Chosun reports that seemingly the transformation is going from the left towards the right.
“As far as large social currents are concerned, it’s clear that both intellectuals and the general public are now moving from leftwing nationalism to rightwing post-nationalism,” Kim Ho-ki said. “But we’ll need more observation and research to see what the new nationalism will look like.”
The left led by roh himself tried very hard to make the United States the villian in the hostage crisis. Many within his government’s holding high level positions continued to pass blame off to the U.S. but there was never any large following of this load of bull-S–T by the main populace.
In my honest opinion the main reason for not conducting a rescue operation was nationalism. The Korean military and government knew that nothing could have been accomplished without a lot of help from the US forces in Afghanistan. If it was successful it would have largely been because of US forces and if it failed it would have been because the ROK SF did not have the capability to pull it off in the first place. Bottom line is they ruled out military options from almost day one!
A few questions:
Will Korea ever get over its hatred of Japan? Will they ever not blame the U.S. for its shortcomings? Will they ever truly understand free trade by opening its markets. Can they create an environment that is foriegn friendly for investments and business opportunities?
All of these will need answers before Korea could ever progress on the world stage. Oh yeah and one more thing stop the 3rd world country desolate act of burning flags because you are a little upset about something. It is a very pathetic attempt to prove a point and it puts you in the same category as your good buddies the Taliban!
I read a funny story in today’s Korea Times about the South Korean handballers team protesting outside the Kuwaiti Embassy because of some decisions that they thought were incorrect and helped Japan win the game. South (and North) Korea ALWAYS need to blame someone else (preferably foreigners) when thing don’t go their way which makes for beautiful irony considering all the dubious 2002 World Cup refereeing mistakes that all went their way.
Brendan i almost ran that article here and as a matter of fact i will. I was thinking the same thing and of course there is the Ohno crap along with the 2006 WC against the Swiss. Paul Hamm was on letterman when he was finally awarded the gold medal for overall gymnastics (i think) and Letterman even said why compete if all you ever do is cry when you lose?
I find that very true with Koreans across their culture.