Learn from others and move forward #Hope_Not_Out

"Instead of robbing and criticism, the spirit of evolution can be promoted and encouraged. It can be light to the boundary view. Not a leader or group, if whole nation warmly take part in it. Indeed hope is faith, and dismay is disbelief".

21 years ago when financial crisis struck the Asian countries, South Korea was one of worst affected countries in this crisis. The Asian financial crisis spread like a virus in south Asian countries. South Korea became close to bankrupty. Businesses started to fail and many lost their jobs. In short, from being world’s 11th largest economy, it precipitously became to a worst ever conditions.

In this situation the only way left for Koreans is to seek help and swallow a tough and one of the largest bailout package in the history from International Monitoring Fund. The government wasted no time in raising the funds to pay back the loans and launched a national campaign in January 1998 to encourage its own citizen in order to make a contribution. This turned out to be most patriotic and self-sacrifice campaign, the world has ever known.

• The Koreans donate their gold’s to the national treasury. Women’s sold their jewelry in order to help out their country. Koreans were seen in the long queues outside special donation points on one common point agenda “to help out their country”. Athletes donates medals and trophies.
• Due to the crisis almost two million Koreans lost their jobs. The ones who retained their jobs worked twice to produce more.
• Government employees were agreed to give 10% of their salaries to create fund for those who lost their jobs.

What distinguish Koreans recovery from other Asian countries is their rare willingness to sacrifice individual comfort for the greater cause/purpose. They spent less and saved more and upgraded their skills to make sure the country remains competitive. As a result Korea repays its $19.5 billion IMF loan in August 2001.

The problem with our nation is, we always want to make a conspiracy from every action taken for the betterment of our society/nation. We don’t have even one common point agenda. We are a divided nation on the basis of language, color and religion. Recent Dam fund launched campaign is enough as an example. People are saying that, how a dam can be built with donations? Yes, it can be built if you come up with a greater cause.

Moral: "Instead of wasting our time in making futile debates on social media, we need to learn from other nations, especially that how Koreans make an elusive recovery from the woefully destroyed economy."

Reference:
Recovery from a Financial Crisis: The Case of South Korea
Jahyeong Koo and Sherry L. Kiser