[Opinion] Paying Due Respect to Beautiful Souls

It happened in Gwangju thirty years ago. A man in his 30s was killed by a running train after saving two children on the railroad. 29 years have passed and civil servants belatedly found out how the accident took place. They listened to the family of the victim and searched for eyewitnesses and the train engineer. Compensations have been paid to the family, who are saying, “It’s not just about money. The world will know about his righteous death.”

▷ We pay respect to those who died righteous deaths - Kim Young-jae jumped into raging fire at Sea Land camping ground three years ago to save his young students. Lee Su-hyun saved a Japanese man who got drunk and fell down to the railway and died far away from home. In the cold world where people often turn their heads when they witness somebody’s pocket picked, they are beautiful souls who risk their lives for what they believe is right. And the way a country pay respect to those honorable men tells where the country stands in terms of fairness and healthiness. When two guards were killed in a shooting rampage taking place in front of Capitol Hill last year, the U.S. government paid compensations to families of the victims and buried the two men in National Cemetery with all due respects.

▷ It’s a shame that some insurance companies cut the amount of compensations paid to the late Jang Se-hwan, a college student who was killed in a traffic accident while chasing a pickpocket. They reportedly cited jay walking as a reason, which is outrageous. Do we have to wait for traffic light while chasing after a criminal? It’s like saying we should let him go. We are living in such a cold-blood society that we become increasingly hesitant to do something for the public good. We cannot but ask, what for?

▷There’s no rule but exception, which means common sense comes first. A man died doing something larger than himself and his family. Yet those profit-seeking companies insist that he violated a traffic law. I wonder they ever thought about the pain of his parents who lost their young son out of sudden. It was only a few days ago that an insurance company was humiliated after losing a case, in which the company refused to pay due compensations to a delivery boy who got injured in a traffic accident. They are profit-takers, but at least they must know how to pay due respect to those who died righteous deaths.

Choi Hwa-gyung, Editorial Writer bbchoi@donga.com