[imText1]It is said that Jeong Sung San (38), who has produced a musical dealing with a North Korean political prison as a matter subject , is under pressure from the administration.
The administration concerned is said to have required lower degree of expressions, saying “the degree of expressions is too high”. Moreover, the sponsoring theater suddenly withdrew the theater-lending plan and the investor who was supposed to invest three hundred million Won retracted his early promise. There is a rumor that the theater and the investor got pressured from the administration.
Democratic Reformation of the Roh Administration is ‘Ideological Camouflage’
Jeong, the director of ‘Yodok story’, is producing a musical consisting of stories in a North Korean political prison. The stories are tragic ones where millions of prisoners are required to engage in heavy labor for 14 hours a day, while being whipped, living on meals of a handful of stiff corn and a spoon of salt a day, and executed by being hit with hundreds and thousands of stones.
It is unknown what is disagreeable to the administration. Yet, though being offensive, there is no legal ground for the administration to raise an objection against the degree of expressions and the content of director Jeong’s work. It is because ideology, consciousness, and freedom of expression are the universal values and institutional principles of liberal democracy.
The fact that the administration directly required director Jeong to adjust the expression is a frontal challenge against democracy as well as freedom of expression. The Roh Moo Hyun administration is the one that has always emphasized democracy and reformation.
This incident clarifies that the democracy and the reformation the Roh Moo Hyun administration defined in its slogan were just in the end ‘ideological camouflage’ to gain political hegemony. If not, how could the administration use the illegally and politically anti-democratic suppression?
Stop the Threat and the Deception Using Power
There is one more matter that should be indicated. North Korean defectors tend to show a low profile in front of pressure from the administration. This is the instinct unconsciously learned under the strict Kim Il Sung dictatorship system, so that if they stand before the administration, their thoughts and actions shrink unintentionally. The administration in question nastily took advantage of this aspect.
The administration quietly threatened director Jeong ‘for your musical presents a portrait of Kim Il Sung and North Korean songs, it can be in violation of the National Security Law. Director Jeong is one of the North Korean defectors. If he were a South Korean musical director, the administration could not make such a nasty threat to him. Furthermore, though the content of his musical was not relevant to the violation of the Nation Security Law, it said ‘the musical could violate the National Security Law’. It told ‘a lie’ to him.
We object to ‘democracy’, ‘reformation’ and ‘peace’ as defined in the Roh Moo Hyun administration’s own way which covers up the wretched reality of the North Korean political prisoners who are living as animals in political prisons with political suppression, the nasty threat and the disgraceful lie.
This is because we believe that true democracy, reformation and peace can be acquired not by reducing freedom, concealing human rights abuses and leaving national tragedies, but by enhancing freedom, accusing human rights abuses and solving national tragedies.
