Friday, December 19, 2008

South Korea’s Opposition Lawmakers Takes Sledgehammer to FTA and the Blog Waxes Nostalgic

Perhaps a sledgehammer is taking it a little bit too far, but it is not beyond living memory in Japan as well that lawmakers would routinely resort to brute force when they didn’t have the numbers. And we Japanese might have similarly adopted the post-dictatorship South Korea’s habit of criminally prosecuting the outgoing president and/or his family, friends and/or acquaintances had our prime ministers not always hailed from the same political party.

A democracy needs time to grow into its mores, manners, customs and morals, it seems. In the meantime, though, I cannot help avoid a sense of envy at the youthful recklessness with which the South Koreans pursue politics as a blood sport. But you know what I think of our current political leadership and their understudies.

Incidentally, Martin Fackler of designer vending machines fame is reporting this story out of Tokyo. Didn’t NYT have a Seoul Bureau? I’m going to start saving their articles that I refer to on my posts, just in case the Grey Lady decides to raise revenue by retreating behind a pay-to-play wall. Or heaven forbid, go six feet under, taking all its servers with it.

2 comments:

Roy Berman said...

"the post-dictatorship South Korea’s habit of criminally prosecuting the outgoing president and/or his family, friends and/or acquaintances"

A habit that Taiwan seems to be picking up as well.

Jun Okumura said...

Which is a good reminder that individuals matter. Without Chiang Ching-kuo and Lee Teng-hui, two capable leaders in succession who were relatively free from charges of nepotism and other acts of greed, Taiwan’s road to democracy would have been much more difficult. Botswana is another example of a country where good political leadership in its formative years led to political stability and economic prosperity that is the envy of the people of its neighbors.

As the old saying goes, Do not straighten out your headgear under the pear tree.