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You rarely hear progressive voices these days. Only two or three years ago, they were so vociferous they sometimes seemed to drown out all others, but they have gone quiet since. Some progressives speak out on the North Korean nuclear crisis or the Korea-U.S. free trade agreement, but what they say usually falls on deaf ears.
Progressive quarterlies have ceased publication or have seen subscriptions dwindle. It¡¯s been a long time since the progressive Internet media took up any issue to any effect. Once popular progressive writers have not said anything interesting for some time even though this year sees a presidential election. There has been almost no debate among progressives, let alone a sustained offensive against the Right. The Right is proving full of vim, heralding a New Right movement, but the progressives have sunk into lethargy and silence. Why?
Progressive Korean intellectuals have been hollowed out by the five years of the Roh Moo-hyun administration. Their numbers have dwindled considerably. The reason is that many of them have been on the government payroll. Perhaps because of a lack of understanding of public office, they know only how to enjoy their power but not how to take responsibility. They have also proved incompetent. In short, power has hollowed out the progressives.
Second, progressivism has become a travesty. Since God knows when, South Korean progressives have operated in weird parameters: they have equated taking sides with North Korea with being progressive and have championed ethnocentrism. But because North Korea keeps behaving abominably, even South Korean college students, once the progressive vanguard, abhor it now.
Since the collapse of Communism, the progressives have given up on developing ideologies and have become wholly absorbed in taking sides with North Korea. This was already to some extent true during the Kim Dae-jung administration, but since the Roh administration took office, the progressives have been consumed by infighting and are now ignored by the public. They have become a laughing stock.
The third point, and maybe it is the most important of all, is that the progressives are anachronistic. They still see the world through the books they read 20 years ago, and are still attempting to change it accordingly. During a visit to Pyongyang, the notorious leftwing academic Rhee Young-hee once boasted to North Korean officials that those, who read his books now have the Republic of Korea at their beck and call. And if the government has established a lot of committees with taxpayers¡¯ money which recklessly rake over our history, it was because of these books.
The country's progressives, after all, are actually profound reactionaries, not because of the Right but because of their own failure. Only if we take all these points into consideration can we sufficiently understand the real meaning of the abrupt second round of the government¡¯s war on the press. After the first round waged during the early days of the administration, the second round is managed by senior figures who are embodiments of the power-drunk, hollow and anachronistic tendencies of progressivism.
Many people have pointed out how the sudden renewed onslaught shows how hard the progressives in power are trying to make a scapegoat of the press for their own policy failures. Expect intellectual discussion to move from the malaise to the death of progressivism soon.
The column was contributed by Lee Han-woo from the Chosun Ilbo¡¯s Culture Desk.
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