Once again, South Korea is in political turmoil. One of our lawmakers recently became a lawbreaker by detonating tear gas in the National Assembly to protest the free trade agreement between Korea and the United States. Newspaper reports say that this lawbreaker declared himself a patriot who tried to save his country from the evil hands of national traitors, who are selling out their nation to American commercialism. He seemed to believe that the world is divided into two camps: patriots and traitors. And perhaps his mental clock had stopped in the 1970s and 80s when he was teargassed by the riot police during demonstrations against the military dictatorship. Now that he has some authority in his hands, perhaps he thought he could take revenge with the same tear gas. 

Then some of the FTA protestors on the street brutally beat up a police chief, accusing him of being a quisling. Few foreigners could understand how a high-ranking police chief was roughed up by a mob on the streets of a civilized country. But it surely can happen in the Republic of Korea where everybody is equal, and where people tend not to attach stigma to the act of lawbreaking, especially when done under the name of some “grand cause” such as “saving the country.” Assaulting a law-enforcement officer, however, is equivalent to assaulting the law and order of our society.

The two acts of violence mentioned above were instantly aired all over the world, seriously disgracing the integrity of South Korea, and gravely humiliating Koreans living in foreign countries. The teargassed National Assembly and the lynched police chief not only made South Korea a laughingstock in the international community, but also unwittingly exposed the incompetence of the Lee administration in dealing with lawbreakers and outlaws.

To make matters worse, the anti-FTA conspirators once again brought forth the mad cow disease issue to deceive people one more time for political gain. The radical activists still remember the sweet taste of their mad cow disease campaign that almost toppled the Lee administration right after President Lee Myung-bak’s inauguration. And they still vividly remember how the Lee administration cowardly caved in at that time, and how easily the Korean people could be deceived by their cunning strategy. Now they want to try the same tactics once again, not realizing times have changed and that the mad cow disease issue has long expired. In the meantime, they do not hesitate to divide the country into two: self-appointed patriots and wrongfully accused traitors.

Today the Korean people are fed up not only with leftwing violence and deception, but also with rightwing incompetence and cowardice. Now many Koreans seemed to have finally realized what Thomas Pynchon said in the 1960s: “Marxism and industrial capitalism, both are part of the same creeping horror.” Koreans are slow learners, and yet they have surely learned that both the leftists and the rightists are equally corrupt, equally power-hungry, and equally tyrannical. Indeed, history tells us that neither is better than the other.

That is why an amateur politician or “non-politician” such as Ahn Cheol-soo can emerge as an overnight idol and as the strongest candidate for the presidency. People now want a person with a fresh image, a man who does not take sides on either the left or the right, and someone who is neither violent nor deceptive. People want someone who has received a normal education and comes from a middle class background. Ahn seems to fit the bill perfectly, except he seems to lean towards the left. If he has political ambition, he should found a third party, free from the deadly ideological warfare that has seriously plagued Korean society since Liberation in 1945.

Meanwhile, Park Se-il, who used to belong to the conservatives, has resigned from his faculty position at Seoul National University in order to set up a new political party. Newspaper reports say that Park is now recruiting people with a fresh image, who do not like the ruling GNP. Currently, both Ahn and Park seem to be seeking a third way that Koreans are yearning for.

Initially, they may look fresh and immaculate, standing afar from the chronic disease of ideological warfare between the left and the right. Eventually, however, they, too, may be contaminated by ideological warfare or compromised by the leftists or the rightists who will infiltrate into their ranks. In fact, history tells us: “That is the way it is.”

Nevertheless, we should seek a third possibility. The world is not made up of patriots and traitors only. Besides, as history unfolds, patriots may turn out to be traitors, and vice versa. In his novel, “The Crying of Lot 49”, Pynchon also wrote that we should overcome the mentality of binary oppositions and transcend the boundary of ones and zeroes. In computer language, everything is confined to ones and zeroes. In reality, however, there must always be a third possibility. We are tired of the either/or mentality that is so predominant in our society. Why not try a third way?

By Kim Seong-kon

Kim Seong-kon, a professor of English at Seoul National University, is editor of the literary quarterly “21st Century Literature.” ― Ed.