The people are seeing everyone as a whole, true democracy is to cherish each and every individual
– Interview with Cha Myung-jin, a creative politician and former lawmaker
Editor’s Note: The following is an excerpt from an October 15 interview conducted between Cha Myung-jin and Kim Mi-young, the president of VON News. Some parts were edited, and the original version can be seen on VON News’ YouTube channel uploaded on October 16, 2020. Cha currently lives in Gapyeong, Gyeonggi, and works as a political commentator through his YouTube channel called “Cha Myung-jin TV.”
Kim: You participated in the election invalidation lawsuits. What is the progress?
Cha: My case hasn’t received much attention compared to other cases. First of all, I lost by quite a lot in this election. I felt that I might lose when I first decided to run in the April 15 general election. I ran five times now and I get a sense when campaigning in my constituency. Last spring, I felt the overall trend was going to be very unfavorable for our (then) Future United Party. I have my own unique sense that the people who ran for the first time cannot feel – those people who do not have a lot of experience in running in elections and those who only ran in safe places where they could win easily.
Why did you get involved in the election lawsuit?
Overall, I thought that I was doomed to lose. Nevertheless, if even one vote was illegitimate, it’s a problem. For example, if they verified the election results through recounts and say I was to lose by 100 to 50, but the actual results came out as 102 to 48. This clearly violates democracy and is a destruction of democracy.
Was there circumstantial evidence that led you to believe the election was rigged?
There was only one early voting station in Bucheon, and this raised a lot of issues even then. Logically speaking, there were just too many people who voted. Bucheon Shinjoong-dong’s case shows that it was physically impossible to get those results. They argued that soldiers were in line to vote there, but it doesn’t make any sense that it took 4.7 seconds for a voter to cast their votes. I am a bit embarrassed to talk about election fraud, since I lost by a big amount. However, like I’ve said before, we must find out the truth about whether democracy was violated.
The Reality of Conservatives Embracing Kim Jong-un’s Speech
We introduced you as a creative politician based on your satirical editorial cartoons. Today, we would like to hear about your political philosophy.
My philosophy is that “no one is above anyone.” This is a belief that I always had. When I was working with Kim Moon-soo, the former governor of Gyeonggi, I experienced life as a homeless person, and also working with a presidential candidate, this belief grew stronger inside of me. I think it is wrong to say that someone’s belief or philosophy is developed completely from the beginning. I think it is the same case for election fraud. If there is various circumstantial evidence that points to the possibility of election fraud, I think people have the right to doubt.
First of all, humans are not perfect. Secondly, that certain types of people are not superior. Thirdly, that all people are noble. You said you don’t have a particular philosophy, but it sounded like you quickly summarized modern political philosophy.
I think many people see me as an honest person since I actually put such thinking into action, instead of just saying it. North Korea’s Kim Jong-un always talks about people in his speeches. The term ‘people’ in this concept is abstract. There are differences between people as a whole, and people as a group. I think many cannot understand this significant difference and get fooled. There are many people like that among those who call themselves conservative. Kim Jong-un uses the term “all people,” and it makes it clear that he is not using the word ‘people’ to refer to people as individuals.
North Korea often says it focuses on humans, but that simply means that it will focus on its supreme leader. That is what the North Korean regime is built upon. People must understand that every person is noble and has his or her own rights to enjoy. A country is there to guarantee their rights. However, North Korea’s approach is to see people as ordinary people serving the country. I hear arguments made by those who call themselves conservative and I think they are not true liberals. If this is not the case, how could we understand people who are mesmerized by Kim Jong-un’s speeches?
As a person who have previously participated in the labor movement, have your beliefs changed over time?
To be honest, my political and economic stances have changed gradually. I was a socialist and believed in the people’s democracy while I was in college. I said I was a democrat, but I didn’t have a big understanding of what the definition of democracy should be. I think I understood the true meaning of democracy after the impeachment of President Park Geun-hye. After the so-called ‘Sewol Ferry remarks’, I became even more aware of the outrageous oppression. I realized that the term democracy used in this society does not refer to liberal democracy, instead it means people’s democracy. I started to think that this people’s democracy forms the majority – a certain group of people, or certain class of people as a group that exist in reality. After witnessing the cruel character assassination of President Park Geun-hye, I began to think that no one can do such thing to an individual’s character in the name of the majority.
You said the meaning of ‘all people’ was replaced with ‘a person’, and that it was replaced with the ‘supreme leader’. Then the ‘focus of the people’ would shift to ‘focus on the supreme leader’. This kind of North Korean Juche ideology is spreading in the Republic of Korea. It has become a situation where these so-called liberal right-wingers are not even able to realize this fact. I do not know how many politicians are out there who have the same philosophy as you do, which sees every person as noble. All politicians have to be that way, but I cannot find any politician like that.
I said I do not have a philosophy that I can be proud of, because I only realized that fact recently. When it comes to social science issues, I only read books related to Marxism and Leninism. I threw away Juche ideology books, since I knew that they do not make any sense at all from the beginning. I studied liberalism and liberty later on. When I started studying liberalism, I read the Bible and books written by Friedrich Hayek. I was conflicted between the two books and found the difference. In the beginning, I leaned toward Hayek’s ideal, but changed my beliefs toward liberalism based on the New Testament in the Bible. Like you’ve said earlier, I have many artistic characteristics, so it is quite easy for me to get rid of my prejudice. I joined a student activist group in my school on my own, and some even suspected me to be an agent.
I am glad that I asked about your political philosophy. I think that your mind and soul are not hardened like fossils but is quite flexible. You’ve said (your life involved) 20 years of being left-wing and 20 years of being right-wing. I guess you will continue to work as a politician of the Republic of Korea, instead of 20 years on the left and right wings.
During the past year or two, I learned and realized more things than I have learned in my entire life. I felt like my brain and heart was about to explode. For the past year, I fought against the Juche ideology, and I learned that the root of the ideology is so deep that it cannot simply be switched to another. Sometimes, I felt like a defeatist, but at the same time I think we need to have a more fundamental fight with them from now on.
I was never involved with a Juche-following group. I went to do my military service in 1978 and got out in 1981, and by then all the juniors in school fell for the Juche ideology. What I believed in was Marxism-Leninism. We studied together and shared our ideas, and I could not help but laugh when I heard about the Juche ideology. It totally makes no sense, and its basis is very weak. It is like if you have the will for self-reliance, every problem will be solved. There are problems in the world that cannot be solved through self-reliance. They know that it is the case and that is why they choose their god, or the supreme leader.
There is a supreme leader in North Korea and there are many other leaders within Juche groups as well. They do not like the term liberal democracy and do not use it. Recently, a South Korean civil servant was brutally murdered and burnt to death. People praising that should not be called liberal democrats.
The ‘human rights’ used by the Juche regime, including Moon Jae-in, are a concept based on the ideology of seeing people in different classes. The term is not based on respecting the human rights of all individuals. In Korea, liberal capitalism is working actively, and Christianity is well established. Nonetheless, many people see individuals as a group and people find the term “Among our [Korean] race” very familiar. This kind of thinking has no way out and will lead to defeatism. The fight against Juche followers will be long-term.
Don’t Stop the Clock and Evaluate It, But Focus on the Current Problems
Some critics of yours argue that you should have given up everything after studying Marxism and Leninism for 20 years on the left wing and finding the idea wrong and ask why you are still in politics after switching to conservativism. What was the reason that you were attracted to Marxism and Leninism when you were young?
I chose Marxism and Leninism as my belief after reading a biography of Jeon Tae-il (a sewing worker who committed suicide by burning himself to death to protest the poor working conditions of workers). A book that has personal experience has more power to influence people than tens of other books with theories. Another reason was the poverty I experienced when I was young. My father ran a business when I was young, but it did not work out well. Since then, my family’s situation never did improve. As a result, I became dissatisfied with society, but I thought that it would get better to study well and get into Seoul National University. I got into the university, but nothing changed. My anger toward society exploded, and I looked at society through the eyes of classism, the repetition of gap between rich and poor. Once you have such thoughts, they do not change easily. Thinking of people in their 30s and 40s, who were taught by the “Generation 586” (currently in their 50s, went to university in the 1980s and were born in the 1960s), it’s difficult for them to also change. They were taught such ideas before they were fully mature ideologically, and this is why their thinking is not changing.
It is true that our society carries many issues. What I personally experienced back then was that people thought it was a privilege to go to college. I respect those who were responsible for earning household income and working in poor conditions at a young age. The problem is that we have to move forward to the next step once a problem is solved, but we are still stuck in the past. I also think we have to be wary of leftists becoming pro-North Korea and pro-communism.
South Korean people have a tendency to stop the clock when evaluating their own or others’ philosophy and activity. Christians are no exceptions to that. People’s dignity was gradually built over thousands of years. It is the same case for everyone’s own life. The Republic of Korea fixed various problems during the industrialization, and these changes contributed to democratization. Don’t you think we really are heading toward true liberalization? The traditional concept of categorizing people into groups should be changed to focus on values that certain individuals possess. There was a scene in the South Korean TV series “Sandglass” in which the actor Choi Min-soo was awaiting execution and his friend Park Sang-won came up to him and said “During the May 18 Gwangju incident, you were a part of the civilian army, but I was in the country’s army. I am sorry.” Choi Min-soo replied, “The past doesn’t matter. What matters is how a person is living at this moment.” This was my favorite line. We should not focus on how others lived in the past. We have to focus on the overall trend of how the society is moving toward the truth. The clock should not be stopped in order to pursue the truth.
Bureaucrats and Activists Cannot Be Right-wing Alternatives
One of the biggest problems in South Korea is that we are not seeing any alternatives from the right-wing faction. Those people are not well organized yet, so they are being swayed by activist groups such as Juche followers. The election fraud issue did not become popular, and I think it might be due to a lack of conservative alternatives.
The people who are leading the People’s Power lack the philosophy and power to fight. They are not people who can dig into the problems that the Juche followers raise. Many were prosecutors, economy-related civil servants and professors. The common factor between them is that they are not liberals even though they have a conservative ideology.
They are not fighting desperately for liberal democracy. They keep silent or concede even in situations where they have to struggle to make things right.
I call them “lower body conservatives.” They are full of people who believe that their “bellies should be kept warm.” The majority of them had stable jobs before joining politics and they are great on technical issues, such as quoting specific articles and sections of the law. However, I think the emergence of these technical experts into Korean politics is troublesome.
I don’t think they will ever win against the Juche followers. However, I think the People Power Party is already swayed by Juche followers. It’s more shocking when you hear what these young people in the party are saying than what pro-North Korea groups say.
The only way to solve the problem is awakening people. In Korea, political benefits are all derived by the other faction’s mistake. People are gaining power by taking advantage of its opponents’ mistake. Moon Jae-in became president that way, and it was the same for the previous administration. So, do we have to wait for other’s mistakes or, more specifically for Moon Jae-in to make a mistake? I do not think it will be as easy as that. Ultimately, people need to be awakened, and we have to focus on this.
Juche followers have the capability to organize and propagandize and have taken over the judicial branch. It appears that they were instructed on how to maintain their power from North Korea, which created hell that has lasted for 75 years. I think we should train to attack head-on, instead of getting caught in their frame.
Everything has to be seen as one process and flow. The socialism of the past used the method of having people fall into distress in a short period of time. However, it is a totally different situation now. As you can see in Venezuela, it is about gradually having people die voluntarily. Each of us has to wake up and go straight toward the finish line. We should never fall into nihilism or defeatism. We must look at the big picture. We should not just focus on ousting Moon Jae-in and his people right now. We must wake up and mature to move forward to the main goal of defending liberal democracy.
