…And justice for all

By David Tizzard

In 1988, heavy metal band Metallica released their fourth studio album titled “…And Justice for All”: an record relentless in its aggressiveness, its riffs, production, and themes. Most of the content centered on ideas of political inequality, abuse of power, war, corruption, and censorship.

Any book on modern Korean is likely to cover similar ground.

In 1988, South Korea was hosting the Seoul Summer Olympics and trying to decide whether ex-army general, and then President, Roh Tae-woo heralded the start of a democratic nation or merely a repetition of the authoritarian military rule that had directed the nation for the last two and a half decades.

Without wanting to dwell too much on the past, South Korea has since made enormous strides politically, economically, culturally, and socially.

In many aspects, it stands, along with Japan, as a beacon of progressive values in Northeast Asia – particularly when one considers the states that neighbor it to the north.

But can these progressive values be applied across the board? Moreover, is western media correct in labelling the current Moon administration a “progressive” or “liberal” one?

One might even ask whether the primarily western understanding of socially liberal or progressive politics is desirable or necessary in South Korea.

Certainly in economic terms the current government is left-leaning. President Moon has sought to enact a whole host of policies designed to alleviate the burden on the lower class.

He was elected on the promise of reforming the gigantic chaebols that dominate the market here and said that he would work towards creating a fairer and more equal society – free of corruption. The minimum wage was raised 16.4% in 2018 and the President has pledged to raise it to 10,000 won per hour by 2020 in an effort stimulate consumption and encourage growth.

Indeed, many of these economic policies were incredibly noble in their attempt – particularly the cutting down of the maximum hours per week employees are legally allowed to work.

Yet the reality of the situation paints a rather bleaker picture with youth unemployment at a 20-year high and the President’s top economic policy aides – Kim Soo-hyun and Yoon Jong-won – both being replaced in June of this year.

Worryingly, President Moon also saw disapproval of his government rise above 50% for the first time. A Real Media survey conducted in late August questioned 2,512 people and found that over half the respondents felt that he was doing a poor job.

Yet this is not all just American flag-waving elderly supporters in Kwanghwamun that are disappointed– the youth are also becoming rather disillusioned with the story that promised so much hope amidst an ocean of candles two years ago.

Some of this is the result of President Moon’s decision to stick by his decision to appoint Cho Guk as the next Minister of Justice. Cho, a law professor and frequent social commentator on society’s ills, was seen as the man to bring to life the presidential pledge of a society in which “opportunities will be equal, processes will be fair, and results will be just”.

Heady words considering Cho now finds himself and his family embroiled in a situation that is strangely reminiscent of the familial nepotism that surfaced with Choi Soon-sil and her daughter – just with less horses, of course. This time it’s university degrees, scholarships, and co-authored academic papers.

A recent SBS report stated that 68.8% of people in their 20s were opposed to Cho’s appointment. Demonstrations have also taken part on university campuses asking for the nomination to be rescinded.

Yet President Moon and Mr. Cho have shown a great deal of resilience and defiance in the face of this criticism. In a mammoth 11-hour press conference that ran until gone 2am, the Minister of Justice nominee fielded over 100 questions from journalists in an attempt to set the record straight.

On Friday evening he faced more questions.

Independent lawmaker Park Ji-won grilled him on his views on homosexuality in Korea to which Cho responded by saying that it was not the time to legally recognize same-sex marriage and that any actions of this nature that occur during military service should be sanctioned.

For the youth enthralled by Netflix and western ideals – for better or worse – this was certainly not the answer they expected to hear from the “progressive” side of the political divide.

But let’s not for one instance believe that this is a situation in which one political party should be demonized and the other praised.

While questioning Cho on his daughter’s past and her academic achievements, opposition politician Jang Je-won discovered that his son had crashed his Mercedes into a scooter and was found to have alcohol in his blood. A timely reminded that those virulently attacking Cho are likely doing so for their own purposes and gains and are not at all familiar with Matthew 7:3.

And so a confusing world faces us in which most of our social life exists on a spectrum – whether its ethnicity, sexuality, color, or music genre – and yet politics finds itself more and more entrenched in a rigid binary system. Why, as other areas expand, is the political arena shrinking into a binary battle?

If anything, it should teach us two things.

First, the many promises and pledges of fairness and equality made by politicians are unlikely to be realised. Instead, they will involve fairness and equality – with a little sugar on top – to those with whom they are politically and ideologically aligned and less so to those with whom they have little in common.

Second, that Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was likely correct when he said that the line between good and evil does not run down political lines, gender lines, or any other collective value – rather it cuts through the heart of every individual human being.

To see one side as wholly good and the other as completely bad is tribalism at its worst and that certainly should not be a standard barometer for politics.

Is it possible for any politician in South Korea (or any other country for that matter) to act in the best interests of all its citizens? Can someone ever say that they are working for all 51 million people here?

There needs to be a bridge across the political divide somehow because if the country does not have justice for all, it will eventually have justice for none.

If Mr. Cho is to be the next Minister of Justice – and next president beyond that as we are led to believe – can he be the man to realize a society in which justice, the law, and the application of values applies to every man, woman, and child equally without consideration of age, gender, economic class, ethnicity, or sexuality?

I don’t know. But I course hope that he can.

David Tizzard (datizzard@swu.ac.kr) is an assistant professor at Seoul Women's University.