When governments fail

By Deauwand Myers

The Sewol ferry disaster exposed the failings of the government.

There's a lot of blame to go around: the inadequate loading of the ferry with cars and the actions of the captain and the crew, for starters.

Worse, the incompetency of the search and rescueefforts by the government and its officials (and their public relations blunders) have only exacerbated the understandable angst and anguish the families of the missing are feeling, and the public at large.

Koreans, if you believe international media reports writing on such matters, pride themselves on the successful modernization and sophistication of their society, from one of a war-ravaged, agrarian culture to a technologically-advanced, wealthy nation. LG, Samsung, Hyundai, K-pop, and the (very interesting) Korean indie film industry all point to an ascendant Korea.

Korea's miracle of universal healthcare, a modern infrastructure, excellent public transportation, and a national GDP placing it as one of the 15 richest countries on the planet is an envy to a lot of the developing world.

And so, as the reports suggest (including from Korean news outlets), Koreans are both terribly saddened and embarrassed by the ferry disaster, as it belies the great strides Korea has made in remaking itself into a first-world nation.

If some Koreans do feel that way, let me put the Korean government's response in some perspective: The United States of America, the richest, and most powerful nation in the history of the world, couldn't protect its own military barracks; witness the 241 American servicemen killed by suicide bombers in the 1983 Beirut Barrack Bombings under Republican President Ronald Reagan. (Notice, too, how Democrats did not use the tragedy as a political weapon against Reagan, but, instead, banded together with the Republicans to investigate the attack. Juxtapose that with the near-endless, unseemly, (and unfounded) conspiratorial pursuits of Republicans and their political demagoguery of the Benghazi attacks of 2012).

Benghazi, since I brought it up, is another example of government failure.

The 9/11 attacks, killing nearly 3,000 people, are perhaps the most glaring contemporary example of government failing to perform its most basic function: to protect the lives of citizens from internal and external threats. (Here too, Democrats did not use the 9/11 attacks and President Bush's failures to perform what he himself called his ''most solemn duty" as a political weapon. Imagine if Al Gore was president and 9/11 still happened. Republicans would have gone apoplectic).

What really diminished the Bush Administration, and may have relegated it (and rightfully so) as one of the worst presidencies in American history, was the government's response to Hurricane Katrina.

Slow acquisition and deployment of resources to secure and save New Orleans, both during and after the storm, cemented in many people's minds the ineptitude of President Bush. (You'd think 9/11, two unpaid-for wars, one ill-advised, ill-conceived, and poorly executed [Iraq] and the other poorly administered [Afghanistan], two unfunded tax cuts skewed to the wealthy, and a spiraling deficit would have been enough).

I didn't mention the worst economic crisis in 80 years (the Great Recession), because that came after Katrina.

Post-Katrina, people all over the world saw American citizens in New Orleans waiting for days on end for the federal government to rescue them: the elderly and the young on rooftops, floating cars, and most notoriously, inside the Louisiana Superdome, where citizens were wading in their own excrement and filth, no clean water or food rations in sight.

Worse, unlike in the Sewol Ferry Disaster, the American government knew this storm was coming long in advance, and yet, proper disaster management was never deployed. Many people died in the aftermath of Katrina because the government was too lax and too late in acting.

The raging debate in American politics between the left and the right doesn't go on in Korea, mercifully. Koreans don't care about the size of government; they care about its efficacy. Koreans work harder than any OECD country, and yet don't subscribe to the bogus belief that social welfare programs make people lazy (in fact, both major political parties support a broadening of social insurance programs).

Unlike lots of the American anti-government zealots (mostly white, often racist, always ridiculous), Koreans actually did experience generations of government tyranny and brutal quasi-dictatorships, and yet, even as they remember the bloody fight to secure democracy, they trust government to work as it's supposed to, especially in dealing with disasters.

Governments fail because people fail. Vilifying government as an entity, a favorite past-time of American conservatives, is just as unproductive as demonizing all of the private sector.

After the Sewol travesty, Korean citizenry shouldn't simply bash the government as incompetent (though it clearly was). Koreans must admonish the government to improve its disaster preparedness, much as what happened with America's national security apparatus after 9/11, and disaster readiness post-Katrina.

Deauwand Myers holds a master's degree in English literature and literary theory and is currently an English professor outside of Seoul. He can be reached at deauwand@hotmail.com.

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