중앙데일리

[FOUNTAIN]Independence then and now

At midday on August 15, 1945, a radio broadcast by the Japanese Emperor Hirohito said Japan would surrender. The four-minute-and-10-second broadcast brought Korea’s liberation after 35 years under Japanese colonial rule. Koreans stormed through the streets after the broadcast was over. Yoon Suk-jung, a writer of children’s songs, describes the situation in verse: “On the day of independence/the Taegeuk flags of Korea waved in Seoul./ When those …

Apr 12,2003
[OUTLOOK]Roh should think before speaking

Listening to President Roh Moo-hyun’s speech at the National Assembly on the dispatching of troops to Iraq, I wondered if Korea really had a president. The gist of his speech was that the dispatching of troops was a “causeless” act but that we had to do it to solve the problem of North Korea’s nuclear program and to help the economy. This is the president trying to persuade the people by telling them, “I am a man who considers morals important a…

Apr 10,2003
[VIEWPOINT]Take a tip from an old warbler

Newspapers carried big headlines over a story they all carried saying that President Roh Moo-hyun received no applause during his first address to the National Assembly. This story is a delicate one, in my opinion, because an absence of applause cannot be covered by television by nature. That is, there are news items that can only be covered by newspapers. It seems to me that even a biased television news anchor would find it hard to say, “Pre…

Apr 10,2003
[FOUNTAIN]Drifting in the wake of change

Emile Durkheim, a French sociologist, introduced the concept of anomie because he lived in one of the most radical and unstable times in history. In his youth, he witnessed the Paris Commune, formed in 1876, a radical political group of the proletariate when France was still under the influence of the French Revolution. Durkheim, who was Jewish, felt sickened when Alfred Dreyfus, the Jewish French army officer, was accused of being a spy by anti…

Apr 10,2003
[EDITORIALS]Suicide highlights problem

We are greatly disappointed at the reaction of the Korean Teachers and Education Workers’ Union to the suicide of Seo Seung-mok, principal of the Boseong Elementary School in Yaesan, South Chungcheong province. If the members of the union are true educators, they should apologize for this tragedy. But they have been busy passing the buck, betraying their duty to the public. The union called a press conference and concluded that responsibility …

Apr 09,2003
[OUTLOOK]Dealing with the U.S. and reality

Our government has started its diplomacy on North Korea’s nuclear program and on our economy in earnest. The primary target is the United States. The decision to dispatch troops to Iraq was made with the United States in mind; the government officials being deployed to the front lines of diplomacy with the United States are not only those concerned with national security but with the economy as well. This is because of the impact that nation…

Apr 09,2003
[SCRIVENER]The care and feeding of reporters

Amid all this talk about embedded reporters, it might be useful to remind the world that North Korea pioneered the concept a long time ago. For many years, journalists from the Rodong Shinmun and other leading organs were embedded with the late Great Leader Kim Il Sung as he toured the country giving his famous on-the-spot guidance, without which, we must admit, North Korea might have become a more developed country. I’ve been reading about thi…

Apr 09,2003
[FOUNTAIN]Cries that go mostly unheard

They want warm communication. When they express their inner feelings and thoughts, people around them often ignore them or react coolly. Hiding from such cold treatment, they try to escape deep inside themselves. Hatred and anger mounts, but they fail to handle these emotions. Sometimes they raise their voices or act on impulse to be recognized, but the response is even more hostility and harsh treatment. Their faces have a stiff look; they avoi…

Apr 09,2003
[OUTLOOK]Reflecting on the troops decision

After a game of baduk, or go, many players are not content just to know who won the game and who lost. They conduct a lengthy review of the match; like those postmortems, this column is an attempt to analyze the process by which the Korean government decided to dispatch noncombatant troops to Iraq, a measure proposed by the administration and approved by the National Assembly. The approval in the Assembly will put a halt to the controversy over t…

Apr 08,2003
[CULTURAL DIMENSIONS]When Big Bush talks to Little Bush

“Big Bush,” the Chinese term for former U.S. president George Bush, is coming to town for a three-day visit next week. Son Kil-seung, chairman of the Korean Federation of Industries invited Mr. Bush as part of an effort to improve relations between Korea and the United States. During his visit, the former president is scheduled to meet a number of business leaders and U.S. officials. Big Bush’s visit comes at an auspicious time. The war in Ir…

Apr 08,2003

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