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The leader of President Roh Moo-hyun¡¯s support club Nosamo, Noh Hye-kyong, posted five articles about the slasher attack on Grand National Party chairwoman Park Geun-hye on the group¡¯s website Sunday. ¡°Basically, what happened is that a citizen who failed to adapt to our society and had a measure of spirit caused injuries to Park¡¯s face with a box cutter,¡± Noh writes. ¡°At first, we were told she had 17 stitches, later she was said to have had 60. That suggests she had some plastic surgery, too, so she won¡¯t end up with a scar on her face.¡±
It is shameless to represent the story in such a light when the victim has barely escaped an attack by a total stranger in the middle of the city with a Stanley knife. That Noh, a poet with three published books to her credit and a woman like the victim, should have made such remarks is incredible, even granting that she is now in the thick of politics. Before leading Nosamo, Noh served, of all things, as presidential secretary for public information for a year.
¡°I assume the attack was committed by someone who loathed Park Chung-hee, the former president and the father of Park Geun-hye,¡± Noh wrote in the first piece put up a mere six hours after the attack. ¡°Park Geun-hye as a symbol does not belong to the 21 century. Rather, she is a living ghost of times past, a hangover from the nightmare Park Chung-hee created in so many people¡¯s minds.¡± That was Noh¡¯s unilateral conclusion at a point when nobody had any idea who the assailant was or why he committed the crime.
It speaks of a deep-rooted hatred. The interpretation once again divides ¡°us¡± against ¡°them¡± without a care for those who must share the present with Noh or preceded her in the past. But such hostility and bloodthirstiness are common in the Roh Moo-hyun administration. Roh, whom Noh and Nosamo love so dearly, has defined this nation as one where ¡°justice failed and only opportunism thrived.¡± It is people with such a mindset who have sown the seeds of hatred for the three years they have ruled the country, and the seeds are sprouting relentlessly in every sector of society, from schools to factories.
¡°What we wanted to achieve by voting for Ron Moo-hyun was to stop the vicious cycle of hatred,¡± Noh tells us. Yet when we see the pot call the kettle black in such a manner without shame, it is hard not to feel that our society has become so distorted that we have lost our way back to normality.
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