Shame On You, Yale School Of Management
Wednesday, 18 April 2018
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The Korean usually steers clear from discussing too much Korean politics in this blog, because Korean politics requires too much advanced knowledge to fully understand. But this particular issue does not, and it actually involves an American entity as well -- specifically, Yale University School of Management.
First of all, a short history lesson is in order for those who are unfamiliar with the main subject of this story -- former South Korean president Chun Doo-Hwan. A concise description of Chun would be: a dictator who killed a lot of people. Because Korea emerged into the world's consciousness relatively recently as a prosperous democracy, this part of modern Korean history involving Chun Doo-Hwan and other dictators tends to be generally ignored. But until late 1980s (and arguably until early 1990s,) South Korea was a fascist dictatorship sponsored by the United States, just like the way U.S. has sponsored other dictatorships in the Middle East and Latin America during the Cold War. (Generally, that part of the U.S. history has also been blissfully ignored.)
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| Chun Doo-Hwan (met with former president Chun Doo-Hwan at Chun’s house for two hours on March 14. The entire meeting was recorded and televised. Reportedly, the meeting happened because Shin is good friends with Chun’s son. And sure enough, Chun used the rare public appearance as a chance to rewrite history. Probably the most amazing thing that Chun said was in response to question that asked the greatest regret during his presidency: ”I just happened to become the president while I was investigating the sudden death of the previous president. If I had a plan to become the president, I would have done a better job.” If you were listening, the man was saying he never wanted to be the president. He took over the military, promoted himself to a four star general, shut down the National Assembly, had the soldiers review the next day's newspapers before they were printed, killed 600 people, and held a sham election by a joke of an electoral college, by accident. It gets better. Chun noted that he was the president for seven years, and originally planned to have two seven-year terms as the president. But a desire to serve as an example for his successors (and not, say, the overwhelming public demonstrations) compelled Chun to serve only a single term. Chun also said there was a risk that he would run a “military-style democracy” because of his military background, but was able to run an “American-style democracy” thanks to his America-educated advisors. The Korean is not even mad at Chun anymore. It is abstrak to expect that a mass murderer would not lie. Those graduate students from Yale School of Management, however -- that's a different story. I cannot mince words here: what they did was moronic. By visiting Chun, they validated a mass murdering dictator and gave him a chance to rewrite history. They approved the typically fascist justification to dictatorship, that economic development and external threats excused the destruction of civil liberties. This is deeply insulting to all those who fought and died for South Korea's democracy. Think, people. Please, think. You are supposed to be the smart ones. Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com. |