Introduction to Politics

My first—and, I must add, bitter—taste of politics came when I was in the third grade in a Korean middle school, the equivalent of 9^th grade in America. Around that time, I read voraciously. And pretty soon, I felt I should try and write my own stories. In other words, I would try and imitate some of the writers I had come to like so much.

Looking back, my writing was all half-baked, rough and, above all, awfully juvenile. Nevertheless, I tried my hand at everything—short stories, plays and poems. And over several months, I accumulated quite a body of work but did not know what to do with them.

Then I realized that I could start a modest literary “career” by sending a short story, a play and a collection of three poems to our school magazine, which was published once every semester. I thought I would be lucky if one out of the five items got published. But to my great surprise, they told me they were going to print everything I sent in.

Contrary to my assumption that there was fierce competition for space in the magazine, few students were interested in contributing their works. Apparently, not many students were as seized by literary fever as I was. In fact, it turned out that the school magazine had been hard up to find material to fill up its pages.

In any event, my “debut” to the literary world began with the publication of a short story, a play and three poems, and they caused “a sensation” at least within our school and the literary “clubs” in other middle schools in Seoul.

I had been a kind of lone wolf until then, or at least a colorless, obscure and uninteresting student. But suddenly, quite a few fellow students began to seek my friendship while teachers, especially those who taught Korean, seemed to look at me in a slightly different light.

I continued to write and publish stories and poems until I reached the equivalent of a junior in an American high school. By then, I had managed to make a name for myself in the school, which, of course, was not a big deal.

Then came election time for the “president” of various student organizations. And many of my friends in the “literary club” took it for granted that I would run and be elected hands down as president of that student body, since I had almost singlehandedly worked and produced the school magazine for a couple of years.

As the election day approached, however, a strange thing happened: One of my classmates, who had never shown any sign of interest in literature, declared that he would run for president of the literary club against me. I didn’t pay much attention to his candidacy, though, since he had never written, much less published, a short story or even a brief article in our magazine and since all my friends in the club had already pledged their support for me.

But on election day, he came to the clubroom, herding a huge number of students who had never been club members but who claimed that they had the right to join the club on that day and vote for their friend. And as they far outnumbered my friends, the challenger handily defeated me and became the club president, even though, he knew next to nothing about how to publish the magazine.

I hadn’t been interested in any “leadership position” in a student organization in the first place. From the beginning, I couldn’t have care less about being elected as president of the club. And yet, my challenger’s “political” maneuver on election day left a bitter and disgusting taste in my mouth.

That experience also taught me a valuable lesson that I should never, ever, trust “politicians” for the rest of my life; 99 percent of them are liars, shameless schemers and power crazy—and consequently corrupt—people whom I should avoid as much as I could.

The boy who beat me in the election proved to be a budding and clever politician already at the tender age of 16. Realizing I wouldn’t be helping him to publish the magazine, he created what he called the “editor in chief” and “appointed” me to that position. Incidentally, I agreed to continue to edit and produce the magazine not because of the grand title, but because I loved doing it.

Years later, when I returned to Korea after a long sojourn overseas, I noticed that he had become the president or chairman of an association or union of writers or some such organization. So, a born politician, he had been wheeling and dealing all those years as a leader of a group. I didn’t even try to find out what kind of writing he had been doing or how he had managed to establish a reputation as a writer. But I knew one thing and that was that I should stay as far away from him as possible.

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Ethics? What’s That?

We all know that the efforts and sacrifices Korean parents make for the education of their children are almost unparalleled elsewhere in the world. It used to be “Jewish mothers” who pushed their children hard to excel in school. But now, even they cannot beat Korean mothers, I am sure.

From kindergarten all the way up to university, most Korean parents drive their children, often mercilessly, so that they can beat their peers and enter into one of those prestigious universities and eventually become either a lawyer or a medical doctor. Failing to achieve either one of these goals, their sons and daughters are expected to secure a better paying job at a big business firm or a prestigious teaching position in academia.

For most of those parents, education at regular schools are not enough for their children; they have to spend hundreds of millions of won every year to let their children study day and night at cram schools or under a private tutor, solely to prepare for the university entrance exams. Korean parents’ educational zeal is so intense that some observers say it amounts to child abuse.

But young people do not stop studying after graduation from universities; many go on studying in order to pass the state exams to become prosecutors, lawyers or ranking administrators in the government.

Throughout the long and arduous march to a university, Korean children have little time to read books other than textbooks and study aids or to just enjoy their youthful lives. Nor do they have time to learn civic duties or take up moral studies in order to become responsible, respected and exemplary members of society.

Gone is the ideal of education, which is to forge young people in their formative years into “ladies and gentlemen” in the true meaning of the term. But in Korea, the aim of going to school is merely to grow into adults who can make more money than the next person. This is the country where money solves practically every problem, except death.

In this connection, incidentally, I will tell you a disgusting—yet, very indicative—story. Studying for the university entrance exams has become such an obsession and time is so short for many high school seniors that some parents do not hesitate to hire other people to do “volunteer” work for their children because some universities have made it a condition for prospective students to perform a certain number of hours of volunteer social work for the disabled or underprivileged.

In this way, only the best and the brightest young men and women succeed in becoming leaders in Korea, that is to say, politicians, business executives, ranking government officials, professors, and members of the mass media, not to mention physicians and prosecutors and judges.

Even after they secure position in this highly competitive society, however, most of them are so insecure about their life or so obsessed with success and greed that they are ready to compromise, or rather go with the flow, as the saying goes, at the slightest change in the direction of political winds.

In the process, things like principles or ethical and moral standards—if they ever existed in their minds—are easily cast aside like a pair of old shoes with a hole in them. Do the president of the Republic, members of Congress, business leaders and educators, among others, have integrity and moral fortitude befitting their positions? I doubt it.

Many politicians don’t hesitate to threaten, intimidate or cajole businessmen to give them money under the table, while passing money, in their turn, to influential members of their constituents to buy votes.

The prosecutors and other judicial officials, who are entrusted with the duty to enforce the nation’s laws on all citizens equally without fear or favor, are so insecure in their supposedly independent positions that they become subservient to those in power in their zeal not to rock the boat. Some spineless prosecutors as well as other government officials are said to go out of their way to accommodate leaders, even if they realize that the leaders’ interests run counter to those of the nation.

Many educators, who should be the exemplary figures or role models for their students with regard to moral and ethical standards, are no exception when it comes to greed and self-interest. And some members of the news media, another elite group, are ever ready to bend over backwards to serve the rich and powerful, even though they know one of their primary functions is to be uncompromising and objective providers of information to the general public.

This deplorable attitude of the leading and influential members of our society is a result, I believe, of a declining emphasis on ethical and moral education at all levels of our schools. Parents as well as teachers are too preoccupied with the problems of preparing students for entrance exams that they simply do not have any time or inclination to worry about moral education.

For saying all this, I am acutely aware that I could be accused of making sweeping generalizations. Surely, there are far more people who are working hard and conscientiously in their chosen professions. That is why the Republic of Korea is still functioning as a nation, no doubt. But there are, at the same time, many—far too many—unethical and immoral people who are occupying positions of power and influence, so that no one can say with conviction that the future of this country is bright.

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Editorial Independence

In a free and democratic society, you can publish a newspaper or set up a television station, provided, of course, you have enough money. And when you run a newspaper or a TV network, it is only natural that the editorial policy will reflect your own thoughts and ideas. Then, it is up to the people—or customers, if you like—to buy and read or watch what they say.

The more informative, enlightening and, above all, trustworthy your paper or TV network is, the more people will buy your paper or watch your broadcast. And this, I believe, is the essence of the communication business in a capitalist and free market economy.

TVs or newspapers have the right as well as duty to inform their readers and viewers about what is going on in society as objectively as possible, and in this way they fulfill the function of satisfying the public’s right to know. In order to carry out these functions, they have to be free—free from outside pressure.

This does not mean, of course, that newspaper or TV network owners can evade their duty, as citizens, to pay taxes, for instance. Nor do they have the right to express irresponsible opinions and groundless rumors.

These days, we keep hearing about the need for reform of the press. And whenever anyone talks about press reform, the issue of editorial independence comes up inevitably. But I often wonder what is meant by editorial independence. Independence from what?

From what I read about it in newspapers and watch on TV, I gather, they mean the independence of reporters and editors from the owners and publishers of the newspapers. But every newspaper, or TV network, if it is worth its salt, has a distinctive color—or political leaning, if you like—which is formed through day-to-day editorial decisions made by news executives led by the editor-in-chief and the managing editor.

If a reporter or an editor does not like the color of his or her newspaper, then he or she has no choice but to change papers or TV networks. They cannot very well demand independence from the editorial decisions being made by the owners and executives. Nor can they write whatever they think their papers should be reporting on their own.

And the news executives are appointed by the owner/publisher and consequently, it is almost evitable for them to work for their boss and lead the paper in the direction the owner wants it to go.

More important is the fact that publishing a newspaper or running TV stations is also a business and, as I said, no owner would invest his or her money in a newspaper and have no say in the editorial decision-making process. Therefore, if reporters and editors do not like the tone of their paper, all they can do is to go to another paper of their liking or set up a newspaper of their own so that they can write reports to fit their editorial taste. This, I dare say, is a business reality.

The case that illustrates this point best is the Munhwa Broadcasting Company (MBC), the government-invested television network. Since it is financed by the Government, its president is naturally appointed by the government and whether reporters and editors like him or not, they are expected to toe the government line. There is not much sense, therefore, for them to demand editorial independence and, in fact, they don’t.

This week, some MBC producers and editors were found by the prosecution to have been responsible for whipping up the so-called mad-cow scare against the imports of American beef by willfully spreading false information and distorting facts. T'he "democratic" journalists at MBC are now crying foul, claiming that the government is suppressing freedom of the press. But these morons don't realize that the government is simply asking them to take the responsibility for their abuse of that freedom.

They are, without doubt, leftists, employed by Presidents Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun. And these “embedded leftist staff” not only refused to leave the government-run network even after the conservative administration of President Lee Myung-bak was inaugurated but also insisted on broadcasting anti-government programs aimed at discrediting the government and fomenting social unrest to bring down the democratically elected chief executive.

Anyway, going back to the general argument, I often wonder why should reporters and editors of privately owned newspapers and broadcast companies insist on gaining editorial independence from their owners, presidents and publishers. What those reporters and editors should be doing, instead of asking for editorial independence from their owner/publisher, is reporting public affairs as fairly and as objectively as they possibly can, in order to let their readers form their own judgment.

This should be not only the goal of press reform but also the ideal of all journalists.

As for the articles on the opinion page, I have said it before and I will say it again; they should express the views and ideas of the individual writers that may or may not be identical to those of the newspaper. This is the space in the paper that is open to outside writers as well as readers to express their opinions freely as long as they are willing to take responsibility for what they say.

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Dear Friends:

Yahoo has announced that it will close down all its 360 blogs on July 12. As a result, I will no longer be able to post my articles here from July 13. In its place, Yahoo provided its bloggers with what it calls “Yahoo profiles,” (http://profiles.yahoo.com/choseh) which looks more like a space for chatting with friends than a place to express one’s thoughts and ideas as well as commentaries on what’s going on around us. That is why I have decided to take this opportunity to stop posting new articles here and elsewhere after July 12.

It is with a profound sense of regret that I bid farewell to all my friends who have encouraged me and, indeed, honored me with their visits to the Seoul Searcher blog. I know there were many friends who shared my feelings and thoughts. But I am also aware that there were those who did not agree with what I had to say. In any event, I am deeply grateful to everyone who took the trouble to read my Seoul Searcher articles over the past two years.