Dictatorship, Democracy and Economic Regime Reflections on the Experience of South Korea Werner Kamppeter, January 2008, FES Korea Rhetoric of Reaction This calligraphy hangs in a jazz club in Sam­cheongdong, a quarter of Seoul in the neighbourhood of the old Royal Palace and the Blue House, the modern Presidential Palace. The writer of this calligraphy was Park Chung Hee, whose photo is to the left of the calligraphy. Park Chung-Hee is considered by many as the father of the Miracle of the Han River, that is, of the economic success story of Korea. He also Calligraphy by Park Chung Hee „ A Strong Country through Saving“ was a fierce dictator, the longer he lasted, the more so. Eventually, he was murdered in 1979 by the head of his own KCIA. Although this was not the end of dictatorial government, opposi­tion movements, paying a heavy toll of blood and repression, gained force and eventually de­mocracy prevailed. Against this historic background, it seems awk­ward to find that calligraphy by Park Chung Hee and a photo of his in a jazz club at only a few hundred meters from the Blue House, as the memories of the atrocities committed by his re­gime are quite vivid still, at least in many peo­ple’s mind. Wouldn’t at least some visitors feel offended by this calligraphy? Or would it, per­haps, have been a sort of sanctuary for opposi­tion forces, as for example in Czechoslovakia where an alternative culture flourished in Jazz Clubs during the Cold War? Well, jazz clubs did not play such a role in Korea and this one in particular, was established only a few years after dictatorship ended in 1987. Thus the mystery remains. Going 10000 kilometres to the west, in Spain, one comes across, not less surprising, portraits of Generalissimo Francisco Franco. In Spain, there are people and conserva­tive newspapers, which harbour considerable goodwill and positive feelings toward the former dictator Francisco Franco. In fact, quite like in Korea, one easily discovers elements of a“rheto­ric of reaction”, the title of a book written by Albert Hirschman in 1991 1 , in public discourses in both countries. One of the basic motives of such rhetoric of reaction is the defence and even glorification of the orderly past and the con­demnation of democratic discord and of liberal disorderliness. Interestingly, in both countries the conservative party in recent years had lost elec­tions against all expectations. There could lie one key for understanding the riddle: Leftist govern­ments quite naturally offer a fertile ground for the proliferation of the rhetoric of reaction. In Korea, the glorification of Park Chung Hee began in the middle of the 1990s. In an opinion survey by one of the large conservative newspa­pers in Korea in April 1997, 75.9 percent of the respondents selected Park Chung Hee as the president who had fulfilled his duties best. A mere 3.7 percent selected President Kim Young Sam, who held office at that time. An opinion poll by the government produced a comparable outcome: Among the historic personalities of Korea, Park Chung Hee occupied with 23.4 per­cent the first place in the esteem of the respon­dents, followed by King Sejong, the famous 4 th ruler of Choson Dynasty(1392-1910) with 18.8 percent, and General Yi Sun-Shin, who van­1 Albert O. Hirschman, The Rhetoric of Reaction. Perver­sity, Futility, Jeopardy. Belknap Press, Harvard University Press, 1991.