Freedom of expression is a cardinal principle of democracy and one should rightfully expect protection from it, even when one criticizes the heart of power, say, the president.
Since the president is more an institution than a private person, endowed with great power, he or she is limited in the ability to fight back against such a personal attack. Still, where legal protection for the head of state is lacking, a sense of decency should kick in.
By this standard, some of the language used by participants in Saturday’s protests in downtown Seoul leaves much to be desired.
Some protestors used banners that read, “Hang Park Geun-hye,” or “Down with the Park Regime.” Other protestors used the “honorific” reserved for North Korean dictators so as to make the Park government sound illegitimate. On the stage, one singer parodied Park as an absent-minded person “who can’t make a speech without reading from a text.” Leaflets were distributed targeting Park, “Hell Joseon!, Say excuses if you have to spout!” Hell Joseon is a new nickname coined by young people for the nation, which they see gripped by severe social inequality, among other things.
Park is not the first president who has been targeted for graphic epithets or will not certainly be the last. Her predecessor, Lee Myung-bak, was also severely lampooned by an artist who described him as a rat.
The resentment of the protestors was in a way understandable. After all, one of the protesting farmers has been unconscious for weeks after being hit by water cannon, while the Park government ignored public calls for the reversion to state-authored history textbooks.
On top of that, the President made the mistake of comparing protestors to terrorists of the Islamic State. The past few weeks look like one big game of chicken, pitting Park against her critics. Now is the time for Park and the protestors to use restraint to establish the culture of decency-based political dialogue. The protestors may begin showing respect to the office of the President, gaining more sympathy for what they stand for.