韩国官员称99%民众都应被当作猪狗 惹众怒

Korean Official, Calling for Class System, Hears Woofs, Oinks and Outrage

韩国官员称“99%民众都应被当作猪狗”惹众怒

SEOUL, South Korea — By Tuesday, the message board of the South Korean Education Ministry’s website had become a virtual pigsty and dog pen, with commenters venting anger in the form of “Woof! Woof! Oink! Oink!”

韩国首尔——到了本周二，韩国教育部网站的留言板变成了虚拟的猪圈和狗窝，有不少评论者以“汪汪！汪汪！哼哼！哼哼！”的字样发泄他们的愤怒。

The messages were an expression of the widespread outrage at a senior education official who had told reporters that the country should put in place a class system in which 99 percent of South Koreans should be treated “like dogs and pigs.”

此前，韩国的一名高层教育官员告诉记者，本国应该实行等级制度，其中99%的韩国人应该“像猪狗一样”被对待。这一言论引发众怒，留言板中的讯息就是这种情绪的表达。

“Hi, I am a South Korean citizen who lives as a dog and pig,” one commenter said. “That may be O.K., but I can’t take it when you say my dear son and daughter should also be treated like a dog or pig.”

“你好，我是一名像猪狗一样生活着的韩国公民，”一名评论者写道。“这或许没问题，但我无法接受你说我亲爱的儿女也该受到猪狗一样的对待。”

Another wrote: “If we are dogs and pigs, what does that make you, who live off our taxpayers’ money? Parasites?”

另一名写道：“如果我们是猪狗，那你这种靠纳税人养活的算什么？寄生虫？”

Many commenters ended their messages with “Woof! Woof! Oink! Oink!” Some suggested that the ministry change its name to the Ministry of Livestock.

很多评论者以“汪汪！汪汪！哼哼！哼哼！”结束自己的留言。一些人建议教育部将名字改为牲畜部。

The education official’s remarks, first reported by the daily newspaper Kyunghyang Shinmun on Friday, stirred so much public outrage that Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn was compelled on Tuesday to apologize for the official’s behavior. Also on Tuesday, the Education Ministry announced that it was firing the official, Na Hyang-wook, who was in charge of its policy-making bureau.

这名教育官员的言论起初由韩国日报《京乡新闻》(Kyunghyang Shinmun)于上周五报道，随之激发极大的公愤，导致韩国总理黄教安(Hwang Kyo-ahn)不得不在周二为这名官员的行为致歉。同一天，教育部宣布将罢免这位名为罗享旭(Na Hyang-wook)的官员，他原是教育部政策制定机构的负责人。

“He made outrageous comments that did not fit the image of public servants and severely hurt the people,” Lee Young, the vice minister of education, said on Tuesday.

“他发出了令人无法容忍的言论，不符合公务员的形象，严重伤害了韩国民众，”教育部副部长李永（Lee Young，音）周二表示。

During a parliamentary hearing on Monday, Mr. Na, choked with emotion, said he was so drunk when he met the reporters from Kyunghyang last Thursday that he could not remember what he had said. He added that the reported remarks did not reflect his beliefs.

在周一进行的国会听证会上，罗向旭情绪激动地哽咽道，上周四与《京乡新闻》的记者见面时他喝得烂醉，完全不记得自己说了些什么。他还表示，报道中出现的言论并不能反映他的真实想法。

But the newspaper said that Mr. Na was lying and noted that its reporters had given him several chances to retract or modify his remarks before publishing them.

但《京乡新闻》表示，罗向旭是在撒谎，还指出在文章发表之前，报社记者给了他好几次机会收回或修改自己的言论。

The outrage, and the government’s quick attempts at damage control, reflect how sensitive South Koreans have become over worsening income inequality, and what officials and critics of the government call a rising tension between the country’s poor and rich.

公众的愤怒，加上政府迅速采取行动来防止影响扩大的做法，反映出对于日益加剧的收入不平等，以及官员和政府批评人士所说的该国贫富阶层之间不断升级的紧张关系，韩国人已经变得多么的敏感。

“I believe that we should solidify a class system in our society,” Mr. Na, 47, was quoted as telling Kyunghyang reporters over dinner on Thursday. “The people should be treated like dogs and pigs. It’s enough just to feed them and let them live.”

“我认为我们应该在社会中固化一种等级制度，”《京乡新闻》记者援引47岁的罗向旭在饭局上所说的话写道。“人们应该被像猪狗一样对待。只要给他们点吃的，让他们活着就够了。”

Asked who “the people” were, Mr. Na said they were the “99 percent,” adding that he was trying to belong to “the 1 percent,” Kyunghyang said.

《京乡新闻》表示，在被问到这里的“人们”是指谁时，罗向旭说是指“99%的韩国人”，还称他自己在努力进入“那1%的阶层”。

He compared South Korea’s so-called 99 percent to “blacks and Hispanics in the United States who don’t even try to enter politics or climb the social ladder.”

他把自己口中99%的韩国人比作“美国的黑人和西语裔，根本都不尝试进入政界，也不沿着社会阶梯往上爬。”

Mr. Na also said he did not sympathize with a 19-year-old subcontractor who was hit and killed by a train while carrying out repairs at a subway station in Seoul, the capital, in May. An investigation showed that the man had been working without adequate safety measures and that he was paid less than half of what regular subway workers performing similar tasks earn.

今年5月，一名19岁的分包商在韩国首都首尔的一座地铁站做检修工作时，被一辆列车撞击致死。罗享旭表示，他不同情这名男子。调查显示，此人工作时没有采取足够的安全措施，他的薪资比做同类工作的普通地铁员工少一半多。

When newspapers reported that the worker was given little time for meals — he was found with a package of unopened instant noodles in his bag — his death became a rallying cry for some against the plight of young, poor South Koreans known as “dirt spoons,” who they said stood no chance against “gold spoons,” or the children of the rich.

当报纸的报道称这名工人几乎没时间吃饭——他的包里装着一包没有打开的方便面——他的死亡便成了为韩国贫穷年轻人的困境抗议的集结口号。这些年轻人被称为“泥汤匙”，在面对俗称“金汤匙”的富家子弟的竞争时，他们被认为没有丝毫的希望。

Thousands of people made pilgrimages to the site of the worker’s death to lay flowers and accuse the government of not doing enough to improve social and economic mobility.

成千上万的人前往这名工人的出事地点进行吊唁，给他献花，同时指责政府没有做足够的工作提高社会和经济的流动性。

Anxiety over rising unemployment among the young and a perceived lack of equal opportunities for the poor have been such hot-button issues in recent years that addressing them was the biggest campaign promise pledged by all the candidates during the 2012 presidential election.

最近几年，对于年轻人失业率日渐增高、穷人明显缺少均等机会的担忧，一直是韩国极度敏感的议题，以致于在2012年的总统竞选中，所有候选人都承诺应对这些问题，将之作为自己最重要的竞选承诺。

“I feel waves of anger through our society,” Seoul’s mayor, Park Won-soon, recently said of the nationwide reaction to the subway worker’s death. “The grievances among the weak of society — like contract workers, cleaners and janitors, and the other underprivileged — and their sense of being discriminated against are in a volatile condition.”

“我感觉整个社会涌动着愤怒的波涛，”首尔市长朴元淳(Park Won-soon)最近谈及全国对地铁工人之死的反应时说道。“社会弱势群体中——比如合同工、清洁工、看门人和其他贫困人群——存在的不满情绪及被歧视的感觉目前处在急剧波动的状态。”

Song Hyun-sook, a Kyunghyang editor who was at the dinner with Mr. Na, said that Mr. Na’s comments were especially shocking because they came from a senior policy maker on education. Poor families have traditionally looked to education for a ticket out of poverty for their children, often saving their wages for their education.

当天与罗享旭一起吃饭的《京乡新闻》编辑宋贤肃（Song Hyun-sook，音）表示，他的言论尤其让人震惊，因为它们出自制定教育政策的高级官员之口。贫困家庭历来把教育看作自己的子女摆脱贫困的出路，往往会攒钱供他们上学。

“What’s more tragic, however, is that Na’s statements don’t point to the problematic thinking of any one individual, but that they reflect the actual reasoning and sense of privilege of the majority of high-ranking government officials,” said an editorial from Hankyoreh, a liberal newspaper.

“不过，更可悲的是，罗享旭的言论并不是哪个个体有问题的思维，而是反映出大多数身居高位的政府官员的真实逻辑和优越感，”自由派报纸《韩民族日报》(Hankyoreh)发表社论称。

An editorial in the conservative newspaper Dong-A Ilbo said that Mr. Na’s “verbal violence” was “inflammatory,” coming amid deepening economic polarization.

保守派报纸《东亚日报》(Dong-A Ilbo)的一篇社论写道，罗享旭的“语言暴力”是“很容易引发众怒”的，它源自日益加深的经济分化。

Such inflammatory sentiments were captured in a comment a 52-year-old man named Kim Min-geun left on the ministry website. He first thanked Mr. Na for reminding him that he was a dog.

在名为金民槿（Kim Min-geun，音）的52岁评论者在教育部网站上留下的评论中，这种愤怒情绪得到充分的体现。他首先感谢罗享旭提醒自己是条狗。

Then, he said, “Now, you should be careful not to run into me on the street because I am not vaccinated against rabies.”

然后接着说，“现在，你该小心不要在路上碰到我，因为我没有打狂犬疫苗。”