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Politics of rough words

Posted March. 04, 2017 06:57,   

Updated March. 04, 2017 07:17

한국어

“If Hillary Clinton can’t satisfy her husband what makes her think she can satisfy America?”

The sentence above was Donald Trump’s tweet in last April when Hillary Clinton was elected as the presidential candidate of the Democratic Party. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte called former U.S. President Barack Obama as a son of a whore. Kazuya Maruyama, Japanese lawmaker from the Liberal Democratic Party, had to resign from his position as a member of the House of Councillors Commission on the Constitution after calling Obama as an descendant of black slaves and.

The history of rough words in the National Assembly began in 1960 during the period of the Second Republic of Korea when Rep. Kim Seon-tae of Democratic Party cursed at the chairman of the Legislation and Judiciary Committee while arguing over the budget of the Office of the President among representatives and he said, “God damn you! **** my ass!” Floor Leader Lee Bu-young of the Grand National Party sparked strong oppositions from the Donggyo-dong faction in March 1999, by saying that late lawmaker Je Jung-gu passed away due to "DJ cancer" as he had to suffer the pressure from President Kim Dae-jung. During the days when he was a lawmaker, Rhyu Si-min used abusive words against the media and said, “The conservative media is nothing more than a toxic material.”

Last year, Yoon Sang-hyun, a key figure of the pro-Park faction, said, “Kill Kim Moo-sung, this bastard, kill’ em all.” He does not seem to feel responsible for his words as a public figure. Jung Chung-rae, former supreme council member of the New Politics Alliance for Democracy, made sarcastic remarks on president Park Geun-hye by calling her "cuckoo" or "bakkwinae." Rep. Lee Jong-gul of the Minjoo Party said at the National Assembly on Thursday that a lawmaker of the Liberty Korea Party instigated protesters gathered at anti-impeachment rally in Chungju on Feb. 25 by saying, “There are 250 dangerous bastards in the National Assembly of Korea” and Lee’s remark infuriated the Liberty Korea Party. He had also been backlashed once in 2012 when he called then presidential candidate Park Geun-hye as "bitch" on his tweeter.

Words and actions well represent a person’s character and level of intelligence and sociality. We see many examples that politicians do not hesitate to speak rough words that can only be heard from conversations between uneducated people. Song Bok, an emeritus professor at Yonsei University, lamented in his book titled “Prerogative & responsibility” that people in high social class in Korea do not make efforts to train the intelligence and morality that correspond with the given position and do not possess the thinking and value that meet the success they have achieved as well.” I would like to recommend politicians who speak rough words to read first moral textbooks for elementary students first, not to mention moral training.