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[These Two Scenes] The “Human Stand” and the “Imperial Umbrella”
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As opposition leader Jang Dong-hyeok and other party leaders and officials were being briefed by the Korea Rural Community Corporation on the drought situation, a bizarre and shocking scene was captured. Two working-level employees of the Korea Rural Community Corporation were crouching on the ground under the blazing sun, supporting a large briefing board with their hands and heads.
Several years have passed since the so-called “imperial umbrella” controversy of August 2021, when a man knelt with both knees on wet asphalt in pouring rain while holding an umbrella over the vice minister of justice. Yet the scene on the ground has changed surprisingly little. Only the place and the form have changed; the essence remains exactly the same. It is an anachronistic authoritarianism in which the public sector and political establishment treat lower-level workers not as human beings with dignity, but as “tools” and “disposable props” for staging their on-site appearances.
In particular, the opposition leadership cannot avoid criticism for its disregard for basic human dignity in insisting on holding an outdoor briefing under the scorching sun, supposedly in order to attend to people’s livelihoods. There was only one reason to insist on an outdoor briefing in such extreme heat: to take “a single photograph” showing the leadership working hard in the field and present it to the public. The result of this obsession with showmanship and image-making was the stark exposure of an arrogant sense of privilege, with neither pragmatism nor even the most basic sensitivity to human dignity anywhere to be found.
No normal private company would operate this way. In such extreme heat, common sense dictates that a detailed briefing should be conducted efficiently in a cool meeting room, followed by a quick inspection of only the key areas on site based on what was reported. After all, the original purpose of a field visit is not theatrical staging but “inspection” and “problem-solving.” Yet forcing an outdoor briefing in extreme heat for “one shot for the cameras” and reducing working-level employees to props merely demonstrates the political establishment’s lack of pragmatism.
After the controversy erupted, party leaders and aides explained that they “did not know there were people behind the panel” and belatedly apologized. But by then, the bus had already left.
It is simply implausible that, in a space crowded with dozens of party officials, aides and on-site personnel, not a single party official noticed this grotesque scene. Someone among the party officials or aides present must have seen what was happening, yet not one person recognized it as a problem or immediately informed the party leader and stopped the briefing.
Even if the leadership truly did not know, as it claims, that does not absolve it of responsibility. It would instead demonstrate how indifferent they were to the conditions at the site and to the labor of others—so indifferent that they failed to notice workers suffering under the blazing sun right before their eyes. If they knew and allowed it to continue, on the other hand, it would reveal an arrogant authoritarianism and sense of privilege that takes the sacrifice of working-level employees for granted. The disturbing image of such dehumanizing stagecraft is too vivid in the public mind to be erased by a belated apology, and the damage already done to the party’s image will also be difficult to reverse.
The media, too, cannot escape criticism. If reporters witnessed an obvious affront to human dignity and such an absurd situation unfolding before their eyes, they should have immediately alerted those in charge and helped put an end to it. Instead, the media allowed it to continue. The lack of journalistic ethics shown by standing by until the end—rather than correcting the abuse taking place on site, apparently allowing it to become sensational “news material”—also deserves criticism.
The tragedy is that a visit supposedly intended to examine the hardships of farmers suffering from drought instead became a stage on which working-level employees were forced to crouch under the scorching sun. It shows just how backward our politics and public administration remain, and how deeply obsessed they are with appearances and theatrical staging.
jinannkim@gmail.com
#HumanDignity #PoliticalShowmanship #WorkplaceRespect
* This article has been translated by ChatGPT.