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Democracy, Korea’s Past Still at Odds

<i> Richard Nations writes on the Far East for numerous publications in Asia, Europe and North America</i>

The announcement on June 30 of sweeping reforms by ruling party leader Roh Tae Woo changed the face of South Korean politics. But has it changed the heart?

Eager for some clue as to which way Korea will now turn, I hastened that morning to the home of Kim Dae Jung, the opposition’s charismatic leader, whose legendary defiance of military rule has made him the symbol of South Korea’s democratic cause.

With a dry voice, Kim “applauded” Roh for embracing direct presidential elections before year’s end. But then, with no more irony than is apparent on the lips of a stone Buddha, Kim urged President Chun Doo Hwan to replace his entire cabinet with a “neutral pan-national government” including, he implied, himself.

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No more than six hours had passed since Roh’s televised capitulation conceding every opposition demand. And yet there it was, sprung to life--a new demand. If Chun did not yield power now, Kim said, “the people” would doubt his “sincerity” and might return to the streets.

The opposition’s instinct to rearm itself with fresh demands does not augur well for a smooth process of democratic construction in South Korea. But it is symptomatic of the two-year-long campaign for “true democracy”--designed by the opposition less to achieve concrete reforms than to back the regime into piecemeal concessions that would erode its authority and hasten its collapse.

Now, however, Roh’s stunning display of “sincerity” has poised the ruling party to regain its moral authority to rule, leaving the opposition in a bind.

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On the one hand, the two Kims--Kim Dae Jung and Kim Young Sam of the Reunification Democratic Party--must cooperate with Roh to revise the constitution or abdicate their claim to lead popular opposition to military rule. After three weeks of student protests, the two Kims--no less than the ruling party--need elections to restore their influence over events.

But, paradoxically, the opposition is remarkably ill-prepared for democratic elections. The Reunification Democratic Party has too many potential presidential candidates, threatening disunity, and no program different from the regime’s own emphasis on export-led growth, the American connection and continuing the status quo on the divided peninsula. Moreover, the RDP’s turbulent history has weakened the opposition’s appeal as a serious party of government.

But the two Kims’ dilemma only mirrors tensions inherent in the broader project pursued by the entire generation that suffered the humiliation of the Korean War and is now determined to produce a “Korean democratic miracle” to gain international recognition on a par with the United States, West Germany or Japan.

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Koreans are encouraged in this project by the superficial correspondence between traditional notions like “the mandate of heaven” and such modern democratic doctrines as “the will of the people.”

But at the core of that tradition--let’s call it the Confucian mind-set--lie deeply anti-democratic tendencies flowing from the belief that government essentially is the business of a moral minority whose superior virtue and sincerity justify its absolute rule. The democratic opposition, no less than government leaders, is steeped in this tradition.

And so while the two Kims passionately believe that “democrats” rather than “the military” should rule modern Korea, they nonetheless regard power and legitimacy as essentially indivisible, and so only vaguely comprehend the practices of power-sharing, compromise and rule of law that are at the heart of the modern democracies.

The Confucian mind-set thus casts a tragic pall over the prospects for democratic construction, not because the opposition is doomed to defeat at the hands of the military--although another political deadlock could provoke a coup--but because in victory the two Kims could well defeat the principles that they proclaim.

“If the elections are fair,” Kim Dae Jung told me, foreshadowing future struggles, “we will win. But if the government side wins, it only means they cheated.” This is classic Confucian logic, and it is as self-evident as the concept of a loyal opposition conceding defeat is contradictory.

Signs that these traditional attitudes are crumbling are only apparent where they are least likely to be credited--in the ruling Democratic Justice Party. Thus at its June 21 caucus, a week before Roh made his dramatic announcement, one-third of the assemblymen argued forcefully that the party should accept direct elections and prepare to take the role of the opposition.

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“We are stronger in the opposition of a democratic country,” Assemblyman Pong Du Wan told the caucus, “than we will be if we stay in power when the people hate us.”

The real struggle in Korea is less that between rival parties as between different generations. The Korean War generation fails now to find democratic solutions; a new generation is waiting in the wings with new slogans, a new nationalism and more gasoline bombs.

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