The New Insiders in Korea

In most countries, a jail term is something best avoided if you plan to become a public servant. But in South Korea, that might actually be an asset in government.

That's according to Korean writer B.J. Lee in 2003.

Referring to President Roh Moo-hyun's government, Lee noted that the presidential Blue House seemed to be hosting a "reunion of former prison inmates." Of the 30 or so presidential secretaries, 10 were former prisoners who were imprisoned for fighting the military regimes in the 1970s or 1980s.

As students, these former prisoners led anti-government street protests that eventually toppled the military regime in 1987. But before that, they spent their youthful years in dark cells under constant torture and harassment.

As Lee noted, the ascendancy of Mr. Roh and other former social outsiders signalled "a major power shift in Korea's rigid society." But what this meant for the country's future was yet to be seen.

"With democracy pretty much in, and bad old dictatorship out, the new Korean leaders might feel lost with no passion in their lives. Their inexperience might put the country at risk, particularly when North Korea's nuclear weapons program is heightening military tensions on the Korean peninsula and in Northeast Asia. The young leaders liberal and often radical ideas and policies could destabilize society, hurting the economy's long-term competitiveness."

"Many Koreans look at Mr. Roh and his generation as selfless patriots willing to sacrifice themselves for the good of the people. They have done that when they were young and on the outside. Now older and wiser, they have to do it again - this time as insiders.