An intense ideology-packed war looms large between the ruling and opposition parties, with the confrontation certain to worsen the already deep left-right schism in Korean society.
The first front of the war is evolving over the government’s plan to supply state-authored Korean history textbooks to middle and high school students. The Education Ministry officially announced the decision Monday.
Officials say that some of the current eight textbooks — supplied by private publishers — that were written by leftist-leaning teachers and professors fail to provide students with a balanced national history.
They also noted that the radical teachers’ union exerts improper influence under the current system in which each school is allowed to select any of the textbooks approved by the government. In fact, the Korean Teachers and Educational Workers Union stirred controversy in 2013 when it led a campaign against some history textbooks which they termed “too rightist.”
It was reported that President Park Geun-hye was behind the government push for publishing state-authored history textbooks, and the ruling party is rallying public support for the plan.
The main opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy has already called the plan a regression to authoritarian rule and proclaimed an all-out war.
The liberal party’s resoluteness can be summed up by the comments of Rep. Sul Hoon, who likened the Park government to the regime of the Nazis, imperialistic Japan, North Korea and the Yushin dictatorship led by the president’s late father, former President Park Chung-hee.
The second major ideological battleground between the rival parties is being set over the ruling camp’s push for revising labor-related laws in line with the reform agreement made by the tripartite committee of labor, management and government last month.
The government and the ruling party want to get the revision bills through the parliament within the current session. The NPAD, which had been left out of the tripartite talks, opposes the plan, with Moon even calling them “evil bills.”
Given this country’s ideological split between conservatives and liberals, both the history textbook dispute and the labor reform proposal are certain to heat up the fight not only in the political community but also in the society as a whole.
What’s worrisome is that the confrontation may go to extremes as both the Saenuri and the NPAD — and their respective conservative and liberal supporters — will not step back ahead of the parliamentary elections scheduled for next April.
What may be overshadowed by the ideological conflicts are important national agendas like the economy, youth unemployment and North Korea.
The National Assembly’s four-day interpellation session will start Tuesday, which will set the tone for the political fight over the textbook and labor reform issues. We only hope that the bout will not derail all the other important state affairs.
