[Opinion] Redemption of the Lambs

The year is coming to a close. There have been an unusually high number of men being compared to lambs in the news. The most recent “lamb” is Kang Keum-won, a textile company owner.

Kang, in Busan and indicted and detained in the Seoul Detention House, said, “Since I became a lamb for atonement, political circles also need to conciliate and work together for the nation.” The financial circles of November, as well as a secretary general and a transport team who managed party funds in September, captured headlines. Choi Do-sul, the former presidential secretary for general affairs, said, “They tried to make me a sacrificial lamb.” KBS also televised a program describing professor Song Du-yul as a sacrificial lamb during the Cold War times. The president’s top aides, Lee Kwang-jae and An Hee-jung, representing real power of politicians in their thirties, made their exit as the sacrificial lambs, complaining about the Blue House. The president of Hyundai Asan, Jung Mong-heon was also a sacrificial lamb of the North Korean government’s policy.

“A sacrificial lamb,” meaning atonement for another’s sin, originates from an old Jewish custom of the “escaping goat.” William Tindale, a 16th century translator of the Old Testament, said that the Jews at that time performed a ritual offering the first goat to God and letting the second goat escape with the people’s sins. The goat ran away to the desert and must have been starved to death in the end. The Jews believed that their sins disappeared with the animal’s death.

Both agricultural people and nomadic people believe that an animal’s blood holds magic power. The word “sacrifice,” calling even a small good deed like giving up one’s seat, was derived from a religious deed offering animals and goods to a divine spirit. Fire-field farmers in Indochina believed that an animal’s blood brings an increase in crops. French sociologist, Emile Durkheim, said offering something divine is an essential factor of sacrifice. A common feature between a lamb for atonement and sacrifice is the object’s sanctification. For this, offerings should be clean. A lamb full of sin cannot provide redemption on behalf of another.

It is hard to distinguish a lamb for atonement from a sinful lamb these days as there are too many lambs -- whether they are self-claimed or deemed so by others. After all, there was no altar like politics today where so many lambs are sacrificed in this country. There may be a problem in the quality of those lambs considering it never changed politics despite the enormous amount of blood shed. Because there is already the prosecution, it is not enough to solve the problem so that a special probe is conducted. I would like the special probe strictly to distinguish “a lamb for atonement” from “a lamb that needs atonement.” “A sinful lamb that should compensate for its sin.” I also ask the press not to misuse the expression “a sacrificial lamb.” Too many metaphors produce illusions of truth.

Park Seong-Hee, a guest editorial writer, a professor of Ewha Women’s University, journalism

shpark1@ewha.ac.kr