What if local autonomy, above all, fails?

The corrupt local autonomy demands an urgent fix.

Lee Ha-kyung

The author is a senior columnist of the JoongAng Ilbo. The biggest shame of the 2023 World Scout Jamboree held on the reclaimed tidal flat of Saemangeum on the west coast had been the filthy toilets. During the basic military training in the boot camp in Nonsan in 1979, it banned the conscripts from using the toilet for defecation to avoid the hassle of cleaning. We all had to suffer constipation. But we wrote in our censored letters to our family that we were doing okay. It sticks as a brutal memory.

After four decades, Korea has become a matured democracy and stands amongst the advanced ranks. Yet toilets became the country’s biggest disgrace in the Jamboree. Over 43,000 teenagers from 158 countries arrived at the vast camp site for their first global scout gathering since the pandemic, yet the host had installed only 354 toilets — one for every 121.5 people. The toilets with the bad smell had to be unclogged often. One worker had to take care of ten dirty toilets, instead of two. Shower booths and drinking water were also in short supply. Prime Minister Han Duck-soo had to personally inspect and clean the toilets in a symbolic apologetic gesture. Where did the budget of 117.1 billion won ($87.8 million) for the event go?

The participants in the Jamboree are not conscripts. They are carefree teenagers, unfamiliar with unkempt toilets and showers and camping out at an infested wetland. Over 1,000 got sick and others were disgusted and enraged by the ridiculous charges for necessities there. They live-streamed the disaster zone resembling a refugee camp with their smartphones. Korea’s reputation for IT, chip, car, battery technologies and K-pop all fell flat. The only relief was the hastily-organized K-pop concert in Seoul.

The blame game between the previous and incumbent governments is useless. The truth behind the poor preparations over the past six years must be found not to repeat such a fiasco in the future. You can hardly blame the North Jeolla provincial government and local politicians for bidding for the Jamboree in hopes to add impetus to the long-delayed infrastructure development of Saemangeum. But they must answer if they merely had eyes on the budget of 2 trillion won by colluding with local builders instead of thoroughly preparing for a successful event.

The 2015 Jamboree in Japan was also held at a tidal flat. But the land had been reclaimed 50 years ago. The event was successfully staged at just one third of the budget spent on Saemangeum. But the camp site in Saemangeum was a vast muddy flat. Although the project fell under the tourism and leisure category, the land was reclaimed for farming purpose in order to receive 184.5 billion won from the state reserve for farmland management. The local host did not keep its promise to build a forest over the campground. Instead, it pent most of its money and time filling the wetland.

The local government and politicians campaigned for construction of an international airport for Jamboree visitors. Despite the unfavorable cost-benefit analysis on the 800 billion won construction, it was exempted from the mandatory feasibility review. Yet the construction has yet to begin. The opening of the airport is slated for 2029. Suspicions are endless.

Workers draining one of the mud puddles formed after rain on Aug. 2 when the 2023 World Scout Jamboree took place on the reclaimed land of Saemangeum, North Jeolla.

The central government also cannot avoid the responsibility. There were three ministers among the five co-chairs of the organizing committee. But who was in command was ambiguous. During a legislative audit last October, Kim Hyun-sook — the minister of gender equality and family in primary charge of the event — promised that the ministry was fully prepared against torrential rains, typhoons and the scorching heat wave. But it was the opposite.

Upon meeting Korea’s dissident leader Kim Dae-jung shortly after the assassination of president Park Chung Hee in 1979, Harvard University Prof. Edwin Reischauer — an authority on the history of East Asia and the American ambassador to Japan — stressed that Korea urgently needed to institutionalize local autonomy as democracy begins from it, according to Kim Dae-jung’s memoir. Local autonomy was initiated by founding president Syngman Rhee, but was scrapped by general-turned-strongman Park Chung Hee. Dissident lawmaker Kim Dae-jung campaigned for the revival of the autonomy from when he joined the parliament in 1963. He even went on a hunger strike for 13 days in 1990 to achieve it. Thanks to his crusade, the autonomy system was revived in 1991. After Kim became the president in 1998, he was disappointed at the corrupt local autonomy. His aide relayed his message to me to investigate and write pieces critical of local governments colluding with local cartels of interests. Local powers today are more shameless — and yet more powerful — than then.

“What is pre-modern in the morning, modern in the afternoon, and post-modern in the evening? The wise Sphinx posed the riddle. The answer is South Korea […] The three time zones converge in our reality. We have become a monster,” wrote Shin Hyung-cheol in his essay book “The Downfall of Ethica.” This is our existential condition. We may think we have come this far, but in actuality, we remain caged in the pre-modern structure. When we solve a problem, two or three more get in our way. “When the wall came down, we found we were surrounded by many walls,” wrote poet Lee Moon-jae.

The corrupt local autonomy demands an urgent fix. We first need to hear an ethical resolve and mea culpa from all parties to fix the aporia of synchronism of the asynchronism.