The Yoon Seok-yeol administration, which has been in its second year in power, is raising the color theory of anti-communism and perishing communism and overturning history. Inside the ruling party, the process of ‘normalizing’ the erroneous former government policy is given meaning as ‘establishing national identity right’, but, like General Hong Beom-do’s courtesy, even issues that already have a wide national consensus regardless of left and right are drawn into outdated ideological debates and public opinion. Criticism for causing division is strong.

A presidential office official said on the 28th that the Ministry of National Defense’s push to remove the bust of General Hong Beom-do and the Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs’ opposition to the establishment of the ‘Jeong Yul-seong Historical Park’ were “not correct to view as a historical debate or color theory,” and said, “It is about the identity of the Republic of Korea.” Officially, the President’s office is drawing a line saying that this is “promoted by the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs,” and that it has nothing to do with President Yoon Seok-yeol. Internally, however, the majority of interpretations suggest that the government policy announced through the mouths of the heads of the Ministry of National Defense and Patriots and Veterans Affairs is not different from the president’s opinion. It is said that there is no minister in the current government who can go against President Yoon’s wishes or at least push ahead without understanding his intentions.

Recent moves by the Ministry of National Defense and others are read in the same context as President Yoon’s will to ‘exterminate communist totalitarian forces’, which was explicitly revealed in his last Liberation Day congratulatory speech, and the flow of exclusion from North Korea, China, and Russia revealed in the process of strengthening triangular cooperation among South Korea, the United States, and Japan.

In fact, President Yoon’s rightward movement, with history and ideology as a link, was considerable during the presidential election process and in the early days of his presidency. In February 2022, 15 days before the presidential election, at the campaign site in Hongseong, Chungcheongnam-do, President Yoon targeted the Democratic Party and said, “To these few who are immersed in the leftist revolutionary theory, dreamers who are trying to gradually transform our society into a socialist country rather than a free democracy, Korean politics Can I leave the future to you?” he said with a strong color theory. On the 28th of the same month, at a campaign in Gangneung, Gangwon Province, he shouted, “I hate communism more than anyone else and have a strong view of national security.” “The pro-North Korea faction is an anti-state force and an anti-constitutional force. It is impossible to negotiate with them” (Last October, People’s Power outside the hospital luncheon meeting with the chairman of the party committee), he also made a harsh remark. However, up to this point, ideological messages were interpreted as “customized messages” targeting supporters and party members, and were interpreted as remarks intended to unite them.

However, after a year in power, the frequency and intensity of confrontational perceptions of ‘liberal democracy vs. communist totalitarianism’ became more frequent and more intense, revealing an extreme tendency even in messages to the people. At the April 19 commemoration ceremony, President Yoon argued that “those who threaten democracy take the side of dictatorship and totalitarianism, but outwardly they pretend to be democracy activists and human메이저사이트 rights activists.” In the Liberation Day congratulatory speech on the 15th, he repeatedly emphasized that “remembering properly (the ancestors who threw everything for the freedom, independence, and universal values ​​of the motherland) is the key to the national identity and continuity of the Republic of Korea,” and “blindly obeying communist totalitarianism, Anti-state forces distorting public opinion and disrupting society through manipulation and incitement are still active,” he criticized.

In his commemorative speech at the event targeting the entire nation, the president took the lead in taking sides rather than unification. In addition, the intensity of criticism has become stronger than before, such as stigmatizing those who are critical of the government as ‘threats to democracy and have a distorted sense of history’.

President Yoon’s remarks and the recent government-initiated historical and ideological debates are characterized by targeting critics of the government and emerging in the process of “overturning” the previous government. Regarding this, Professor Choi Chang-ryeol of Yongin University (political science) told the Hankyoreh, “The anti-Japanese struggle in the 1920s was overwhelmingly left-wing, but President Yoon seems to think only of the ‘Soviet Communist Party’ and ‘Reds’.” I see it as a lack of historical awareness. It is much more serious than Lee Myung-bak’s National Foundation Day and Park Geun-hye’s controversy over state-issued history textbooks.”

Some point out that the government’s extreme rightward move eventually causes division within the conservative forces. Chae Jang-soo, a professor of political science and diplomacy at Kyungpook National University, said, “Even if the intention was to mobilize conservative votes, only the regime’s style of pushing forward with far-right beliefs stood out.” It turns out that they are not an ideological group that can claim consistent conservatism.”