McCarthyism Alive And Well in South Korea

Eugene McCarthy was a Republican Senator from the American state of Wisconsin during a five year period he managed through his own paranoia to turn American into a country living in fear. What was so frightening that a nation would turn against its own citizens based on circumstantial evidence so flimsy that any objective court would have dismissed any criminal proceedings against those charged. But,these were not normal times the "Reds" were coming as in the Communists and they were hiding everywhere and infiltrating the American government. None of it was true. After a five year reign of terror Senator Eugene McCarthy was censured by the U.S. Senate and the McCarthy era came to an end in America. What if that paranoia was exported not to a nation under communist or authoritarian rule but country considered to be a stanch Allie of the United States? McCarthyism is alive and doing quite well in South Korea thanks to Korea's National Security Law (NSL) which gives the government sweeping powers. Such as the ability to declare any gathering to be illegal, outlaw any group or organization, to arrest and hold anyone considered to be a threat to national security and to make it illegal to travel to North Korea. Those are just some of the powers provided under the NS. Up until 2000 anyone who knowingly traveled to North Korea be tried and imprisoned. Yes, McCarthyism never really went out of fashion in South Korea and it's back with a vengeance reminiscent of the Cold War era you know a Communist under every rock.

On October 19, the South Korean news agency Yonhap reported that about 40 people, public officials and soldiers among them, were under police investigation on suspicion of producing or circulating pro-North materials on the Internet, thus breaking the National Security Law. Specifically, they are "suspected of making or posting materials that extol or propagandize [the North's] virtues on a pro-North website or their personal Internet homepages". [1] The 40 include a Korean Air pilot, named as Kim - that narrows it down! - who allegedly loaded some 60 pro-North posts on a website disguised as being about science. His airline promptly suspended him - for "fear that he would fly northward to defect", said the police

. Because fear is always helpful in selling newspapers Korea's JongAng Ilbo offered up this gem of an editorial:

- on October 21, shrieked: "We now have to fear for the safety of passengers whenever they get on a plane as the pilot may head to North Korea at his discretion at any time with all the passengers on board." As a result, South Koreans "are questioning just how safe they are when they take to the skies".

Next thing you know he'll be flying to Cuba for some Caribbean sun.

Confused as well as paranoid, the writer cites a 1970 hijacking to Pyongyang by Japanese radicals. (They're still there; you almost feel sorry for them.) A better comparison would be a 1969 case from Seoul, which again was a hijacking. But no South Korean commercial pilot has ever flown his plane North, ever. This is sheer McCarthyite scare-mongering, of the kind one expects from the rabidly right-wing Chosun Ilbo. I had thought better of the JoongAng.

source Asia Times