not given him the opportunity to make a speech. One had worried that young children would hear about their behavior, but at the least you wanted to be able to blame it on the uncultured character of a few exceptional Assembly members. No one wanted to interpret what was happening as something that needs to be associated with the Assembly as a whole.
Only four days after Rim's vulgarity in the speaker's office, however, you have unthinkable vulgarity coming from the very same place. GNP member Rhee Q Taek, comparing speaker Kim Won Ki to a corpse, said that "being in the speaker's office feels like being in a morgue. Song Young Sun, also of the GNP, said they needed to "rip the speaker's neck off." One would like to avoid using the term "the petty thugs of Yeo'euido, but it looks like that criticism would be appropriate this year as well. Lee Q Taek is head of the GNP's "Campaign Central for Defending Our Children." It was that GNP "save the children" committee that was behind the takeover of the speaker's office and the abusive language. Children and parents should be frightened.
The National Assembly is supposed to be a place where legislators debate, persuade, mediate, and find agreement. All that takes place through human language. The results are put in writing, and once properly arranged that language becomes law. Thus the Assembly has to hold language in higher esteem than anywhere else. The language that the process takes place in becomes a textbook example for democracy. Destroying the process is democratic violence. Children must be protected from that violence. If the GNP truly wants to defend the country's children it should weed out those among its membership who misbehave and staff members who use violence.
The Hankyoreh, 26 December 2005.
[Translations by Seoul Selection]
[Editorial] GNP Must Save the Children From its Vulgar Language |
