Last week’s sentencing of former South Korean president Lee Myung-bak to 15 years in prison and a fine of 13 billion won (US$11.5 million) has sent shockwaves through Seoul, and around the world.
Although many are shocked to learn of the degree of corruption that exists in South Korea, no small number of my friends expressed their delight to see that there is a country that is capable of putting a corrupt leader in jail and making public his malfeasances.
Lee, a former chief executive of Hyundai Construction who made a fortune in shady development projects, including those carried out during his term as mayor of Seoul, has much in common with US President Donald Trump in his approach to business. But unlike with Trump, I have not seen any conservative groups rallying to support Lee.
Many, however, are rallying to demand the release of another former Korean president now in jail: Park Geun-hye. They feel that South Korea’s first (and so far, only) female president was unfairly treated in her trial, and in the media, and that she has been made a scapegoat for all that is wrong in Korean society.
Park was caught up in numerous illegalities. But unlike Lee, she was not the driving force in them. She was in over her head, going along with recommendations. To sentence her to 33 years – more than most sentences for murder – struck her supporters as too political. Lee did not get as long a sentence, in spite of his greater role in criminal conspiracies.
Particularly disturbing about Park’s case was the effort to blame massive institutional corruption on two women – Park and her close confidante Choi Soon-sil – while numerous male policy advisers slipped away
Particularly disturbing about Park’s case was the effort to blame massive institutional corruption on two women – Park and her close confidante Choi Soon-sil – while numerous male policy advisers slipped away. There are historical precedents: Blaming corruption on women who indulge in luxury goods recalls the campaign against Tang Dynasty Emperor Xuanzong’s consort Yang Guifei as a way to get even with the powerful Yang family – classic patriarchal thinking.
In some ways it was Park’s lack of political skill, and her inexplicable stubbornness, that brought her down. She could have resigned immediately and blamed others. But she refused to resign, and she refused to blame those around her. This is not a defense of her appalling lack of action in the case of the deadly 2014 Sewol ferry sinking, but rather a suggestion that we examine wider corrupt political cultures before we throw stones.
Current President Moon Jae-in has a chance to demonstrate leadership and to put himself above partisan politics by pardoning Park. That would be a call for South Korea to come together as a nation. And it would set the stage for a more forgiving approach to politics – something desperately needed at a moment when Koreans struggle to overcome decades of mistrust between North and South.
It is essential first to bring South Korea together so as to create a momentum toward understanding, forgiving and acceptance. After all, whether it is the increasing gap between rich and poor, the spread of deserts or the rise of oceans, Northerners and Southerners may have more in common than they thought.
If we are going to be understanding of Kim Jong Un and his family and if we are going to flatter Donald Trump for the sake of reconciliation, it would be logical to be more understanding of Park.
She is a tragic and isolated figure. She deserves sympathy even if her acts were irresponsible.
The best analogy for Park may be Patty Hearst, the daughter of a major political figure. Hearst, daughter of the powerful and much-resented American publisher William Randolph Hearst, was kidnapped by the American terrorist group Symbionese Liberation Army in 1974. With them, she committed a number of crimes, including bank robbery.
She was later captured and tried for the crimes she committed with her abductors, and jailed. President Jimmy Carter commuted Hearst’s sentence in recognition of the fact that she had been deprived of her freedom and she was compelled to engage in illegal activities, even if she eventually participated in some willingly.
Park was orphaned by the lethal politics of emerging South Korea. Her mother, Yuk Young-soo, was shot to death in 1974 during an attempt to kill her father, president Park Chung-hee. Five years later, he was assassinated by his spy chief.
A lonely and confused Park Geun-hye, abandoned by mainstream Korea, fell under the influence of charismatic religious leader Choi Tae-min and came to trust him completely. Her association with Choi Tae-min’s daughter – the now notorious Choi Soon-sil – dates back to that period. It is doubtful if Park would have been entangled in corruption without Choi.
President Moon should not pardon Park to get votes, or to increase his popularity. But it would demonstrate statesmanship and would open the full political spectrum of Koreans to join in the promising engagement with North Korea.
We should remember that Park spoke of a “unification bonanza” and sought to engage North Korea – albeit without success. She defied the US administration of Barack Obama in active engagement with both China and Russia as part of an effort to establish a Northeast Asian community.
Finally, let me pre-empt a possible charge that I lack partiality because Park once praised my book A Republic of Korea of Which Koreans Are Ignorant.
I appreciated her words. However, I think that the degree to which she endorsed my book, and other ideas that I presented in articles in Korean media, suggests that Park is more complex than is generally recognized. After all, she had a complex father – an authoritarian nation builder over whom Koreans today are deeply divided.
During her administration, I wrote articles denouncing the THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) missile defense system, condemning the neoliberal economics of her administration and questioning the fundamental strategy of the US-ROK alliance. Most presidents would have stayed as far as possible from a critic like me. Park was different.
South Korea needs all the goodwill it can muster on all sides as it tries to grapple with the complex economic and security challenges ahead. A pardon for Park could have immense significance for the nation at this time.
Disagree. Although I felt the same way about the fact that the result of Lee Myung-bak’s legal judgment, in spite of his greater role in criminal, is weaker than Park Geun-hye, there are couple of issues that modern Koreans cannot accept.
First, most of Korean would not accept the idea like "Park Geun-hye is a victim of corrupted history", because she has become president because of ‘the corrupted history’. It should be reminded that why Park Geun-hye became president, and why most of her supporters still remain so far. Basically it is recollection for the past nostalgia represented by his father, dictator and murdered ex-president Park Chung-hee, and sympathy for the ‘murdered president’s daughter’. It is completely diffrent from the Patty Hearst or Yang Guifei’s case in that Park had thoroughly used the sympathy and nostalgia, and become the icon of past ideology by self, and left it with nonchalance, incompetence, lack of communication and tolerance, and inevitably, more corruption. The reason of her impeachment and Moon Jae-in’s presidental election were the people’s desire to eradicate this deep-rooted corruption.
Yes, pardon of Park Geun-hye may be able to show the president’s statemanship and tolerance, but the effect more than this is very skeptical. About those who are rallying to demand the release of Park, Koreans no longer think of them as major conservatives, or even mild conservative groups. They are only regarded as the loudest, problematic, old-fashioned far-right activist who accept only anti-communism and Park Geun-hye as ideology, and makers of fake YouTube news. Not only did former conservative (both Lee’s and Park’s) government secretly supported such activists, but also they have provoked incitement and demonstration in favor of themselves. Of course, those who advocate the release of Park are not only ones who move for financial reasons, and their actions are also motivated by political issues such as anti-communism, nationalism and particularism.
On the surface, their goal is to deny the current government and restore the conservative government based on pro-Park and anti-communism, or at least to prove that Park Geun-hye is completely innocent. This is an extreme claim that is unacceptable to the Korean societly, and is therefore, impossible. Unlike the candlight vigil, These extreme groups are trying to maintain their power with a provocative assertion that the currnet government must be overthrown. Rather, it is by right-wing activists to utilize the divided perception of Park Jeong-hee, not its opposition. For many Koreans, the era of Park Jeong-hee is mixed with good and bad points, but it is clearly a history that must be overcome.
In such circumstances, not only it could be regarded as a ‘betrayal of people’s desire’ to supporters of Moon Jae-in, Democratic Party of Korea and liberals, but it is likely to be incited by the opposites as a deceptive action. Even if Park pardons, pro-Park and far-right activists group will shout out for Park’s complete innocense, the illegality and denial of the present government, withdrawal of North Korea policy and the strengthening of anti-communism without any compromise. What understanding, forgiving, acceptance and moreover, "goodwill" can we expect for the society by allowing those who are not willing to tolerate the opposites?
And above all, the trial against Park Geun-hye has not yet ended at the third stage of the Supreme Court. If we talk about pardon of Park at this point, it can be a challenge to the precious principle of democracy, the separation of powers.
So, If you claim that Park was different because she praised your book(I think the reason that Park praised your book is that not only the content in your book provoked a kind of nationalism, but also because of your doctor’s degree from Harvard and your nationality), remember Park stayed as far as possible from the critics not like you, by blacklisting the artists and critics.
Disagree. Although I felt the same way about the fact that the result of Lee Myung-bak’s legal judgment, in spite of his greater role in criminal, is weaker than Park Geun-hye, there are couple of issues that modern Koreans cannot accept.
First, most of Korean would not accept the idea like "Park Geun-hye is a victim of corrupted history", because she has become president because of ‘the corrupted history’. It should be reminded that why Park Geun-hye became president, and why most of her supporters still remain so far. Basically it is recollection for the past nostalgia represented by his father, dictator and murdered ex-president Park Chung-hee, and sympathy for the ‘murdered president’s daughter’. It is completely diffrent from the Patty Hearst or Yang Guifei’s case in that Park had thoroughly used the sympathy and nostalgia, and become the icon of past ideology by self, and left it with nonchalance, incompetence, lack of communication and tolerance, and inevitably, more corruption. The reason of her impeachment and Moon Jae-in’s presidental election were the people’s desire to eradicate this deep-rooted corruption.
Yes, pardon of Park Geun-hye may be able to show the president’s statemanship and tolerance, but the effect more than this is very skeptical. About those who are rallying to demand the release of Park, Koreans no longer think of them as major conservatives, or even mild conservative groups. They are only regarded as the loudest, problematic, old-fashioned far-right activist who accept only anti-communism and Park Geun-hye as ideology, and makers of fake YouTube news. Not only did former conservative (both Lee’s and Park’s) government secretly supported such activists, but also they have provoked incitement and demonstration in favor of themselves. Of course, those who advocate the release of Park are not only ones who move for financial reasons, and their actions are also motivated by political issues such as anti-communism, nationalism and particularism.
On the surface, their goal is to deny the current government and restore the conservative government based on pro-Park and anti-communism, or at least to prove that Park Geun-hye is completely innocent. This is an extreme claim that is unacceptable to the Korean societly, and is therefore, impossible. Unlike the candlight vigil, These extreme groups are trying to maintain their power with a provocative assertion that the currnet government must be overthrown. Rather, it is by right-wing activists to utilize the divided perception of Park Jeong-hee, not its opposition. For many Koreans, the era of Park Jeong-hee is mixed with good and bad points, but it is clearly a history that must be overcome.
In such circumstances, not only it could be regarded as a ‘betrayal of people’s desire’ to supporters of Moon Jae-in, Democratic Party of Korea and liberals, but it is likely to be incited by the opposites as a deceptive action. Even if Park pardons, pro-Park and far-right activists group will shout out for Park’s complete innocense, the illegality and denial of the present government, withdrawal of North Korea policy and the strengthening of anti-communism without any compromise. What understanding, forgiving, acceptance and moreover, "goodwill" can we expect for the society by allowing those who are not willing to tolerate the opposites?
And above all, the trial against Park Geun-hye has not yet ended at the third stage of the Supreme Court. If we talk about pardon of Park at this point, it can be a challenge to the precious principle of democracy, the separation of powers.
So, If you claim that Park was different because she praised your book(I think the reason that Park praised your book is that not only the content in your book provoked a kind of nationalism, but also because of your doctor’s degree from Harvard and your nationality), remember Park stayed as far as possible from the critics not like you, by blacklisting the artists and critics.
President moon has no such capacity.
Release our great President Park now! She has done nothing wrong! All a political coup
She had all the machinery of the government at her disposal to obtain full information on each and every issue before she makes a decision. Yet she chose to abet those who are close to her and worst still, she let them pull wool over her eyes willingly. Isn’t it a western thing that abetting a crime is equally as guilty as committing it? And her apathy towards her fellow citizens was glaringly exposed when she took almost half a day for her makeup before presenting herself to address the people when the Sewol ferry carrying a shipload of young students sunk and killed almost all onboard.
So spare us your western liberal bullshit. This woman is a personification of evil underneath that demure facade. Or is it because you have lost a willing and compliant running dog? (Her acceptance of Abe’s putrified offer of 1 billion yen to settle the comfort women issue came to mind)
Wrongfully inforned of real fact on Park’s impeachment and her criminal indictment. She was framed by fake news medias run by socialist idelogists. All allegations are groundless and unfound yet corrupt and unconsentious court judges influenced by uprising pro-North Korean communists and socialists in South Korea. This article is ill informed. She should be reistated of her presidency.
What a gracious appeal and understanding of the broader context! It’s quite compelling. Park has suffered enough enduring all the humiliation at the trial and in detention. It makes little difference, for everyone except herself, if she is released from jail. Moon would be well to pardon her.
A good policy by President Moon!