By Park Moo-jong
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People wish the new year of hope will dawn, leaving frustrations and disappointments of the tumultuous 2018 behind.
Indeed, the outgoing year has been full of antagonistic and rough words between the rising progressives and the sinking conservatives amid grave economic difficulties that remind the people of the signature 1992 presidential campaign phrase of former U.S. President Bill Clinton: "It's the economy, stupid."
Irrespective of the lamentation of the people in the low-income brackets, particularly self-employed ones, for the economic hardships, the Moon Jae-in government has been striving all the way to reconcile with North Korea for peace on the Korean Peninsula, though Kim Jong-un was maintaining his unfailing position not to give up his nuclear weapons against the call of the Free World.
Who dares to diminish Moon's crusade to stop war on the peninsula? But Moon is keeping his hold so stubbornly on the unilateral cream diplomacy toward the certainly haughty Kim in an all-out effort to realize Kim return the visit and come to Seoul for their fourth summit following the first two in the truce village of Panmunjeom in April and May and third in Pyongyang in September.
As everybody knows well, there has been little progress in Kim and Trump's negotiations over North Korea's real denuclearization, even though there are some "joint enterprises" between the two Koreas like the linking of the railroad networks.
Against this backdrop, professors, the very intellectuals of this society, chose "任重道遠" (imjung dowon) as the four-Chinese-character phrase that best describes 2018 as they did annually. Last year's was "破邪顯正" (pasa hyeonjeong) meaning "refuting false doctrines and bringing out the truth."
The year's phrase, chosen in a survey of 878 professors nationwide, means: "The responsibility is heavy and there is a long way to go."
The professors explained: "There are still many intricate problems to solve for the Moon Jae-in government to translate into action as it wishes the peace plan on the Korean Peninsula and various domestic policies. We chose the phrase out of our mind for Moon to solve them well with a strong will."
The professors' phrase also means they support the incumbent regime's reform on the whole as they opine the nation has no future without reform.
Yet, it also serves a stern warning and criticism against the Moon government as they expressed that the ruling camp and bureaucrats were following the same obsolete ways of working as before.
Few can deny that very important changes took place throughout the year such as the inter-Korean summits, North Korean-U.S. summit, the end of hostility, agreement on denuclearization and Moon's signature policy for income-led growth.
Unfortunately however, no concrete results have been achieved actually amid wishful prospects only.
Different opinions and interests must live side by side in any society. They are necessary for a democracy that cherishes diversity and vitality in its opinions and persuasions.
But "one-sided communication" and "hatred" dominated the political, social and economic spheres where interests clashed with conflicting views throughout the year.
It was indeed a low point for Korean society, where self-motivated people, especially those in the political world, were not hesitant to hate and even use verbal violence against others with different views or interests.
Corruption and white lies are rampant in and around power, even in parliamentary hearings, overshadowing justice and truth. In a tough conservative-progressive and left-right ideological confrontation, people resorted to ruthlessly collective and massive action to attain their selfish goals, refusing to put themselves in the shoes of their opponents.
The unilateral drive to terminate the "deep-rooted evils" of the bygone days also gave rise to so many problems amid the public criticism that the Moon administration was living in the "past" without looking ahead to the future.
In spite of hard-living conditions with no sign of an early improvement, the people could be happy without worry for a moment thanks to some brilliant success in sports and artistic fields.
To name a few, they include the successful hosting of the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics in February, our athletes' good performances in Jakarta-Palembang Asian Games in August and the Park Hang-seo fever following Vietnam's victory in the AFC Suzuki Cup championship under the guidance of the Korean head coach.
Adding to the public joy was the amazing and sensational appearance of BTS, a seven-member boy band, on global pop stages. The group not only won a worldwide reputation, but also opened wide the K-pop era across the world and started a new era for South Korea's pop culture.
Still, prospects for next year are not that bright and we have a long way to go.
Nonetheless, the new morning will break just four days later for the Year of the Pig, (though the year begins on Feb. 5 in the lunar calendar but traditionally and for the sake of convenience, we also regard Jan. 1 as the first day of the new zodiac animal), known as a great year to make money and a good year to invest.
I wish you a very Happy New Year.
Park Moo-jong (emjei29@gmail.com) is a standing adviser of The Korea Times. He served as the president-publisher of the nation's first English daily newspaper from 2004 to 2014 after working as a reporter since 1974.
