(S. Korea) Our own wall of injustice

[unhappycamper]

http://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/article/article.aspx?aid=2987614

If we do not fix discrepancies in justice and welfare, we cannot earn the confidence of North Koreans.

Our own wall of injustice
Apr 09,2014
Lee Ha-kyung

Are we really ready for unification? The extreme polarization underscored by two polar opposite pieces of news - a former corporate chairman who, thanks to his connections, didn’t have to pay his multibillion won fine in exchange for a day’s prison labor worth 500 million won ($475,150) and the suicides of a mother and her two adult daughters - raises skepticism.

President Park Geun-hye in a speech at Dresden University of Technology in Germany late last month elaborated on her vision for peaceful unification. Her dovish gambit comes even as North Korea returned to saber-rattling with nuclear threats and missile tests. The United States sticks to its so-called strategic patience, and China is quite happy with the status quo. Seoul proposed a package of reconciliatory aid, exchanges and cooperation as well as denuclearization endeavors.

It was a decisively flexible approach compared to the stern tit-for-tat attitude of the South Korea-U.S. alliance during the Lee Myung-bak administration. North Korea warns of a fourth nuclear test, but we responded with a peaceful gesture. Park has chosen an entirely new direction for the ultimate goal of unification. But idealism aside, we have to ask ourselves if South Korea poses as attractive an alternative for North Koreans.

The bench “awarding” a local tycoon 500 million won for a day’s prison labor exposes the loopholes and dangers of the justice system in this country. Ordinary working-class people cannot dream of earning that kind of money in their lifetime. The country has unfairly discriminated the value of labor and life when it deducted a wealthy businessman 500 million won off his dues from breaking the law. Just months ago, an elderly woman and her 30-something daughters ended their own lives in their home’s cold basement because they could no longer survive. For whom does this nation and community exist? If we do not fix the discrepancies in justice and welfare, we cannot earn the confidence of North Koreans.