What they said (Park Geun-hye gets it wrong on 'The Da Vinci Code')

I have little to add to the extensive coverage at Oranckay and the Marmot's Hole (largely quoting Oranckay) of Park Geun-hye's offering to "go to the National Assembly and see what can be done about it legally."  The "it" in this case is presumably banning The Da Vinci Code from Korean theaters.

While I have some quibbles with Oranckay's post (his use of "Talibanesque" is over the top and he confuses democracy with liberty), he is basically spot on in his criticism of Park's support of trying to stop the movie juxtaposed with her support for human rights for North Koreans.  While there is certainly no equivalency between trying to ban a movie and what is going on in North Korea, her conduct here does raise suspicions about Park's true commitment to human liberty.

The main point of his post was bash Park and the Christian Council of Korea, but it does demonstrate a central dilemma that Korean advocates for North Korean human rights face.  Some on the Korean right seem most interested in NK human rights as an issue with which to bash the Roh administration, which has caused some on the left remain silent on the issue or even speak out against it (although that might just be an excuse for them to not do what they were not going to do in the first place).

That is a problem I talked about in a post at the Marmot's Hole last week:

I had a (very, very small) part in helping organize the Seoul Summit for North Korean Human Rights and blogged it for One Free Korea (archived at the Korea Liberator).  During my time at the summit and at related events, I personally only saw one member of the Uri party participate while I noted the presence of several GNP leaders.  If the members of Uri party don’t even bother to show up, how can they help but concede the issue to the GNP?  You can’t play if you don’t show up at the game.

Part of the problem is that the human rights issue reinforces the preexisting views of the parties towards North Korea.  It fits the GNP’s view that the Kim Jong-il regime is really, really bad while it flies in the face of the Uri belief that it can be reasoned with.

I’ll give one example of how that reality has effected efforts in the ROK on behalf of North Korean human rights.  The group Liberty in North Korea (Seoul chapter) has been meticulous about remaining non-partisan and non-religious, to the point where they refused an offer of free office space in Seoul from one of the Korean ‘new right’ organizations.  So what happens when they host a symposium in Seoul?  They get a protest from leftist students.

BTW, LiNK meets every Saturday afternoon.  If you want to help, email them.

UPDATE:  This post kind of touches on why I am a LiNK groupie, rather than a member.  While I fully support what they are doing, what I would like the Korea branch of the organization to be excludes me somewhat.  LiNK is getting more Korean members and I hope that LiNK-Seoul meetings will soon be conducted mostly in Korean and I am a monolingual English speaker.  LiNK is non-partisan and I am anything but nonpartisan.  That later concern will become less relevant as more liberals and leftists join.