O Roh Is Me

It’s time for another installment of President Roh Moo Hyun’s whiney, self-pitying Hamlet act.

“I hope I won’t be the first president to fail to complete his full term in office. Speculation about his intentions ran wild. The opposition Democratic Labor Party said the president was “threatening the public. Insiders do not rule out an extreme step, saying Roh is in a brittle psychological state.

If you’re surprised by any of this, you must be a new reader.  Recall that last June, I predicted that “the odds are 50-50 that Roh will be gone soon, and they’re looking leaner than ever for him finishing his term.”  The Chosun Ilbo points out that Roh has had one of these suicidal ideations every single year of his tenure. 

Three months into his term, in May 2003, the chief executive said, “I can no longer sustain the presidency”; in October that year he appealed for a national vote of confidence. Proposing a grand coalition in July and August last year, the president repeatedly mentioned his intent to step down, offering to shorten his term or surrender all of his powers, and confessing to “envy” of Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, who staked his job on a decisive issue.

Roh also threatened to  bail out of  the ruling Uri Party, which ought not to be news to many.  After all, pretty much everyone else in Uri  is shoving aside the women and  children for lifeboat space (1, 2), and rumors of an Uri breakup have been rife since last June, after  Uri took one of many severe beatings in the polls.  At last count, Roh’s approval rating  was just shy of ten percent, and Uri’s was  below  nine.  Roh’s base has also deserted him.  A mutual urge to disassociate is understandable.

The New York Times has also taken note, but claims that Roh’s mean failing  was primarily a function of the economy — not the centerpiece of Roh’s presidency —  and that a “national consensus” remains that “engaging” North Korea is South Korea’s only option. 

Because of Mr. Roh’s perceived inattentiveness to the economy, his approval rating first dipped below 30 percent two years ago as he lost most of his moderate supporters, Mr. Jeong said. It fell further, into the teens this year, as his young backers also grew increasingly displeased about the economy and the high youth jobless rate, he said.

The reporter, Norimitsu Onishi, offers no support for his conclusions except for narrow selection of quotes, giving the most play to  one Uri lawmaker and close Roh ally.  Not surprisingly, Onishi misses the bigger picture and misleads his readers in the process.  First, it’s misleading to call unconditional payoffs that never reach the North Korean people “engagement.”  One cannot say that any  policy is matter of general consensus without actually defining it, in even broad terms.  Second, the statistical evidence doesn’t support Onishi’s conclusion.  South Koreans are increasingly skeptical about North Korea’s good faith and the  wisdom of Roh’s intentional and probably irreversible alienation of the United States that accompanied it.  Just 15% now  approve of government subsidies for Kumgang.  Growing numbers want the government to crack down on political violence from the radical left.  Nearly two-thirds want their government to be more vocal about human rights in the North.  A recent Hankyoreh (!)  survey, which was filled with loaded questions about “excessive force” and “independent” policies, still  found that Korea has moved toward the “center,” that support for expanding aid to North Korea has shrunken to a slender majority, and that 37% believe South  Korea should  respect American views  about  security in the Korean peninsula (a minority, but  17% more than in 2002).  Under certain conditions —  f’rinstance, North  Korea being at all willing to reform or disarm for any price —  I’d support “engagement,” too.  It’s a question of how one defines and executes a truly reciprocal engagement policy so that it benefits the North Korean people and reduces the risk of conflict.

Mr. Roh looked increasingly out of touch as he kept his focus on ideological issues, including an attempt to look squarely at Korea’s wartime and postwar eras. He set up a Truth and Reconciliation Commission that was authorized to investigate long-covered-up, unpleasant facets of the country’s history, like collaboration by some people with the Japanese during colonial rule and violations of human rights by South Korea’s military dictatorships.

“Looking into the past is something that every society must do,” said the Rev. Song Ki-in, president of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. “No voters can deny this. But they do complain there are more immediate issues that need to be taken care of, more bread-and-butter issues.

The fact that Onishi takes Roh’s interest in history or human rights at face value, especially in  light of this,  is yet another reason to view Roh’s legacy  with more skepticism than Onishi will.   In the  Roh era, interpretations of history and human rights have been reliably selective because both are merely a means to an end.   Nor does Onishi mention Roh’s studied disinterest in either safeguarding free speech (1, 2, 3, 4, 5), defending a free press (1, 2, 3, 4, 5),  or promoting  human rights (1, 2)  in the present tense.  Onishi has written an opinion piece disguised as news, a thinly veiled apologia for the unconditional appeasement of a regime that, under Roh’s care and feeding, continued to set new lows for  belligerence and oppression.  In the end, however, there’s no disguising this awful legacy Roh has made for himself, even  by the low standards of  South Korea, where presidents are generally responding to indictments at this stage of their tenure.  Roh’s unpopularity should make George W. Bush count his blessings.

The more interesting,  but depressing, part of Onishi’s story is the emerging platform of Lee Myung Bak, who is neck-and-neck with Park Geun-Hye as front runner for the presidency in 2007.

Unlike Mr. Roh, Mr. Lee said he would join an American-led effort to inspect North Korean vessels in South Korean waters, but only, he added, if the United States understood that South Koreans wanted to avoid “military confrontation” at all cost. He said he would continue South Korea’s two main economic projects with the North, a resort and an industrial park.

Lee may be the only living  Korean who’s almost  as much of a megalomaniac as Kim Jong Il.  Notwithstanding some lip service to the human rights issue, it shouldn’t be much of a shock to see Lee’s willingness to directly  defy two unanimous  U.N. resolutions to preserve a tyrannical system that lures  the greedy  the cheapest and most  submissive labor within a thousand miles of Pohang.  After all, that system shares common genes with another, less tyrannical system that molded Lee’s own world view.  Like Park, Lee is more reactionary than revolutionary, which means that he’ll have trouble holding onto the support of young voters, or even softening their opposition to him.  The best that can be said of Lee Myung Bak is that Korea could do much worse.