The intriguing dynamics of betrayal

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The intriguing dynamics of betrayal

Published: 29 Jul. 2024, 19:52

Choi Hoon
The author is the chief editor of the JoongAng Ilbo.

In the 2001 film “One Fine Spring Day,” broken-hearted Sang-woo — played by Yoo Ji-tae — bemoans how love can change after Eun-soo — played by Lee Young-ae — breaks up with him. Whether love changes or people change remains a moot question. In the 2005 noir film “Sweet Life,” Seon-woo, acted by Lee Byung-hun, wails to his gang boss pointing a gun at him and asks why he wanted to kill him when he served him like a dog. The boss coolly answers, “You’ve insulted me” for disobeying his order to kill his young mistress. To both of them, life is indeed bittersweet as they can’t tell who had betrayed whom first.

Betrayal can hurt in the most complex way. It’s a feeling of dejection when one’s trust and belief is broken. Betrayal also damages one’s self-esteem. After a progression of feeling dejected, depressed and angry, one forms a desire to take revenge.

Political betrayal is arguably the most intriguing. Angela Merkel, one of the most respected German chancellors, could never shake off the sin of betraying her benefactors. In 1991, Helmut Kohl appointed Merkel — a 35-year-old scientist-turned-politician from East Germany at the time — as his youngest Minister for Women and Youth at the recommendation of Lothar de Maizière, the first and the only democratically elected prime minister of East Germany. But Merkel didn’t come to Maiziere’s defense when he was sacked for his involvement in the East German secret police. Merkel was scorned as an opportunist with no sense of gratitude. Her betrayal of Kohl was more pronounced. She wrote a column accusing Kohl of damaging their Christian Democratic Union (CDU) when his implication with slush-fund accounts and dubious payments became known in 1999. She argued for the party’s independence from Kohl. Kohl’s wife even denied her attendance to Kohl’s funeral eight years later.

Olympia Snowe, 77, a former U.S. Senator from Maine, was dubbed a “RINO,” a Republican in Name Only, as she acted out of sync with Republican decisions in three out of four votes. She nevertheless won every single county in Maine in all three of her elections, as the voters of the state overwhelmingly supported her choices and decisions for the nation. At every contentious vote that betrayed and riled her party, she would coolly say, “When history calls, history calls.” Had Merkel and Snowe acted out of betrayal or conviction?

In the lead-up to the national convention of the governing People Power Party (PPP) to elect its new leadership, newly elected head Han Dong-hoon had been labeled by his rivals a betrayer to his protégé, President Yoon Suk Yeol. The two were an uncompromising duo in the prosecution. Special counsel Park Young-soo chose upright prosecutor Yoon to assist him in the investigation on sitting president Park Geun-hye for power abuse.

Han could score points for his relentless probe into any dirt on the conservative president. After his election as president, Yoon named him as the first justice minister and later the interim leader of the party ahead of the make-or-break midterm elections in April. President Yoon could have been shocked by his ingratitude when Han spoke his mind and talked about public expectations when first lady Kim Keon-hee caused a graft scandal after accepting a luxury handbag from a suspicious pastor.

Han even expressed support for the opposition-led motion to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the presidential office’s influence peddling over the tragic death of a Marine.

But it cannot be normal to expect the new PPP leader to merely comply with the expectations and orders of the presidential office. Han, 51, cannot be expected to renounce his own thoughts and conscience to live up to the wishes of his former boss. At such rationale, were the 3.2 million conservative voters — who had voted for Yoon in the last presidential election but didn’t vote for the PPP in the April parliamentary elections — all betrayers? Han won the chairmanship with 62.8 percent of the votes in the convention.

The relationship between the No. 2 in official power and the first lady has always been intriguing. Ronald Reagan’s chief of staff Donald Regan repeatedly clashed with Nancy Reagan, who ended up pushing him out of office formally over the Iran-Contra affair. In his memoir released two years after his dismissal, Regan portrayed his boss as an indecisive impotent man who let others — mostly his wife — make decisions. He found the first lady overly protective of her husband. Regan accused the first lady of deciding the presidential schedule after checking with an astrologer in San Francisco. In her memoir “My Turn,” Nancy Reagan criticized Regan for acting as if he was the president.

President Yoon and the new PPP leader held hands last week to patch up the serious friction between the party and the presidential office. I hope it could be the start of a healthy relationship between them.