On July 17th, members who belonged to the extreme right conservative party ‘Korea Parent Federation’ showed up in Gwanghwamun, where Sewol ferry victims’ families have been holding a hunger strike. The families have held the hunger strike since July 14th for enacting a Sewol bill. ‘Korea Parent Federation’ made a commotion and abused the families. They said, “Parents are responsible for the Sewol ferry disaster.” In addition, conservative civic group of mothers showed up with picket signs that said, “The Sewol ferry disaster is sad. However designating victims as ‘martyrs’ and giving preference in university are unreasonable.” Then, they interrupted the hunger strike. These two parties have always raised the standard of revolt against liberal actions. Assistant Prof. Park Sang-hee(Dept. of the Psychology) said about the psychology of these parties, “People see the world through a structure of knowledge and beliefs called ‘schema’. Some people tend to have an overly simplistic and stereotypical mental picture of others who disagree with them. For example, for strong supporters of the current government, those who express even slight criticism of the government can be seen as anti-government and even as ‘enemies of the state’. Such perception can lead to demonization of others and, accordingly, clashes between the two sides. This phenomenon is often observed on both ends of the ideological spectrum and is not necessarily limited to the political right.”
  The common points of these two parties are that their political bias is ‘extreme right’ and that they believe the contents of the bill are inaccurate. Their point is that the families use the bill as a political tool. CBT surveyed 456 CBNU students for their recognition about the Sewol bill. According to this survey, 71.5% of students didn’t know about bill’s contents. Some students even said, “No interest in Sewol bill.” Besides, 30% of students were negative about the families’ demonstration.
  People weren’t indifferent to the families at first. Immediately after the disaster, many people conducted polls about the bill. Many people participated in candlelight vigils in Sungan-gil. However, a student who has antipathy toward the families’ demonstration, said, “I think unreasonable criticism toward the government and the president should stop. Also, they are agitating people and spreading incorrect views of the government, so they should be strongly suppressed.” Meanwhile, there is a common thing between the students who are negative toward the families and the ‘extreme right conservative party’. The thing is that they think the families are politically abusing the bill.
  There are lots of rumors about the contents of the bill which are spreading on the internet. For example, the two main rumors are about ‘giving preference in taking the university’ and ‘designating martyrs’. They are not the families’ ideas but the ruling parties’ ideas. Families are focusing on getting to the bottom of the Sewol disaster and preventing recurrence in the bill. The Saenuri party and the party New Politics Alliance for Democracy(NPAD) asserted these contents. Families didn’t demand ‘to give advantage to victims’ families when they enter the university’ or ‘designating martyrs’.
  Finally, civilian victims’ families, not including Danwon high school’s victims’ families, accepted the agreement of the ruling parties on August 25th. NPAD proposed trilateralism, but Saenuri party was negative about this.

By Oh Ah-ra

ar34@cbnu.ac.kr