By Michael Breen
When the country braced for possible conflict with North Korea this week, President Lee Myung-bak warned that ``unaligned opinion” ― code for too much criticism of his new tough line ― would benefit the enemy.
``No matter how strong our defense capabilities are, the North will try to take advantage of our disunity,” he said. ``The best national security is the united power of the people.”
For many who shared the nervousness of the moment, as the military prepared its live fire exercise near the North Korean shore despite the threat of retaliation, this seemed to make sense. People huddled in a bunker need resolve, not jittery moaning, from political leaders.
But was this a call for national unity? Or was it a skillful attempt by a political leader to silence his critics by linking their views with the enemy’s?
For older Koreans, these are familiar questions. Until 20 years ago, the country was ruled by dictators and generals who saw dissent as destabilizing and routinely suppressed it in the name of national security.
As brutish as they might appear now, they were supported in their day not only because people feared North Korea, but because traditional virtues gave moral significance to social harmony.
Of the five relationships of Confucianism, only one ― between friends ― is equal. The others ― ruler and subject, father and son, elder and younger brother, husband and wife ― are unequal. In each, the stronger must care and the weaker obey. In this moral universe, dissent represents something deeper than a threat to a ruler’s popularity and position. It suggests that he is ethically flawed and that ``heaven” is displeased with him.
Unity, on the other hand, gives an impression of principled strength even when it is violently enforced. In the early 1970s when the South Korean intelligence chief visited North Korea, his reports back the total unity around the then-leader Kim Il-sung directly contributed to then-President Park Chung-hee’s decision to tighten the screws on repression in the South. Instead of laughing at stories about Kim’s zany propaganda and how he got 100 percent of the vote when he was the only candidate running, southern leaders seemed envious of his power.
In those days, the idea of democracy was downright scary. Sure enough, in the few months when it flourished in 1960 and again in 1980, critics took to the streets and appeared to paralyze the country.
But that was then. Now, South Korea is a democracy. Its strength is not a delusion, as the ``one-mind” unity in North Korea may one day prove to be.
South Koreans are also a united people. This may appear strange, given the fractiousness, but an overwhelming majority of South Koreans are united around their sense of identity with and support for their country. Even the most bolshie critic has no desire to go North and no wish for the North to come here.
In its expression, this sentiment may get confused because ``Korea” remains divided. But it is far less divided than it seems. For most South Koreans, the North is a foreign country, and the future Unified Korea will be South Korea writ large.
That fact of national identity runs deep while political criticism of government is the noise of 50 million citizens who are free to say what they want.
When politicians appear to undermine their own country, as did the Democratic Party’s former presidential candidate, Chung Dong-young, when he wrote to U.S. President Obama criticizing President Lee, they are not being traitorous. They are simply demonstrating that they lack statesmanship.
President Lee’s opposition, in other words, is loyal and it is uncharitable for him to suggest otherwise.
Michael Breen is an author, former foreign correspondent and the chairman of Insight Communications, a public relations consulting company. He can be reached at mike.breen@insightcomms.com.
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