(EDITORIAL from the Korea Times on Oct. 11)

Progressives' alliance

Korea is often described as the only country liberated after World War II to
achieve both democracy and economic growth.
So foreigners here might wonder why representatives of the nation's civic groups,
labor unions, environmentalists, college professors and Catholic priests held an
"emergency conference" Thursday and decided to launch a new solidarity
organization to cope with a crisis of "democracy and public livelihood."
To sum up, this is a semi-national alliance against the Lee Myung-bak
administration by a different name, or the biggest anti-government group since
the nation was democratized in 1987. Why is the seven-month administration
producing such massive civil disobedience?
The declaration, adopted at the meeting, said the Lee administration is
"completely going backward," by trying to nullify what the Korean society has
achieved.
It then cited as examples the government's retaliation against the participants
of candlelit protests, wielding anew the anti-Communist law to silence
dissidents, revising history textbooks in ways to please rightist groups and
infringing on freedom of speech by dominating broadcasting stations as well as
restricting Internet use.
The participants also attacked the tax cuts for owners of expensive properties,
the hasty privatization of state enterprises and the push for pliable labor
markets as policies widening the gap between the haves and have-nots while at the
same time hurting the public interest.
In short, they are opposing the reemergence of authoritarian rule in the name of
enhancing law and order in politics as well as neo-liberalistic market idolatry
in the economy.
One can feel the ideological battle that has gripped this society over the past
decade or so is about to go into full swing instead of diminishing at a time when
most other countries are trying their best to get out of the global economic
turmoil.
Even so, the Lee administration can hardly complain, as the escalating war
between the conservatives and progressives is largely of its own making, with the
President himself at its vanguard.
Lee said recently, for instance, "Although we have retaken power after a decade,
the roots of (the leftists) are very deep and wide."
We beg to differ. Most of all, the President seems to be color-blind as far as
ideology is concerned.
Lee calls the two previous administrations "leftist" governments, but the
governments of Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun tried and failed to imitate the
elementary stage of European-style social democracy only to return to typical
neo-liberalistic policies in the face of an unfavorable environment abroad and
strong challenges from conservative interest groups at home.
Koreans elected Lee believing he was qualified to salvage the struggling economy,
but they are increasingly finding the president not much more than a former
corporate CEO, one less than capable of running a country.
Granted, the management of a modern country is too complex to leave to just top
leaders and their aides so they have to mobilize the talents and capacities of
the entire nation, regardless of political or ideological inclination, but Lee is
splitting, not unifying, the nation. If this is to pass the responsibility of
poor administration to progressives, the nation is doomed for the rest of his
tenure.
Ironically, the success or failure of the progressives' alliance depends on how
the President and his administration do. We hope the participants need not push
ahead with their decision, as the government more attentively listens to people
from various walks of life and better reflect their voices on state governance.