Korean people’s anger against the government flames out
The approval rating of the Lee MyoungBak government has long crashed due to a handful of policies against the people’s will. Even people who voted for the president are turning their backs closely feeling the wrong doings of the past three month of his political performances as the president. Recently a peaceful gathering of students and mothers and children and citizens got dispersed by the police by force(pictures, videos, article). Also there was a suicidal attempt by fire in JeonJu to protest against the government.
Lots of his previous achievements, as the mayor of the capital Seoul before being elected as president, was already proven to be unsustainable and irresponsible resulting in all sorts of side-effects. Only caring for his own administration, the pledges were short-termed and has been always infamous, ignoring people who gave opposite yet resonable opinions. Even being called the “bulldozer”, his ways of doing things was one way when decided even when nobody agreed.
For example, the ChungGye stream’s renewal resulted in flooding when raining, destroying the ecosystem, contamination and it is currently wasting a huge amount of tax money. Sungnyemun the top National Treasure of Korea has been burnt down shortly after being opened to the public without proper security measurements by Lee’s own will. Even after the event as the president, he let his government refuse to pay for the restoration and rather tried a campaign to raise the fund, not admitting his faults.
After being elected(with people’s desparate hopes of reviving the nations economy with his experience as a CEO) as the president, the style of doing things persists. He makes promises with the US President on the beef trading agreement without notifying the Korean people, even accusing people providing opposing proofs as made up stories and even pointing fingers at mothers who are worried about their child’s well-being. The government even admitted some of the negotiations by ignorantly mis-translating the agreement articles which was proved by the FTA hearings.
The personnel changes of the government raised questions making a new vocabulary “KoSoYoung, KangBuJa” designating the major portion of the new cabinet being “Ko Ryo University, So Mang Church, YoungNam area(province of Korea)” which are all Lee’s affiliations and “KangNam(the richest area of Korea) BuJa(meaning Rich in Korean)”.
Another infamous pledge which majority of the people also disagreed was the Korean grand canal project(this, this). Even after being bashed by the National Assembly and the Korean citizen, the government is still trying to execute the project compulsorily(recent). A few days ago, a researcher made the second declaration of conscience against this project. His claims are that the government is forcing him to make up materials on rebuttals around the canal project. His words on the letters were “This would give me a huge disadvantage but I chose to disclose this to the public, not to be a dishonorable father of my children.”
The prices of commodities is soaring opposite of what has been promised, the obvious policies favoring the rich, the canal project, highly debated educational policy, beef import negotiations, personal acts of despising the national pride and what our country has stood for, oppressions of opponents and the incompetency by itself… All these dictatorial acts inevitably made the Korean people angry, and not just the deploring of the country’s fate but words of the presidents resignation is already flowing among them. The current government is also being accused for blindfolding the Korean people of these whole events by trying to control the Media (of course, underestimating the grassroot media - blogs and so). Extremists even evaluate these actions as the resurrection of the 5.18 democracy movement(ironically Lee has attended the 5.18 commemoration ceremony).
--
My opinion? “What use is a President if he does what he wants, not what the people wants?”
--
Update: Forgot to mention the medical program the government is trying to force. Ironically near the release of the film “Sicko” in Korea, it was told that they were trying to make the medical program run by private enterprises to incorporate senior nations best practices. Life’s weird.