Morsi, a new Mandela?

I love reading Friedman – such deep insight that always hits the nail on the head! In his speech after being elected, Morsi said that he would make efforts for the unity that Friedman talks about in his article. The important question is how long this unity will take and with the limitations on the presidential power that the military has how much he can achieve. Such exciting times for Egyptian politics!

“The Arab awakenings happened because the Arab peoples stopped fearing their leaders – but they stalled because the Arab peoples have not stopped fearing each other.” -Daniel Brumberg (Georgetown University)

“But you would also have to be blind and deaf to the deeply authentic voices and aspirations that triggered these Arab awakenings not to realize that, in all these countries, there is a longing – particularly among young Arabs – for real citizenship and accountable and participatory governent. It is what analysts are missing today. The energy is still there, and the Muslim Brotherhood, or whoever rules Egypt, will have to respond to it.”

“Precisely because Egypt is the opposite of Las Vegas – what happens there never stays there – the way in which the newly elected president, Mohamed Morsi, the candidate of the Muslim Brotherhood, ultimately learns to work with the secular, liberal, Salafist and Christian elements of Egyptian society will have a huge impact on all the other Arab awakenings. If Egyptians can forge a workable social contract to govern themselves, it will set an example for the whole region. America midwifed that social contract-writing in Iraq, but Egypt will need a Nelson Mandela.”

facts versus empathy

“It doesn’t matter what I believe. It only matters what I can prove.” – Kaffi,  “A Few Good Men”

Some days it really feels like this. Rebutting the Korean government’s arguments for the dismissal of a refugee case feels like a wheel in a hamster’s cage – a repetition going nowhere, from the appeal to the Supreme Court.

I believe your story. I feel your hurt. I’m so sorry for everything you had to go through. I’m so sorry for your loss. But how do I tell you that what matters is cold, hard facts that prove your fears? Yes, you are supposed to have the benefit of the doubt, but not in this country. We still have a long ways to go.

I am forced to think of the workings of the Korean government, how to prove the case and how to work around the UN convention on refugees. I’m sorry for the tough questions I ask. I’m sorry that I ask you to recall memories and dates you wish to erase.

The contradicting juxtaposition is so frustrating.

But as ‘hopeless’ as a case may be, and as ‘powerless’ as I feel, I can’t just start out thinking of my responsibility as a ‘lost cause’ and I can’t do a slapdash job because even though there’s nothing in it for me, it’s everything for somebody else. This has led to my decision that I don’t care whether the case has a chance or not, and I don’t care if I’m being inefficient with my time. I’m giving you my best. And whatever the results, let me go through the emotions with you whether you’re disappointed, angry, hopeless, scared, hurt… Whatever it takes, gimme the full ride – teach me full on what ’empathy’ means. Teach me your resilience. Teach me your faith.

Feeling powerless and hopeless, I can handle. Being cold, calculating and rational, I can’t. My emotions win my rationale, but I really can’t let my rationale or efficiency win, because that I really don’t think I can handle.

God, give me the wisdom and discernment to realize that my best is not always good enough but that your love is always great enough.

—————————————————————-

Hebrews 11:13, 39-40 – “All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth… These were all commended for their faith yet none of them received what had been promised. God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.”

brick walls

“The brick walls are there for a reason. They’re not there to keep us out.

The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something.”

-Randy Pausch, “The Last Lecture”

http://favim.com/image/43141/

I’ve encountered a brick wall. A big one.

And I’m struggling. And it hurts.

The choking heavy kind that presses and lingers in your throat and moistens your eyes with translucent drops of water, waiting to release the collected reservoir throughout the day but being barely controlled by prideful resistance and the facade of inner strength.

Please ‘Save my Friend’

Thirty-five million. The number of people who watched the KONY2012 video within the first week it went viral.

I am one of the skeptics of the KONY2012 video, but how I wish I had the media video production skills of Invisible Children (IC) right now. Regardless of their controversial suggestions on how to stop Kony, it’s a fact that they’ve shed light to the issue of child soldiers in Uganda to millions around the world (I even admit that I was ignorant before I saw the 30-minute video).

Awareness is never bad. Even the controversy surrounding IC has opened healthy debates on what activism should look like, how Uganda can be effectively helped, and how to avoid so-called ‘slacktivism’. So, I believe that awareness is a crucial first step.

Yet there are issues closer to home of which we lack awareness that are just as dire and worthy of our attention. The issue I want to bring to attention is China’s repatriation of North Korean refugees back to North Korea. The issue is by no means new. It has been continuing for a decade and despite the protests of human rights activists in South Korea, China hasn’t budged. But perhaps the root of the issue is the fact that too few of us care. The issue resurfaced when Kim Jong-Un took leadership over North Korea in December 2011 after his father’s death and declared that he would punish up to 3 generations of the North Koreans who attempted to leave the country. A light joke? Not for North Koreans. In early February of this year, 31 North Korean defectors including women and children were arrested and held by China and in light of Kim Jong-Un’s recent declaration, there was genuine concern over their future plight. Yet despite a daily candlelight vigil in front of the Chinese embassy, a month’s fasting by North Korean defectors in South Korea, and diplomatic pleas, a deaf China repatriated this group of North Koreans back to China in March.

And their fate? They will be sent to labor camps according to their age range for an indefinite period of time for their ‘crime’. I had the chance of hearing a North Korean defector in his twenties speak at a lecture organized by the Refuge pNan, an NGO that aids North Korean and international refugees in South Korea in March when we still had hopes that China would not be so cruel to repatriate this particular group. He had been repatriated several times before finally making his way to South Korea. His description of life in the labor camps was heartbreaking and hard to imagine – a place where people lose hope to the point of refusing the small portion of food they are given, a place where the occasional public execution succeeds in instilling fear into the people of North Korea, not to mention other physical abuses they face. Imagine the trauma North Koreans go through, the burdens they carry as they leave the country, not just for a better life, but to simply, survive. Only to have it all crushed by China.

Do we care enough?

The issue has to do not only with China’s amicable relations with North Korea, but also the fact that China refuses to see North Korean defectors as refugees. To China, these North Koreans are merely economic migrants in search of a better opportunity. To the international community, however, they are refugees.

The UN Refugee Convention defines refugees as a person who “owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality, and is unable to or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country.” Yes, ‘poverty’ or ‘starvation’ does not provide legitimate grounds for being a refugee. But, even if North Korean defectors do not fit any of the 5 categories of the UN definition of a refugee, they are viewed as refugees on the grounds that they face persecution if they go back to their country of origin. The possibility of future persecution is one of the greatest factors for determining refugee status.

What’s more, it’s just not acceptable (and against common sense) to repatriate any such persons who face the possibility of persecution. According to Article 33 of the 1951 UN Refugee Convention, “No Contracting State shall expel or return a refugee in any manner whatsoever to the frontiers of territories where his life or freedom would be threatened on account of his race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social or political opinion.” But even if a country is not a signatory to the UN Refugee Convention and Protocol, repatriation is simply against international norms. China, however, signed onto the Refugee Convention in 1982 making it their obligation to keep this promise and it is our responsibility to keep them accountable.

Even after it was announced that China repatriated the group of North Koreans, the candlelight vigil in front of the Chinese embassy has been continuing daily, every evening at 7 p.m. I have not been able to attend as consistently as I want to, and currently 3 months after China has returned the 31 North Koreans to North Korea, attendance is dwindling and no way near the numbers present as during the candlelight vigil protests at City Hall in 2008 and 2011 when South Koreans protested against the FTA with the U.S. And the majority of the crowd does not consist of concerned Korean youth raising their voices for North Korean refugees, but an older generation of Koreans, those who still pray for a reunification of the peninsula. There are also the occasional foreigners concerned about the human rights situation of North Korea and its refugees.

It is a saddening but accurate portrayal of today’s Korean society.

The fact remains that North Korean refugees and their families face persecution and the possibility of execution if they are repatriated. And the fact remains that China keeps sending them back. Just like how the world turned its attention to Kony and Uganda in a matter of a week, I’d like the international community to speak up for the North Korean refugees caught in limbo in the second greatest economic power of the world. The difficulties of life after crossing the border of North Korea consist of not only the prospect of being caught and repatriated by China but also the harsh journey to South Korea where danger awaits at any corner – having to illegally cross borders, the possibility of being forced into prostitution (especially for girls and women), being manipulated by brokers, and so on. But when Korea’s own citizens couldn’t care less, any form of activism on this issue is hard to instigate or make global.

Awareness is the first step. Can we take it further?

Hayoung Kim

Graduate of UIC PSIR 08

Legal Aid Intern at The Refuge pNan

maryhayoungkim@gmail.com

[Photograph courtesy of Max Lee] The candlelight vigil to ‘Save my Friend’ continues daily 7 p.m. in front of the Chinese embassy in Seoul.

*Article submitted for the August 2012 edition of The UIC Scribe, student-run newspaper of Yonsei University’s Underwood International College

UIC의 확대, 그 불편한 진실

문정인 교수님 말에 동의한다: “영어강의의 중요성을 부인하려는 것은 아니지만 그에 수반되는 불편한 진실을 직시해야 한다. 영어지상주의에 빠져 모국어를 간과해서는 안 된다는 뜻이다. 모국어로 충분한 사고 훈련을 마친 학생들이 영어로 자신의 뜻을 표현할 수 있도록 돕는 게 옳은 방식이고, 이를 위해서는 영어강의를 강제화하는 대신 선택적으로 탄력성 있게 운용해야 한다.”

하지만 이런 기사를 읽으면 연대 UIC의 정체성에 대해 또 의문을 갖게 된다. UIC는 도대체 뭘까? UIC 학생으로서 나의 정체성은 도대체 뭘까? 송도캠퍼스가 생기고 이번 해 부터 ‘techno art’라는 또 별개의 새로운 전공이 UIC 소속이 되면서 UIC는 급 확장되었고 우리는 과연 liberal arts college인지 또는 그냥 영어강의로 모든 수업이 진행되는 학부인지 종잡을 수 없다.

또한 우리는 1학년 필수과목(UIC가 자부하는 liberal arts common curriculem) 이수 후 전공으로 나눠지고 우리의 전공 교수님들, 아참 우리는 우리만의 전공 교수님들이 없지 – 연대 학부 소속 교수님들로부터 전공 수업을 듣는다, 다만 연대 학부생들과 우리의 차이는 우리의 모든 수업은 영어강의라는 점. 하지만 그렇다면 우리는 ‘머릿속에 지식의 70-80% 정도밖에 전달하지 못하는’ 교수님들의 강의들을 들으면서 진정 최고의 교육을 받고 있는 것일까? 한국말이 더 편하신 교수님들이 우리를 위해 영어강의를 제공하시지만 같은 교수님 밑에서 같은 수업의 내용을 한국어로 듣는 학생들의 학비의 두 배를 내가면서 ‘우리는 과연 최선의 선택을 한 것인가’라는 의문이 든다.

그렇다면 그냥 UIC아닌 일반 연대 인문사회과학대에 진학하지 않았냐? ‘부모를 잘 만나’ 영어 좀 하니까 쉽게 소위 ‘명문대’ 들어간 거 아니냐고 반박할 수 있겠지만, 내가 같이 공부한 선배들과 동기들은 ‘영어 좀 하는’ 수준이 아니다. 선배들을 보면서 얼마나 감탄하고 겸손해지고 동기들로부터는 얼마나 자극을 받았는지 모른다. 오히려 ‘부모 잘 만난’ 사람에 속한 내가 평생 영어로 공부하고 평생 영어로 페이퍼 썼으니 그럼 당연히 학부 일등 해야하는 게 아닌가? (절대 그렇지 않다 -_-) 영어만 잘 한다고 UIC 들어올 수 있는 건 아니라고 생각한다. 영어 하나 잘한다고 UIC에서 살아남을 수 있다는 생각은 더더욱 아니라고 생각한다. 내가 상대평가 시스템에서 살아남을려고 얼마나 노력했는데.. 이 세상에 ‘부모 잘 만나’ 영어 잘하는 한국 사람이 얼마나 수두룩한데.. 나처럼 해외파가 있는 반면 UIC의 대부분은 해외파가 아니다 (외고출신이 많다는 것은 인정, 하지만 그런 비율은 다른 연대 인문과학, 사회과학, 상경대학과 크게 다르지 않다고 본다). 우리가 UIC를 택한 이유가 각기 다르겠지만 공통적으로 UIC가 내걸은 “아시아의 아이비리그”가 되어 “글로벌 리더”를 키우겠다는 표명에 끌리지 않았는가? (우리에게 매력적으로 느껴지지 않았다면 최소한 5시간 넘는 면접 대기 시간 동안 밖에서 우리를 애타게 기다리신 우리 부모님께는 그렇게 느껴졌겠지..)

약간의 화제 전환이지만 외국에 경우 영어강의가 강제화 된 대학들이 있다는 것을 볼 수 있다. 파리의 Science Po와 이스탄불의 Boğaziçi 대학들이 그 예시다. 미국으로 교환학생으로 가서 만난 Sciences Po와 Boğaziçi 대학생들은 그들의 영어실력에 자신 없어하고 만족하지 못해 불평했지만 내가 보기엔 잘했다. 물론 특유의 불어와 터키어 억양이 들어간 영어를 구사한다고 하더라도, 그들은 모교에서 영어강의를 들을 수밖에 없어서 3-4년 동안 영어로 생각하고 토론하는 능력을 (그것도 미국 학생들한테 절대 뒤쳐지지 않는 실력을) 키워낸 케이스들이다. 물론 피눈물 흘리며 노력한 대가겠지. 그들의 모국어 실력은 당연히 최고라고 보장할 수 있다. 영어강의를 선택적이로 만든다는 것은 좋지만, 내가 아는 영어영문과 선배 중 한 분은 이때까지 영어강의를 피해왔단다. 그렇다면 다른 학과도 아닌 영어영문과로서 그의 영어실력은 의심해 볼 수 있다. 문정인 교수님께서 말씀하시는 “탄력성 있게 운용”하는 것이 관건인것 같다.

영어강의의 필수화를 찬성 또는 반대하는 명확한 의견을 내세우는 건 아니지만, 그냥 이런 예도 있도 저런 예도 있고 우리 UIC 좀 어떻게 신경써달라고 말하고 싶어 이렇게 횡설수설하게 적어본다. 우리를 글로벌 인재로 키워 줄 거면 좀 제대로 키워주던가 아니면 영어강의가 우리만의 특별한 특징이면 머릿속의 지식을 영어로 100% 우리에게 전달할 수 있는 전공 교수님들을 더 채용시켜주던가 지금 이 체제로 그대로 갈 거면 우리의 학비를 인하하던가 (결국 결론은 항상 학비로 돌아올 수밖에 없는 건가..)라는 작은 목소리를 내어본다.

P.S. 문정인 교수님께서 솔직하게 말씀하셔서 감사하고 그 솔직함을 남용하려는 목적은 절대 없다. 한국말이 더 편하신 교수님들이 머릿속의 지식을 우리에게 80% 정도 밖에 전달하지 못하셨다 하더라도 나는 많이 배웠다 (이건 정치외교학과 학생으로서의 개인적인 입장이다). 다만 UIC의 정체성이 흐려지고 우리가 UIC를 선택하면서 기대했던 바와 우리가 내는 학비에 비해 아직 UIC는 개선해야될 점들이 있다는 안타까운 생각이 들어 표현하고 싶었을 뿐이다. 이상 끝. (다음에는 UIC의 장점에 대한 글을 써야겠다ㅎ)

문정인 교수님의 [중앙시평] “영어강의 확대, 그 불편한 진실” (중앙일보) 기고 링크:

http://article.joinsmsn.com/news/article/article.asp?Total_Id=8363738

Challenges in Defining an Israeli-Palestinian Border

A former Korean ambassador to Israel cracked this joke at one of his talks. A man with political curiosities asks God, “Will the Korean peninsula be reunified anytime soon?” to which God replies, “Not in your lifetime.” Then the man asks the next pressing question on his heart, “Will the Israeli-Palestinian conflict ever end?” to which God replies, “Not in my lifetime.”

It’s a crude joke that underlines the reality and difficulties of a viable two-state solution between Israel and Palestine. But we still hope, and I hope, in my lifetime… 

In a short 5 part video series, the New York Times gives a clear, straightforward picture of the basic realistic issues in the contemporary Israeli-Palestinian conflict pertaining to a two-state solution:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/09/05/world/middleeast/challenges-in-defining-an-israeli-palestinian-border.html?ref=middleeast

Israel’s West Bank barrier at the Kalandia checkpoint between Jerusalem and Ramallah [from the New York Times]

 I highly recommend the “Individual Voices” video series on the same page as well.