Myths about political revolution

Why all the people's revolutions end up with fascistic dictatorships? 

The answer is too easy and clear. It is because both political revolutions and the successive dictatorships basically have in common social control by a majority. The dictator is just a symbol of the collective people's desires, self-interests, prejudices and ignorance. The whole society share those fruits of revolution, which would be long time later proved to be poison or drug. Every political revolution is controversial from the historical perspective, but, at least the contemporary people who join a revolution do not think that they are wrong. They think that they are righteous. 

In life and in the world, it is very difficult to say that there is one right answer to a certain controversial problem. If someone says that he knows one right answer to such a problem, they are very likely to be over-confident. This over-confidence is one of the remarkable streaks shared by many politicians and some elites in society. 

All the people's revolutions are basically not different at all from all the elite groups' coup d'etats, in that both try to control the whole society by their political power whether from a majority's shouts or weapons or money or whatever. At the moment when the public is given their promise and even begin to go under the successive fascistic dictatorship, the public does not know whether the promise would lead to paradise or hell. It takes time for the promise to turn out to be drugs or poisons. Multi-party parliament system based on the rule of law is not a system to protect society from taking a poison, but a system to secure society that it can spit the poison out at a next election, when the society realises what it has taken turns out to be a poison. 

 

In this sense, the situation that is taking place in my country is deeply appalling. The country already has all the necessary institutions although these institutions are unstable and have relatively short histories, but the society itself is now trying to destroy those institutions, deceived by the major press companies and politicians. They are ignoring the rule of law, particularly the constitution that secures the separation of the three powers of administrative, legislative and judicial branches. In the situation where there is no concrete evidence of a threat to legislation's autonomy from administration, the impeachment of the administration leader cannot be justified. Most people know that a president of South Korea can hardly exert dictatorship or anything like that in the later part of their official term.

 

All the blames other than a threat to the autonomy of legislative institution by a president are mere political attacks, which are things that can always be seen at parliamentary debates and press columns. The president can make political decisions in her own way (unless the decisions infringe national security or the constitutional separation of the three powers). If the president was so corrupt as to take money from private companies for her interests, then there is a good chance that the prosecution accuses her of the crime after her official term, which is what the constitution dictates. If her friend was so corrupt, then it is enough to blame the president of having such a unreliable person as her friend, but this has nothing to do with the impeachment of the presidency. If the work of the president (and her cabinet and party) is unsatisfactory then the next election should be the chance for the real people (not the sample in plazas or on surveys) to assess it.

 

Why do I have to see the ruling party trying to evade their responsibility by dividing themselves and expelling their leader? Likewise why do I have to see the opposition parties agitating the public to vent their anger on the street instead of themselves fighting in parliament (maybe because they are also so corrupt that they fear of being attacked in official debates of the parliament)? Is political responsibility in this country a thing that cannot be expected from the politicians?

 

One urgently needed thing in South Korean politics would be the restoration of the rule of law, represented by the constitution. Moreover, the most fundamental principle of the constitution is to secure the checking system of political powers, since politicians, who pursue political power *, are dangerous animals in human society thus legal protection of individual citizens from politicians who are always inclined towards autocracy is critically essential. I do not believe that a certain party's claims are right or wrong, whatever politicians may say. Nevertheless, I do not think that those politicians who claim that their beliefs are right are doing wrong, no matter how stupid they may sound, because it is politicians' job to fight for their beliefs and attack the other party. However, it is unbearable to see people, agitated and mobilised by political groups and the media, ignoring and destroying the principal rule of political game, the checking system of political power.

 

Irrespective of whether the scandals raised by South Korean press or politicians (none of which has yet gone through any trial at the court of law) are true or not, it seems like a majority of the press and politicians used the scandals for their own political purposes (most of them think the present president as not socialist enough, or not conservative enough, or just simply not helpful for achieving their self-interests) and distorted constitutional meanings of presidential impeachment under the name of people's judgment or anger or dissatisfaction or whatever.

 

What we should learn from our own history, especially the political failure of 19th century Joseon dynasty, is nothing but the fact that such a centralised government was extremely vulnerable to the exploitation of certain political power groups when its own checking system did not function by political slaughtering on the basis of self-righteousness of King or premier. 

 * This definition of the politician is a very neutral one. one of the most skeptical definitions would be that politicians are those who are extraordinarily skillful at controlling and eliciting collective desires or angers of people at any cost to their society. I do not personally think that this definition is unfair to the politician especially considering the behaviours and strategies that presidential candidates show to us during their election campaigns, which is the time when the very instincts of politicians are revealed in the most explicit ways. 

© 2016 Min Bae