S. Korea to change national identity from 'free democracy' to 'democracy'

Yonhap ^ | June 2018

[CondoleezzaProtege]

South Korea's government said Thursday it will change the definition of its national and political system from "free democracy" to simply "democracy" in its new guidance for secondary school history textbooks.

In its revised guidance for history textbooks to be used by middle and high school students from 2020, the Ministry of Education also changed 1948 from being the founding year of the Republic of Korea (ROK, or South Korea) to being the founding year of the government of the Republic of Korea.

So far, domestic history textbooks have used both "free democracy" and "democracy" as terms defining the identity of the nation's political system.

Conservatives have contended that the removal of "free" from "free democracy" could lead to mistaken interpretations, such as "social democracy" or "people's democracy," whereas liberals have insisted that "democracy" is a more neutral term.

Regarding the changed definition of the modern nation's founding, the ministry explained that clarifying August 15, 1948, as the day of the foundation of South Korea's government is meant to respect the legitimacy of the provisional Korean government set up during Japan's colonial rule in 1919 and the history of Korea's independence movements.

In a related and controversial move, the revised textbook guidance will say nothing about South Korea being "the only legitimate government on the Korean Peninsula."

[Trumpet 1]

General Park was a dictator. S. Korea became prosperous only after the death of Park. Maybe or maybe not Park was the proper person for S Korea at the time. What we see now is incredible economic activity for S Korea. I have no idea what the changings in a few words in S. Korean textbooks have to do with S. Korea. Stalinist or non-Stalinist type BS. Perhaps, now that they are free they don’t have to claim that they are free?!

[CondoleezzaProtege]

General Park and his wife were both assassinated. His daughter became South Korea’s first female president in 2013 and never finished her term as she is in jail as of 2017. She was impeached on bribery charges, which many argue were politically motivated and highly trumped up..Her prison sentence is 24 years and her health has been ailing.

She also took a far harder and hawkish line on the North. And in my opinion her imprisonment is the elephant in the room in terms of North Korea talks and US/South Korean relations. South Korea’s current leftist government is on overdrive consolidating every segment of society from media to schools around their agenda and numerous figures have either been silenced, fired, or jailed. Lest they interrupt the ultimate goal which is reunification with the North. President Park Geun-Hye being the most high-profile one.

I think the “democracy” semantics are complicated maybe because of Korean-English language barrier making direct translations difficult.

[SoCal Pubbie]

The north is officially the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, so let’s hope it’s not an attempt to soften up the people for reunification.

[CondoleezzaProtege]

(And to clarify, I am not saying reunification is bad goal. But that the current SK government’s terms may be more appeasing than is healthy.)

[Wuli]

The Conservatives in Korea should be more than pissed.

The official name of the government of North Korea is:

Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

[USFRIENDINVICTORIA]

Maybe this all lost (or gained) something in translation. Try as I might, I can’t get worked up about it.

[CondoleezzaProtege]

Yes the article does not give context, but as some other Freepers were saying: semantics matter as North Korea is referred to the DPRK or “Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea” so re-defining South Korea’s use of the word “Democratic” in how it identifies itself likely carries with the agenda to prepare for reunification with the North — for better or worse.