In the black night, thinking of ideologies
A lot of time has passed since the incident happened in January this year. That was none other than the horrific, sudden incident of attacking and supposedly an attempt to kill the leader of the opposition Democratic Party of Korea. I couldn't believe the fact that such a terrifying incident took place in a crowded place with many reporters in broad daylight in the large city of Busan in 21st-century Korea. I have thought that such political violence usually happens in foreign countries, thus strange to us. For example, just about two months ago, on July 15, former U.S. President Trump was shot by a young man. But I came to realize that such frightful incidents are not strange at all to us. I was reminded of many people who had been attacked and killed unfairly, desperately in our modern history.
Cho Bong-am is precisely the individual I referenced in my research article. He served as the minister of agriculture during the Syngman Rhee administration. Cho founded a progressive party at that time, and in addition, he was a lawmaker in the National Assembly. As he asserted a peaceful reunification of the Korean Peninsula, he was accused of being a communist at a trial and killed. It was obviously a judicial murder. At that time, Rhee astonishingly and openly asserted reunification by invading even without estimating the exact military power of South Korea. From the present perspective, it is a shocking and deplorable irony.
Several decades later, under the Roh Moo-hyun administration, false accusations surrounding Cho were cleared. Cho's honor was restored. He was actively involved in the Korean independence movement during the Japanese colonial era (1910-1945). He had encountered socialist ideas but broke up with them due to conflicts with Park Heon-young, the then-leader of a socialist group.
Our society has gone through severe conflicts and hostility deriving from ideological differences between left and right, more than any other society. Such conflicts still continue. Thus, the political world has always been boisterous and unpredictable. Ideologies and ideas (that is, a system of thoughts and beliefs) are made up of human beings. Nonetheless, ideas or ideologies make people live or rule and even kill people. Above all, no idea or ideology is perfect. In a way, every idea and ideology seems so vain in people's daily lives. It feels pitiful and deplorable that so many ordinary people had to suffer and die swayed, swirled by striking, dazzling ideas and ideologies.
The famous American thinker and poet Ralph W. Emerson wrote in "What is success?", "To laugh a lot, to be respected by the wise ... to appreciate beauty, to find out the best in other people ... to make this world a bit better place to live in than before... these are the true success."
Reading these words, I think to myself that the best success would be for me to be happy. I would rather laugh and love more today than be swung by grand, systematic ideas. I would rather call my friends and say good things to them with a warm voice.
Lee Nan-hee studied English in college and theology at Hanshin University.