In Korea, there are not noble families like Japan and Britain. The royal family and noble classes of the Chosun Dynasty, after the Japanese colonial period, were completely rooted out out of the Korean people and society. Korean people thought that the royal family and noble classes were considerably responsible for the shameful colony.
Since the new nation of 1945, the new established classes have been forming slowly. The first established group is the wealthy families named Jaebul like Samsung, LG, Hyundai etc. But Korea’s wealthy families are not respected by people, because most of them have been involved in irregularities, for example illegal inheritances and briberies, in addtion to lack of noblesse oblige.
Politicians, governmental servants, and knowledged scholars have not also earned the esteem of general people, because they looked self-dedicated, conceited, and not so able to deal with social long problematic affairs. Therefore, no classes have authority to persuade the people. In other words, the complaining and angry people are gradually revealing their power directly.
The today’s people are not the same as the past ones. The past ones are friendly to same hometown, same alumni, and private relationships. Whenever the election days come in, the old people used to vote for their privately related candidates. Now the new people changed, and at least began to change their past voting behaviors.
Korea’s democracy has evolved into more desirable directions step by step through people’s demoratic revolutions, the imprisonment of two corrupted ex-presidenst, etc.
In all these hard, but proud roads towards democracy, there appeared a class of ‘collective free-riders’. They are the prosecution. which could be said in fact the full benefiaries of Korea’s democracy. The people had needed the prosecution to punish the deeply rooted, corrupted politicians, governmental servants, and enterprisers. The prosecution at last jailed two ex-presidents. And at the latest, the prosecution summoned the just before president, Rho Moo-hyun, and pressed to confess his wrongdoings. The prosecution leaked out unconfirmed charges to the news media to create the good public opinions for their investigation. Rho Moo-hyun was a human-rights and labor-movement lawyer from a commercial high school, and as a stubborn progressive politican distanced himself from the wealthy families owning several big companies. He had a few friends of small and medium-sized enterprisers. He and his wife seemed to have gotten financial helps from them before the presidential office. The charged amount was ‘very small’.
The former president threw himself to dealth off the cliff behind his retired home. His death aroused tremendous people’s sympathy, especially younger generation and middle-agers. He has almost all popular factors that he is a self-made man, a solitary idealist against the establihsed classes, and that he is a warmer European dreamer other than an American dreamer of marketism and competition.
The new people are angry about the prosecutors. The prosecutors are from the middle and poor classes. Most of them have an inclination seeking success, for example gripping political power, social privileges, and wealth on their hands. Of course, they have a sense of justice, however their collective interest and solidarity of the prosecutors themselves appeared stronger than social responsibilities, contribution to community and universal principles. They are usually married to wealthy families.
In the military autocratic period, the political power controlled the prosecution as well as the people. In today’s almost complete democracy, no power can control the prosecution. The prosecution has the exclusive right to investigate and prosecute any suspect. All classes except for the prosecutors themselves are fearful of them. The prosecution has become an only autocratic class in Korea. After leaving the office, they are able to choose three ways, independent lawyer or lawmaker, or corporate solicitor for the conglomerates.
The people have known not only such a fact of the proscutors’ privileges, but also their ‘curved’ ambitions. The people began to pay attention to the prosecutors’ behaviors. Just in time, the incident of ‘sponsored’ prosecutors happened. The ‘dark’ customary sponsorship between the prosecutors and enterprisers stirred up the public and mass media. The congress was forced to organize the special prosecutors to investigate the case objectively. The president appointed the special prosecutors recommended from the congress.
This year there were two elections. The new people showed their clear will at these elections. The voters gave the insolent ruling party severe defeat at the earlier election, whereas at the later election they made stern judgment to the opposition party which ignored the people’s expectations after the earlier overwhelming winning.
The new people would become a real soruce and asset of true advancement. What a wonderful phenomenon in Korean modern history.! (The end)
