Richard III and Korean politics
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By Andrew Salmon
A medieval king seldom makes 21st century front pages, but one who breathed his last on Aug. 22, 1485, has managed it. The discovery of a mutilated skeleton beneath a car park in central England has refocused interest on one of history and literature’s most notorious figures.
Richard III, last king of the House of Plantagenet, died in a murderous hack-a-thon at Bosworth Field, the culminating battle of an uncivil war known today as “The Wars of the Roses.” Though slender, with a deformed spine, Richard was a respected warrior, and he met a warrior’s death.
Betrayed by a key ally, Richard launched a desperate attempt to reverse fortune: He led his bodyguard detachment in a mounted charge into his opponent’s center, aiming to kill his enemy, Henry Tudor. Lances splintered as Richard’s knights crashed home, then the tactical battle disintegrated into hand-to-hand carnage.
For our “civilized” generation ― used to pull-trigger and push-button warfare ― the gruesome realities of medieval battle are harrowing to visualize: Men confined inside claustrophobic steel suits piercing and smashing each other’s armor with the equivalent of outsized butcher’s knives and huge fire axes.
In the melee, Richard cut down Henry’s standard bearer and another noted knight. Then Henry’s reinforcements counterattacked. Outnumbered, Richard’s force was compressed.
Under a storm of flailing blades, Richard’s standard bearer went down. The hideous power of the halberd – a massive, spiked ax-head mounted on a pole - is illustrated by the manner of his death: He was chopped in half. With both legs severed, he clung to the standard before being cut to pieces in the mud and blood.
With his bodyguards overrun, Richard ― unhorsed, helmetless ― battled on alone. His skeleton displays ten wounds, including eight traumas to the skull. He suffered two (probably near-instantaneous) lethal blows, consistent with being surrounded: A stab through the temple, and a halberd strike that chopped away the back of his head.
Thus, in a blaze of gory, fell Richard III.
Yet the Plantagenets ― wiped out in war and its collateral vortex of treachery, murder and execution ― found no James Fennimore-Cooper (“The Last of the Mohicans”) to mythologize their lost dynasty. Instead, pro-Tudor writers blackened Richard’s name for posterity, their most credible allegation being that he “disappeared” two teenage princes.
Still, there is an upside to this grim story. With Richard, Shakespeare gave English literature a most memorable villain. My English Literature teacher explained why “Richard III” was the most popular Shakespeare work in communist Eastern Europe: In that milieu, a play dissecting the psychology of a tyrant was fully understood. Today, along with Count Dracula, Dr. Frankenstein, Mr. Hyde, Moriarty, Blofeld, Sauron and Voldemort, Richard III stalks the pages and screens of not only British, but global culture.
I recalled the historical Richard when reading a comment from a Democratic United Party lawmaker explaining why, after electoral losses, the time was ripe for the DUP to adopt a more aggressive stance. “The mood has changed from ‘too much is as bad as too little,’ to ‘no retreat at the battlefield,’” he said.
There is something bold and magnificent about this statement. Indeed, the DUP may have made worthy companions for Richard, thundering across Bosworth Field in a kill-or-be-killed assault into a thicket of spears. But is it appropriate for a 21st century democracy?
On the Korean Peninsula, confrontation and competition are prominent national traits, visible on both the macro ― Seoul vs. Pyongyang ― and the micro ― the appalling stresses children endure to outscore their school peers ― levels.
These traits can be pluses, but hardly suit every circumstance. While Clausewitz defined war as “a continuation of politics by other means,” politics was better described by Bismarck as “the art of the possible.”
Ideals make fine starting points, but reality makes politics an art of debate and give-and-take, rather than dogma and victory-or-defeat. A loyal opposition judiciously applies checks and balances in governance, rather than opposing for the sake of opposing. (I am not being partisan. No doubt the Saenuri Party, were it in opposition, would be equally bloody-minded.)
So isn’t it time for “compromise” to replace “confrontation” in the local political vocabulary?
If anyone can calm the fury of Seoul politics, it might be a middle-of–the road, consensual leader, un-shackled to an idealistic vision or hard-line viewpoint. It might be a member of the gentler sex. It might ― by happy coincidence ― be the president-elect.
If so, I wish her well. The standard of the House of Park is already bloodied, so advance in peace, fair lady. The ghosts of your own father and a medieval king stand before you as unhappy models of aggressive leaders whose distaste for compromise bred mortal enemies.
Andrew Salmon is a Seoul-based reporter and author. Reach him at andrewcsalmon@yahoo.co.uk.