Keep politics out of the Paichai High controversy

.Lee Hyun-sang

The author is a columnist at the JoongAng Ilbo. 

What shameful adults. That was the thought that came to mind while watching the controversy over the Paichai High School baseball team, which began with players mocking an opposing team during a game. Older generations, who politicize everything and divide every issue by camp, are leaving lasting wounds on children.

The Starbucks Korea controversy that started the chain of events was itself highly political. A campaign that used the word “tank” on the anniversary of the May 18 Gwangju Democratization Movement, a date with profound historical symbolism, was clearly careless. But it is difficult to say it was intentional. The ongoing investigation appears to have made little progress, probably because it was hard to establish criminal suspicion. Yet once President Lee Jae Myung denounced it on social media as the “low-life behavior of vulgar merchants,” the ruling and opposition parties turned the issue into a political weapon during local elections. Amid the partisan clash, the word “Starbucks” became a political meme.

The poet Kim Chun-su wrote, “When I called his name, he came to me and became a flower.” But an ordinary place where people drank coffee became, once named by politics, a poisonous weed of conflict.

Children consume the language polluted by politics as provocative play. The students involved cannot simply be defended. The humiliation and pain felt by those targeted are hard to grasp unless one is in their position. Proper measures must follow. But it is not fair to place all the blame on students. Children do not grow up in a vacuum. It is shameful for adults to demand harsh punishment while evading responsibility.

The standoff between congratulatory and funeral wreaths that filled the road to Paichai High showed how camp politics has damaged our basic humanity. The adults’ crude gang fight is defiling a place of learning.

The Korea Baseball Softball Association’s six-month suspension of the Paichai High baseball team from national tournaments is excessive. It feels less like educational deliberation than a decision made with one eye on public opinion. Students’ wrongdoing should be sternly rebuked. But is it not too cold to block their lives themselves? The penalty is also violent because it carries collective responsibility. It recalls guilt by association, a shadow of the authoritarian era.

The principle of individual responsibility, that no one should be punished for wrongdoing one did not commit, is the foundation of rule of law and democracy. An excessive penalty can turn criticism of wrongdoers into legal sympathy and create a pretext for backlash against victims rightly asking for an apology.

History and regional issues are sensitive. Even stating an opinion requires caution. If one argues that the punishment is excessive, it can sound like tolerating mockery and hatred. If one calls for severe accountability, one is accused of cruelty. But the more an educational problem is trapped in a political frame and expanded into an emotional dispute, the more the essence and healing of a historical tragedy disappear. It is fortunate that Paichai High players, parents and coaches are visiting Gwangju today, July 6, to apologize to Gwangju Jeil High School and pay respects together at the May 18 cemetery. Unlike politicians, those directly involved in education are proving they can resolve and heal the issue themselves.

What politicians should do is turn off the loudspeakers and shut their mouths. Politics created the conditions for this dispute, yet instead of reflecting, politicians were the first to fan the flames. Some ruling party lawmakers even mentioned disbanding the baseball team, while the opposition blamed the ruling party. Politicians should step back so educators and those involved can resolve the matter rationally.

Education Minister Choi Kyo-jin said he would help the students “understand fairness, a rule of sports, and grow into dignified athletes.” I agree. The answer must come from the logic of education, not political camps. Caring for the wounds of the victimized students and giving the offending students another chance to grow are not mutually exclusive. Maintaining that balance is the responsibility of adults.