What Park Geun Hye could have done as a leader

This is the picture of the sunken ferry-boat called Sewol from “todayszaman.com”. The ship capsized on April 16th, 2014. And on that day, roughly three hundred people were trapped in the ship.

On April 16^th 2014, many Koreans were appalled to find out that a ferry-boat named Sewol capsized while crossing an ocean near Jindo Island. The ferry-boat carried 476 passengers, many of whom were high school students going on a field trip to Jeju Island. Initially, the media reported that most passengers were rescued. But, every hour, the news proved to be wrong. On that night, the government officials announced that more than three hundred people were still trapped in that sunken ship. This was the worst accident since the collapse of the Sampoong Department Store in 1995, which killed 501 people.

Until then, most people still had hope that these victims would be rescued soon, and I volunteered to work for these victims’ families in a gymnasium at Jindo. Upon arrival, however, I found out that the scale of this tragedy exceeded an individual’s capacity. I was just another spectator. Frequently, we just learned about another failure of government agents’ mission to rescue the people. As the people’s frustration mounted, a new government official came to calm them down. After endless rounds of the people’s rants and the new officials’ apologies, the president, Park Geun Hye, finally came in response to the people’s demands.

President Park promised to rescue the missing passengers, but her promise wasn’t fulfilled.

According to Max Weber in the Politics as a Vocation, political leaders are special in a sense that people obey the leader, and thus the leader also has resources to save his people. Everyone in the gymnasium expected the same. Yet, such expectation wasn’t met. Despite the president’s promise to seek any method possible to rescue the people, nothing happened. The government officials consistently procrastinated in their missions and they misinformed people that they were in full operation. At that point, it was clear to everyone that the government had already given up hope to rescue the people.

Later, President Park visited a memorial set for the dead students in Ansan city. She apologized to the acquaintances of the dead ones and the survivors for the government’s failure to keep them safe. Unfortunately, the people in the building didn’t accept the apology and dismissed it. They had no respect for the leader who didn’t save their children.

In one sense, Ms. Park may not have deserved such treatment. Everyone, including the victims’ families, recognized the grim reality that not many people would have survived in the firsthand. It was nearly impossible to rescue the passengers in the sunken ship. The ocean near Jindo is notorious for its strong underwater current. A normal human-being cannot survive for a long time in cold water. And, it was rainy most of the days in the prime time to rescue the missing passengers. If Ms. Park forced more rescue workers to dive into the water, she would have been criticized for leading more people to unnecessary death. So, in certain aspect, Ms. Park’s reaction to the accident could be justified as a rational choice as a leader.

Even following Weber’s argument, it may be difficult to explain why she must be criticized as a political leader. Weber suggests that a great political leader must demonstrate three characteristics: passion, judgment, and responsibility. After all, Weber argues that a leader’s action can be justified when it brings a good consequence. Unfortunately, for this particular case, it was impossible for a leader to make a positive outcome, regardless of Ms. Park’s decision to enforce the rescue missions or not. So what could she have done as a successful leader?

Two siblings are waiting for their families to come back at the harbor.

Then, Weber provides an answer. He states that when a mature leader, aware of his responsibility, acts with ethics to the point where he announces his stance and explains what he won’t do, people will be moved by the leader. In other words, a leader must speak with full hearts and act on whatever he can for the people. These traits were absent in Ms. Park’s leadership. Facing the victims’ families, she acted as if she listened to their suggestions and pretended that she would act on them. But, she didn’t. She just lied to the crowd on that day and misinformed the general public about the rescue mission.

What the president should have done was to enumerate possible options and its predicted outcomes, and draw a line on what she will do at the prime time of rescuing mission. If she found the country by itself couldn’t achieve a certain goal, then she should have asked for immediate help from other countries to fulfill her promises. After all, she should have shown her passion and commitment as a leader who, according to the Korean Constitution, has a responsibility to save her people in jeopardy.

On the day when Ms. Park stepped into the gymnasium and faced the victims’ families, she was afraid to make her stance in front of the crowd. She didn’t want to look inept for that moment. So she pretended to listen to the people and deceived them. For that moment, she wanted to avoid people’s rants. But, eventually, such attitude brought worse consequences, of which Weber would not have allowed.