This article explores how the death of a loved one can cause us great grief and how the tragedy of the death of young lives, in particular, can reveal social issues. Focusing on the Sewol ferry tragedy, it highlights why personal grief is intertwined with social responsibility.
The death of someone causes others to feel grief. The loss of a close relative or friend is particularly traumatic, and the thought of it happening to a family member is unthinkable. The grief can be so strong that just looking at a friend who is experiencing the end of life can bring someone to tears. Similarly, we all grieve the death of someone close to us because they were once part of our identity. If the “I” that was with them was a round disk, then their departure means the loss of a piece of the disk, which makes us incomplete, and the larger the size that piece occupied, the greater the void and pain within us.
While this pain is common, we sometimes grieve the death of those who were not a part of us. For example, when we see the death of a flower that hasn’t even bloomed, the death of a child or teenager. Their lives were full of promise from the start, unfolding with unlimited potential. Their lives were full of possibilities from the beginning, unfolding with unlimited potential. Their vision of the future inspired even adults, and their innocence and enthusiasm often reminded us of the essence of life. When these lives are cut short, we mourn the loss of possibility, but we also feel that a part of the future is gone. Even more so than the death of an elderly person who has lived life to the fullest, their deaths have a profound impact on those around them and cause grief even to those who don’t know them. Regardless of whether the life that lies ahead of young lives is a comfortable and peaceful life or a series of thorny paths, it is a blessing and the essence of human existence to continue life itself. That is why it is heartbreaking to see young students who have not even begun.
A long time ago, the Sewol ferry disaster in South Korea traumatized the people of that country. The death toll of more than 300 people was horrific, but the fact that many of the victims were high school students on a trip was even more shocking. Naturally, the entire country was grieving, and I felt so bad for them. There were waves of tributes, yellow ribbons everywhere, and no entertainment shows on the air for a while. This was only natural under the circumstances, but it didn’t completely erase the grief that people felt.
The Sewol ferry disaster was more than just an accident. The lack of a social safety net, the irresponsibility of the government and related organizations, and the systemic corruption that led to the tragedy were revealed, and the incident became an opportunity to expose the true nature of our society. Looking back on the events of the disaster, we are reminded of how many people failed to do their part, and how many lives were lost as a result. It’s heartbreaking to realize that these problems were not just structural, but that selfishness and irresponsibility were at the root of them.
And then there are the incomprehensible things that happened. From the immediate aftermath of the accident to the present, the issues surrounding the accident have not been resolved, but have continued to emerge. The first thing that hit me was the news. The news of a maritime accident was followed by the news that all on board were rescued. But before people could breathe a sigh of relief, the story was corrected. In the end, the outcome of the accident was catastrophic, and trust in the media that made the reporting mistake plummeted. The post-accident rescue process was also problematic. Several crew members, including the captain, abandoned the ship when it flipped, forgetting their mission to rescue passengers. The Coast Guard and Navy, who were supposed to come to the rescue quickly, watched the ship sink for hours. In addition, Cheonghaejin Shipping, the owner of the Sewol, was found to have illegally modified and operated the ship, and suspicions of collusion between the Coast Guard and salvage company A were raised. It was a total mess, where the more efforts were made to solve the accident, the more the hidden dirt was revealed.
At my age at the time of the accident, I thought I had the world figured out. I knew that the society we live in is not a clean place and that the unthinkable happens frequently, but it was frustrating to see the incidents that came out of this one incident, and even more so to see how pathetic they were. The violent clashes between riot police and protesters at the Sewol memorial ceremony not long ago were enough to cynically cynicalize those who were still raw from the Sewol ferry tragedy. Each time these events repeat themselves, we are reminded of how fragile our society is, and we are also forced to recognize that this fragility is of our own making.
The Sewol ferry tragedy certainly made us all sad because it was a tragedy of young students, but it also showed us the bare face of Korean society. And at the very face of Korean society, there is a sadness that is as great as the Sewol ferry tragedy itself: the guilt and bitterness of adults who feel that Korean society has failed to protect the young students and cannot truly embrace even their heartbreaking deaths. This tragedy was not just a problem of a society, but a call for deep reflection on human dignity and life. The Sewol ferry tragedy made us think about more than just safety, but also about respect for life and social responsibility. I hope that our society will grow up and mature from this tragedy, and that we will no longer feel such shameful sadness. And for that day to come, we will have to constantly reflect on ourselves and continue our efforts to improve.
