NPAD Rep. Chang Ha-na’s verbal abuse on SNS

The New Politics Alliance for Democracy (NPAD) lawmaker Jang Hana recently posted on Facebook that “You’re an enemy of the nation,” targeting President Park Geun-hye. This posting is truly an insult to the president. In her posting, she wrote, “irresponsible president, coward president, the president who never leads to save citizens, and the president who never embarks any fact-finding investigation.” After that, there comes the “enemy of the nation’ phrase. The president of Korea is called ‘a head of state,” which sounds “wonsu.” She used a homonym “wonsu,” trying to call the president an enemy. Representative Jang is the first-term lawmaker elected through the proportional representation system. She asked for resignation of the president and defied the results of presidential election in December last year.

There has been a long history of verbal abuse and rough words on SNS by opposition party lawmakers. Rep. Lee Jong-geol of Democratic United Party, the former body of the NPAD, said on twitter in August 2012, “Lawmaker Park Geun-hye is their master. That bitch wields undisputed power and never apologizes.” He called the ruling party’s presidential candidate ‘that bitch.’ After Park’s camp raised issue over the posting, Lee made a lame excuse that it was a typo of ‘she.’ (In Korean, ‘she’ is ‘geu-nyeo-neun,’ while ‘that bitch’ is ‘geu-nyeon.’) Regarding the National Intelligence Service’s allegation of public opinion manipulation, NPAD lawmaker Jeong Cheong-rae also said last July, “Manipulators go to jail! The elected by manipulation leave the office!” It was a low-class expression using words that have similar pronunciation as Park Geun-hye.

In October before the 2012 presidential election, NPAD lawmaker Choi Min-hee twitted “KBS gave a big ‘screw you’ to candidate Park Geun-hye!” “Big ‘screw you’” originated from ‘President Big Screw You,’ a twitter mention written by current lawmaker Seo Ki-ho (then a judge) targeting President Lee Myung-bak. It means ‘I will screw you quite big.’ At that time, Choi’s twitter spread to his 6,400 followers. But he erased this twit after 8 minutes, probably concerning the aftermath.

Politicians are using provocative expressions such as verbal abuses on SNS. It is because they want to receive attention from the public. Politicians want the public to know their presence by using short and provocative terms. It is nothing to compare with a witty remark. It is just a tacky wordplay that harms dignity of language. Lawmakers should be a public figure, regardless of offline and online. It is worried that young generation might learn the low-class languages from some lawmakers.