[Opinion] There Is Only an Offender, But Not the Criminal Case?

`Simply A Little Bit Strange People` is a collection of Czech author Karel Capek`s short stories. Short stories in this book are mixed with serious anguish and wit. What the strange people search for is truth. `Story of an old criminal` is one of them. It is a usual thing that a victim of stolen possession tries to catch the thief. However, in this story, a thief searches for the owner of the stolen stuffs. Also, a murder case takes place in which the murder case is not found. Although the police tries to frame the case by finding a murdered person without murderer, the murderer demands the police to find his case. Such stories are written in six or seven pages.

The world outside the novel is strange as well. It is said that the loss of the public funds amounts to 139 trillion won. The principal, interest, and the opportunity cost exceed the total amount of tax revenues. Although there is huge consequence from the damage, victims do not quickly flesh into my mind. From the beginning, the term `public funds` was unfamiliar, and, after all, the money seems to have disappeared as `zero fund`. If not, the money might have been hidden before victims run after it. When the victims of the great loss incude all the people in the nation, victims may not be identified.

There are many opposite cases as well. It was revealed that suspicious funds produced illegal money, and the illegal money was unfairly allotted in the case of Lee Yong-Ho`s stock manipulation. Lee is under suspicion of having dealt with the illegal money inappropriately. However, the filthy case itself has not been discovered. Whether the money is bribery or illegal political funds, people who traded the money have not been found. This is as if there is a criminal while the criminal case does not exist. While the prosecution has already investigated and is now simply looking on the case as a spectator, can the special prosecutor even find the case?

Jin Seung-Hyun`s case is not different from this case. Although the former second director and the director of the National Intelligence Service (NIS) were found to have been involved, we still do not know where the connection ends. We are simply curious as to whether the prosecutor or the reporter can solve the mystery.

A surprising matter is that the world also looks strange after having strange thoughts on such strange cases. The Afghan`s North Alliance killed the Taliban prisoners with the aid of the U.S. and the UK in the Qala-e-Jhangi prisoner of war camp. In the midst of wretched ruins, 80 Taliban prisoners were found alive shielding themselves with the dead bodies of fellow prisoners. The surviving Taliban prisoners, who were found a week later, looked too pale to be alive, and looked too sad and angry to be dead.

This is another situation of violation of human rights. People are repeating the past which they pledged not to repeat again. Who is the criminal of this case, which cannot be sufficiently explained by the word, namely, `violation of law`? Is the U.S. criminal of this case, or are we all criminals of this case?

The reason not for not being able to point out the criminal of this case is that the U.S. has logically framing up the case. That is, the U.S. claims that this case is the execution of punishment on the criminals, not on the crime, which in fact the U.S. is committing. Therefore, the U.S. clearly showed a negative attitude to the UN and the international human rights organization`s demand for revealing the true picture of the case. The U.S. informs the U.S. citizens that the government can restrict civil liberty, while advertising the U.S. citizenship as prize to the foreigners.

Even children do not want to apply the easy explosion of the target with one button in the electronic game to the reality. For those who believe that revenge has its own value as the capital punishment is necessary, such retaliation, which goes beyond the limit, does not seem to affect conscience. Suicide bomb and the Israel`s counterattack follow based on that logic.

We live in the midst of full of doubts both domestically and internationally. Thus, we always walk tilting our heads. We, who experience strange things in a strange world, are the strange people. The road on which we try to walk tilting our heads is toward truth. The truth is not really a grandiose truth. If the case is revealed satisfying our curiosity, and if the acceptable reasons are provided about the case, that is enough. To want to have completely transparent truth is greed. Complete truth can make us suffer. The world is that strange. Therefore, I share this story as our task to continue in the new year.