tion developed a new, widespread consciousness of social and political affairs which could not be ignored.
At the same time, it was becoming clear that Korea would remain divided for some time to come. Rhee's trident calls for a "March North" were quietly dropped and a new national identity for the South was becoming acceptable. The government has sought to make this meaningful by stressing that reunification—still the cherished goal of all Koreans—would become possible through diligence and discipline, and by building up South Korea's economy until it left the North far behind in any kind of competition.
The emphasis on the program of economic development and modernization has lent a certain elan to the government's efforts, but it also has tended to obscure some of Pak's more arbitrary acts that contravene constitutional procedures and civil liberties. Yet something more than the dramatic success of the economic development program was needed. Nationalistic exhortations voiced in a superpatriotic vein have reappeared and remain a perennial theme, but with diminishing effect. Memories of the Korean war are fading, particularly among the young, who might recall at most the discredited Rhee's abuse of the national defense theme. Shortly after they seized power in 1961, the military leaders promptly called for "spiritual" as well as economic modernization, incorporating these goals in an ambitious, if short-lived, National Reconstruction Movement that stressed austerity, diligence, and "national morality." After that particular program was phased out, President Pak elaborated a "National Renaissance: Social Reconstruction and the Remaking of Man" in Korea. He called for new ethics, stressing the deficiencies of his people in the pioneering of entrepreneurial spirit and in a sense of national honor.
A man of grim and austere mien, Pak had always displayed the puritanical steak that was characteristic of the young colonels who had organized the coup. Their suspicion of "corrupt politicians and capitalists" is reminiscent of attitudes held by young officers in prewar Japan, whose influence Pak undoubtedly felt in his formative years. Despite his interest in economic modernization, Pak has a distrust of Western beliefs; at the time of the coup he had had less contact with Americans that most senior officers. He disparages Western liberalism and "Americanizing" influences, and the "Revitalizing Reforms" he has enacted since late 1972 include a reduction in the hours of English taught in the schools and the introduction of "national education" in Korean ethics and history. Western term are to be replaced on shop signs and Western "pop" songs discouraged.
Ever since its earliest days, the present regime has made periodic efforts to "clean up" the cities, whose "debilitating" influence Pak deeply distrusts. Hundreds of hoodlums, petty criminals, and prostitutes have been apprehended and removed from the capital for varying periods of rustication. Shortly after the coup, coffee-drinking and nightclub dancing were banned for a time, and more recently, legislation has been directed against "decadent tendencies" such as miniskirts, long hair, and the like. To discourage the drift to cities and keep Koreans "down on the farm" a broad new program has been enacted to make the tax burden much less onerous for rural and small town inhabitants and to improve living conditions there.
Despite this evident dislike of foreign influences and the effects of urbanization, Pak likes to think of himself as playing a modernizing and westernizing role like that of Peter the Great of Russia, the Meiji emperor of Japan, or Ataturk of Turkey. His recent reforms, like the early National Reconstruction Movement, combine ethical exhortations with broad economic measures and call for a balance between the spiritual and the material, the East and the West. Some of the "Revitalizing Reforms" enforce Confucian structures while others—more sumptuary in intent—curtail the practice of deeply engrained Confucian rights. In May 1973, "Mothers Day" was converted to "Parents Day" to stress filial piety and respect for the aged. On the other hand, the new law on Family Ritual interferes with the traditionally strict observance of matrimonial and funeral ceremonies. June brides were scarce in 1973 as many couples rushed to the altar in May to beat the deadline that restricts expenditures on wedding ceremonies.
