Really? Days of distrust

By Park Moo-jong

What's taking place these days testifies to our life in the age of distrust.

We are so accustomed to fakeness that it is not easy to know real from fake.

We are living in a playground for fakes looking like real things.

Who is right or wrong? Which is right or wrong?

The decades-long dispute over the authenticity of the painting, "Beautiful Woman," by the late Chun Kyung-ja (1924-2015) attests to this trend.

State prosecutors who are experiencing their heyday for a "courageous" investigation of those involved in the so-called "Choi Soon-sil Gate," including impeached President Park Geun-hye, declared proudly last month the work is real.

The law enforcement authority's "judgment" totally upsets French art experts' "scientific" findings that the painting is a fake and the late artist's own disavowal of the work.

What a coincidence! The controversial work is owned by the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art.

In subways, buses or elsewhere we can easily find women carrying Louis Vuitton bags. I do not have the slightest idea of looking down on those carrying fake brand bags, but I have been curious about whether the bags are genuine or not.

The way people speak, especially among young people, irrespective of the West and East, reflects the world of today.

One of the most popular words during conversations between youngsters, particularly girls, is certainly "really?" Many may ask, "Really?" The Korean term for "really?" is "jinjja?" or "jeongmal?"

A high school girl was talking with one of her friends on a subway train. Irrespective of other passengers' presence, she proudly and loudly said, "The TV star (a Kim) is going to marry the (xxx) girl group's vocal (a Lee)."

What her friend asked instinctively was "really?" ("jinjja?")

Didn't she want to believe what her friend said, and did she ask so to confirm?

The word is used to express, according to dictionaries, interest, surprise or doubt. "Is that a fact?" "No kidding, no way, I don't believe it." "Are you serious?"

Actually, it is a matter of the linguistic habits of the growing generation of today. They speak the word "unconsciously" and habitually. And this illustrates a gloomy tendency of distrust in the sea of lies by the people in the "leading class" of our society.

Even the court and parliamentary hearings are tainted with defendants' lies and witnesses' perjuries, namely lies.

Committing perjury in court or in a parliamentary hearing is a criminal offense. However, the nation is generous with false testimony.

Perjury is considered a serious offense as it can be used to usurp the power of the courts, resulting in miscarriages of justice. For example, the United States classifies perjury as a felony punishable with a prison term of up to five years.

"Perjury is the basest and meanest and most cowardly of crimes. What can it do? Perjury can change the common air that we breathe into the axe of an executioner," said Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899), an American lawyer nicknamed "The Great Agnostic."

The criminal punishment here is similar to that of the U.S ― up to five years in jail or up to a 10 million won fine. In 2015, a total of 1,688 persons were indicted with perjury, but around 80 percent of them were given suspended sentences. Who is afraid of the law?

False testimony in parliamentary hearings is punished more heavily than in courts with a prison term of one to 10 years. But few have been punished, so far. The rival parties have to agree to file their complaints with the prosecutor's office against suspected perjurers.

Rep. Paul Anthony Gosar (Rep.-Arizona) said, "Perjury before Congress is perjury against the American people and an affront to the fundamental principles of our republic and the rule of law. Such behavior cannot be tolerated."

However, records show that there were only eight cases of parliamentary complaint against false testimony during the previous 19th-term National Assembly (2012-2016). But they were closed for freedom from suspicion.

The ongoing parliamentary hearing on the Choi Soon-sil Gate appears not to be successful in bringing the truth to light largely due to the suspected lies of witnesses and the disobliging manner of the key suspects of the scandal, including President Park's unofficial advisor and long-time friend.

It is a stroke of good luck amidst misfortunes that the Special Prosecutor now investigating Choi Soon-sil Gate is aggressively asking the parliament to file complaints against the suspected perjurers in the hearings.

The National Assembly already accused five witnesses of perjury, including Culture-Sports-Tourism Minister Cho Yoon-sun and her predecessor Kim Jong-deok, with regard to the alleged blacklist of 9,000 progressive artists and institutions.

What a relief!

I hope that the parliamentary hearing will take the golden opportunity to ring an alarm bell against perjury, lies and false accusations forcing the people to live in the age of distrust.

I read a news story today about our political leaders' unanimous agreement to put the top priority on how to promote the national economy instead of how to seize the power. "Really?"

I hope again that the fakes will walk away and the real things will perform their own roles this year.

Park Moo-jong is the advisor of The Korea Times. He served as the president-publisher of the nation's first English newspaper from 2004 to 2014 after he worked as a reporter at the daily since 1974. He can be reached at moojong@ktimes.com or emjei29@gmail.com