End the politics of hatred before it’s too late

The terrorist attack on People Power Party (PPP) Rep. Bae Hyun-jin in Gangnam District, Seoul, on Thursday was shocking. On affirming her identity, the 15-year-old middle school student abruptly started to hit the lawmaker’s head up to 17 times with a stone on his hand. Bae admitted to her utter fear of death at that moment. Fortunately, she could avoid a serious injury and was discharged from the hospital on Saturday. Otherwise, the attack could have led to a critical wound.

As the details of the young student’s motivation for the attack — and any possible organization behind the attack — have not been disclosed yet, the police must get to the bottom of the case to find the truth. But we cannot but wonder why the juvenile showed extreme hostilities toward a politician.

After the appalling incident, PPP floor leader Yun Jae-ok attributed it to “our political culture always going to the extreme.” He said the attack was a wake-up call for our politics not to follow the path. DP spokesperson Han Min-soo joined the chorus by lamenting the pollution of our society with hatred and antipathy toward opponents. He said he will endeavor to prevent the spread of political terrorism and end the politics of hatred. We welcome his precise diagnosis of the problem. The politics of abomination which regards a counterpart as an enemy to kill and convinces people to hurl insults at their rivals only to take power has persuaded the student in question to hold a stone in his hand.

When DP leader Lee Jae-myung suffered a terrorist attack earlier, the assailant said he attacked Lee to prevent his election as president. The diffusion of such extreme sentiments toward political adversaries poses a serious threat to democracy. The first responsibility falls on politicians themselves. After lawmakers shunned dialogue and compromise with their opponents — and demonized them with coarse and provocative rhetoric — our politics lost integrity and turned the legislature into a battlefield, which in turn was further heated by conspiracies and wild theories on YouTubes and social media. The orchestration of rage by fandom-based online communities only helped deepen the political divide.

With 70 days left before the April 10 parliamentary election, the political standoff will only get worse. We hope the authorities to protect our politicians’ safety at campaigns and stop copycat crimes. More fundamentally, the PPP and DP must stop inciting hard-core supporters to rush to polarization. Such aberrant ways only backfire, as they invite mutual destruction in the longer run, as clearly seen in the terrorist attacks. Only when the two parties respect one another will the voters revere politicians.