Mad Cow and Melamine
October 4, 2008 | News, Opinion |
The Chinese baby milk scandal has reached Korea too. Hundreds of products containing Chinese dairy, ranging from baby milk to chocolate bars to crackers to potato chips, have been recalled. Import of dairy products from China has been banned, and the issue of food safety is once again at the top of everyone’s minds. Four babies have died in China because of melamine contamination, and it is said that more may follow. In the midst of this crisis, some pro-government donkeys are asking why there is no candlelight protest against Chinese baby milk as there was (and still is) against U.S. beef.
Above: President Lee visits Korea Food and Drug Administration to discuss the melamine contamination. He was later criticized for not taking the outbreak seriously enough. Reportedly, he asked why melamine was not listed as one of the ingredients on this box of snack. Does he even know that the problem has to do with Chinese dairy, which is listed? Or was he simply too tired after his recent visit to Russia?
Kim Chang-Joon (also known as Jay C. Kim; not to be confused with the person who made the videos linked in this website’s “Downloads” section), a Korean-American politician who was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1993 to 1999, made a remark about his homeland a couple of days ago. According to Mr. Kim, the absence of protests against Chinese baby milk is evidence that last summer’s protests against U.S. beef was nothing more than a product of rampant anti-Americanism.
Jeon Yeo-Ok, a devoted member of President Lee’s Hannara Party, quickly came up with another reason why we’re not protesting. According to Ms. Jeon, the Korean People are now well aware of the fact that their past concerns about U.S. beef were totally unfounded. Having realized that they had been fooled, Koreans, says Ms. Jeon, refuse to be fooled once again into a frenzy.
Was that it? Does our response to the Chinese baby milk scandal prove anything about last summer’s U.S. beef controversy, which hasn’t quite ended yet? If that were so, President Lee’s supporters would be very happy. As I’ve noted in Issues in Depth: U.S. Beef Imports, Part Three, some pro-government newspapers had even contradicted their own past reports in order to “prove” that U.S. beef carried zero risk of BSE!
Too bad, they just shot themselves in the foot.
Professor Jin Joong-Kwon, a well-known critic of the government who has obtained the status akin to that of a pop star since the protests began in May, responded yesterday to Mr. Kim and Ms. Jeon by listing the following as “conditions under which the Chinese baby milk scandal could become like the U.S. beef controversy”:
(1) The Chinese government threatens South Korea not to stop importing Chinese dairy products;
(2) President Lee accepts that request;
(3) The Korean government agrees to keep importing Chinese dairy products even if more deaths follow;
(4) The Korean government runs ads in every major newspaper, saying Chinese dairy products are safe;
and so on.
So according to Prof. Jin, the reason the Chinese baby milk scandal hasn’t made us take to the streets with candles in our hands is simply because, fortunately, none of the conditions above has been met. In other words, our government is currently doing a pretty good job keeping melamine-contaminated products off the shelves — notwithstanding President Lee’s stupid remark about labels, noted above.
And this actually makes a lot of sense. It’s not as if we make a living out of protesting. (Only a few of us do, and they’re called “professional activists”.) Especially when there is a very high chance of getting arrested and/or beaten up simply because we say something the government doesn’t like to hear, we don’t take to the streets for no particular reason. Those candlesticks cost money, too! When things are going reasonably well, we mind our own business. That’s what citizens of a modern industrialized nation are like.
But perhaps, President Lee’s supporters would like to paint us as something different. Maybe they think of us as a monstrous enemy who would rise up against them at every single opportunity. Too bad, these folks can’t even appreciate it when we silently tell them that they’re doing a decent job this time.