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The warnings we chose to ignore

Published: 15 Apr. 2025, 00:04

Song Ho-keun

The author is a columnist of the JoongAng Ilbo and a chair professor and director of Doheon Academy, Hallym University

Spring has arrived, even for the hearts long frozen by political despair. The dormant buds have begun to bloom, a quiet reminder that even after a harsh winter, life insists on returning. But no sooner as we begin to sense this renewal, the air turns heavy again — with cries of “rebellion.” Once used metaphorically to describe the vitality of life pushing through cold soil, the word now resurfaces in its most literal, divisive sense, wielded as a tool of political judgment.

The term rebellion did not appear in the Constitutional Court’s verdict that removed President Yoon Suk Yeol from office. Yet, it has taken on new life in the rhetoric of Democratic Party figures, including presidential hopeful Lee Jae-myung. They have framed the coming election as a struggle to extinguish the remnants of an alleged insurrection. It is not just a political campaign but a moral crusade. To some, that framing is understandable, even compelling. But to reduce this moment to a partisan reckoning risks missing the larger lesson the court tried to deliver.

Constitutional Court justices announce their ruling on President Yoon Suk Yeol's impeachment at the court in Jongno District, central Seoul, on April 4. [JOINT PRESS CORPS]

Let me be clear: I welcomed the court’s decision. Yoon’s attempt to invoke emergency powers overstepped constitutional limits. The ruling, which concluded that his actions violated democratic principles and infringed upon civil liberties, was both necessary and justified. But it also came with a warning — a warning not only for the deposed president, but for the broader political system.

The judgment noted that the National Assembly had itself contributed to the crisis through legislative overreach and refusal to compromise. It urged political actors to practice restraint, dialogue and tolerance. The message was unmistakable: the dysfunction that led to this constitutional crisis was shared.

Yet, that message seems to have been forgotten. The Democratic Party has launched a campaign to purge those it calls the “remnants of rebellion.” Investigations are being proposed, and a special law is being prepared to punish those involved in the emergency declaration. There is talk of special committees and sweeping accountability. These actions may reflect moral indignation, but they also risk deepening division and framing political disagreement as criminal conduct.

Korea’s party politics did not go off course overnight. Successive administrations have treated power as something to be secured through loyalty, not earned through governance. Opposition parties, in turn, have often sought not oversight but obstruction. Internally, neither major party operates with democratic integrity. Loyalty to leaders is enforced, dissent punished. In such an environment, democratic ideals are hard to maintain.

So, before we talk about the “end of rebellion,” we must consider what democracy really demands. In any healthy democratic system, opposition and coexistence are not contradictions but conditions. In Europe, for over a century, conservatives and progressive parties have clashed ideologically, yet coexisted within a shared democratic framework. Korea’s parties, by contrast, have come to treat each other as existential enemies. In just under four decades since democratization, hostility has taken root and grown unchecked.

In this context, it is dangerous to imagine that one side is solely to blame. True, Yoon’s actions were egregious. But they did not arise in a vacuum. The endless political escalation, marked by sweeping impeachments and rushed legislation, created a volatile environment in which his overreach became possible. The court itself acknowledged this, noting that his actions reflected an inability to cope with “relentless legislative pressures.” That does not excuse them — but it does place them within a broader political failure.

This is not to suggest moral equivalence between every political act. But neither party can claim moral purity. The Moon Jae-in administration, for instance, pushed through contentious economic policies in the name of fairness and justice, while refusing to acknowledge the unintended consequences. When partisans on either side lose the capacity for self-reflection, democracy suffers.

Former liberal Democratic Party leader Lee Jae-myung speaks during a Supreme Council meeting at the National Assembly in western Seoul on April 7. [NEWS1]

If the phrase “end of rebellion” is to mean anything, it must begin not with punishment but with mutual recognition of fault. The People Power Party bears responsibility for enabling and failing to restrain Yoon’s excesses. The Democratic Party, for its part, must reevaluate its revolutionary instincts — carried over from the democratization movement but now dangerously out of place in a constitutional democracy. The idea that politics is a battle to eliminate enemies is a relic of another era, and one we must leave behind.

What Korea needs is not another purge, but a reckoning. The sins of exploiting the 1987 Constitution for partisan ends cannot be undone by simply rewriting the rules. They require genuine institutional reform and a return to democratic discipline. Constitutional revision may be necessary — but not to bury past wrongs. It must be pursued to prevent their recurrence.

And that, perhaps, is the real unfinished work of this moment — not a reckoning with rebellion, but with ourselves.

Translated from the JoongAng Ilbo using generative AI and edited by Korea JoongAng Daily staff.