“What We Want” Activities
Research
1-1 FOA launched its research activities from this year. As its first project, the research institute published reports on the situation of human rights in the detention centers, street campaigns, and the general situations in detention centers. Currently there are about 1,000 migrants detained in these centers. Our campaign team sold t-shirts ($10) and sent protest cards to the Minister of Justice. Our reports were published in Korean.
1-2. The second research project focused on documenting the life stories of marriage immigrants. The subjects of this documentation were selected among the participants of our Korean language classes. Most of marriage immigrants complained about various kinds of difficulties they face in Korea such as their everyday troubles with their in-laws, problems with language, and difficulties resulting from their financial dependency. The reports on this project will be published in late February, 2009. We also plan to conduct research on the social rights of migrant women in the year 2009. Since the start of financial crisis, a growing number of women face economic difficulties or crisis in their marriage life. As a result, many women are looking for jobs in various sectors. We plan to research on their general working conditions.
Publication
1-3. FOA completed all the preparation to publish bilingual children’s books (total 15 fairy tales from three different countries) and animation for the children of multicultural families. The books and animation are in Vietnamese, Russian, and Tagalog, and will be distributed to marriage immigrants.
1-4. White paper on the Yeosu fire accident was published. It includes various materials published by NGOs, government, and the media.
Migrants’ Weekly School
1-5. Vietnamese Class
Every Sunday Qien from Vietnam teaches Vietnamese language to local Koreans. Qien is one of our Korean language students. Her Vietnamese class is at 11-12 and fee is 30,000 Won.
1-6. Russian Class for Children
One of our Korean language class students, Julia, along with others from Central Asia now teaches Russian language, culture, and plays to local children every Saturday. Now there are six pre-school children as students in the class. Most of the students are the children of marriage migrants from countries such as Russia and Uzbekhistan. They enjoy their time to learn about their mothers’ countries and cultures. Hours: 11:00- 12:30 Sat.
Fee: 20,000 Won
1-7. Asia Girls, Women’s Play Team
Asia Girls is made up of three Filipinas, and made their debut at the end of year party in 2008. For this, they got together every week to learn dancing, singing, and speaking. Women from other countries are welcome to join.
Fee: Free
1-8. Human Rights and Culture Education Session for Korean Children
Women migrants - Qien (Vietnam), Marie (Philippines), Natasha (Uzbekistan), and Julia (Russia) - held two classes for local children to educate them about human rights and diverse Asian cultures. The teachers introduced their cultures, customs, and food as well as their experiences in Korea. At the end of each class, children had chance to write their virtual friends who are from family of (im)migrant backgrounds.
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Migrant Workers’ Declaration of Human Rights
We are mere economic tools here in South Korea. The dignity and rights that every human should enjoy only exist beyond our reach, outside the barriers of nationality and economic capacity. Yet Korea has become a multicultural society. A society that neglects dignity and basic human rights cannot be truly multicultural. Korea is a society where right to migrant labor are distorted into the right to use economic tools, where exclusion and discrimination is encouraged with every modifier on earth, where the only response to the clamor for right to migrant labor and abolition of discrimination is forced deportation, and where nationality and economic capacity define social rights, equality, and the value of labor. The so-called ‘multicultural society’ in Korea is a deception. Fifteen years ago, our predecessors volunteered to be confined in chains to expose the hypocrisy and falsehood of Korean Society. But today, we are going to break these very chains of discrimination and suppression. This is our resistance to all the policies aimed to use us as economic tools.
We refuse Korean government’s migrant labor policy of short-term cycle. For we are not machines easily used and disposed in case of need. A short-term cycle policy without an understanding and concern for people means an onset of discrimination and anti-human rights. It’s a barometer that shows the contradiction of Korean society, which clamors for economic tools but not the neighbors to live together. It advertised to be so generous when it passed the Employment Permit System bill, saying that the rights of migrant workers are now guaranteed. However, we migrant workers would remain as working machines as long as the short-term cycle policy continues to exist. We have already settled down in this country, but the short-term cycle policy denies this fact, regardless of Korean society’s own need and justice. It should be abolished immediately. We have the right to settle down wherever we want to.
We refuse the forced deportation that infringes on human dignity like a witch-hunt. Every person has a personal freedom and the right to that freedom, which should be protected. However, our reality is exactly the opposite. It is chaotic and lawless, saying ‘do whatever you want if you can’ after cornering us to the edge of the bottomless cliff. The minimum right to personal freedom cannot find its place before the color of skin and the nationality. The Korean government’s claim that its ruthless regulation is to protect our human rights and stabilize the society is a mere lie to hide its illegal deeds of anti-human rights. The regulation and deportation, which are carried at the expense of our lives to make us the perpetual working machines, should be stopped immediately. We are humans with rights to our own dignity and lives.
We refuse the current Employment Permit System that restricts our rights to our labor and the values thereof. It denies the three labor rights (right to organize, right to collective bargaining, and the right to strike) that should be guaranteed for every worker, and it only guarantees the rights to employment instead of the right to labor. The Employment Permit System also denies the right not to be held in slavery or servitude. We are slave workers deprived of right to organize labor union and the freedom to move from workplace to workplace. In a society where the right to earn the same amount of wage for the same amount of labor has already been infringed, we are mere obsolete machines who can barely earn the minimum wage. Korean government should stop this effort to maintain this unequal policy. It should stop its brutal regulation/deportation and the threat to alter migrant workers’ status of residence. We are humans with freedom to choose our occupations, and we know the value of our work and our rights to labor.
Yes, we are the workers on this land, and at the same time the humans. We reject the Korean eyes that want us to remain poor and miserable. This workaholic machine, which always smiles despite its 10-year exile from family, sleep in a container box without any sunshine or heater, and the fact that a rookie Korean earns more than 10-year veteran migrant worker, is not us any longer. We are the workers and humans who pay tax as Korean workers and have the rights to enjoy universal rights and public service guaranteed to all the citizens in this nation.
And we know that it is the solidarity rights that we need to exercise in order to realize all the aforementioned rights. We know only too well. Thus, we give our hands to all the discriminations in Korean society today, to those who resist the discrimination against nonstandard workers, women, farmers, the disabled, sexual minorities, and much more. In the end, we will make Korea a more equal society, and furthermore make it a world where human rights are fully guaranteed.
Participants of the convention to urge the government to stop brutal regulation/deportation of migrant workers and guarantee human rights and labor rights. ###
We are mere economic tools here in South Korea. The dignity and rights that every human should enjoy only exist beyond our reach, outside the barriers of nationality and economic capacity. Yet Korea has become a multicultural society. A society that neglects dignity and basic human rights cannot be truly multicultural. Korea is a society where right to migrant labor are distorted into the right to use economic tools, where exclusion and discrimination is encouraged with every modifier on earth, where the only response to the clamor for right to migrant labor and abolition of discrimination is forced deportation, and where nationality and economic capacity define social rights, equality, and the value of labor. The so-called ‘multicultural society’ in Korea is a deception. Fifteen years ago, our predecessors volunteered to be confined in chains to expose the hypocrisy and falsehood of Korean Society. But today, we are going to break these very chains of discrimination and suppression. This is our resistance to all the policies aimed to use us as economic tools.
We refuse Korean government’s migrant labor policy of short-term cycle. For we are not machines easily used and disposed in case of need. A short-term cycle policy without an understanding and concern for people means an onset of discrimination and anti-human rights. It’s a barometer that shows the contradiction of Korean society, which clamors for economic tools but not the neighbors to live together. It advertised to be so generous when it passed the Employment Permit System bill, saying that the rights of migrant workers are now guaranteed. However, we migrant workers would remain as working machines as long as the short-term cycle policy continues to exist. We have already settled down in this country, but the short-term cycle policy denies this fact, regardless of Korean society’s own need and justice. It should be abolished immediately. We have the right to settle down wherever we want to.
We refuse the forced deportation that infringes on human dignity like a witch-hunt. Every person has a personal freedom and the right to that freedom, which should be protected. However, our reality is exactly the opposite. It is chaotic and lawless, saying ‘do whatever you want if you can’ after cornering us to the edge of the bottomless cliff. The minimum right to personal freedom cannot find its place before the color of skin and the nationality. The Korean government’s claim that its ruthless regulation is to protect our human rights and stabilize the society is a mere lie to hide its illegal deeds of anti-human rights. The regulation and deportation, which are carried at the expense of our lives to make us the perpetual working machines, should be stopped immediately. We are humans with rights to our own dignity and lives.
We refuse the current Employment Permit System that restricts our rights to our labor and the values thereof. It denies the three labor rights (right to organize, right to collective bargaining, and the right to strike) that should be guaranteed for every worker, and it only guarantees the rights to employment instead of the right to labor. The Employment Permit System also denies the right not to be held in slavery or servitude. We are slave workers deprived of right to organize labor union and the freedom to move from workplace to workplace. In a society where the right to earn the same amount of wage for the same amount of labor has already been infringed, we are mere obsolete machines who can barely earn the minimum wage. Korean government should stop this effort to maintain this unequal policy. It should stop its brutal regulation/deportation and the threat to alter migrant workers’ status of residence. We are humans with freedom to choose our occupations, and we know the value of our work and our rights to labor.
Yes, we are the workers on this land, and at the same time the humans. We reject the Korean eyes that want us to remain poor and miserable. This workaholic machine, which always smiles despite its 10-year exile from family, sleep in a container box without any sunshine or heater, and the fact that a rookie Korean earns more than 10-year veteran migrant worker, is not us any longer. We are the workers and humans who pay tax as Korean workers and have the rights to enjoy universal rights and public service guaranteed to all the citizens in this nation.
And we know that it is the solidarity rights that we need to exercise in order to realize all the aforementioned rights. We know only too well. Thus, we give our hands to all the discriminations in Korean society today, to those who resist the discrimination against nonstandard workers, women, farmers, the disabled, sexual minorities, and much more. In the end, we will make Korea a more equal society, and furthermore make it a world where human rights are fully guaranteed.
Participants of the convention to urge the government to stop brutal regulation/deportation of migrant workers and guarantee human rights and labor rights. ###
STATEMENT
STATEMENT I
Towards a multicultural society where respect of difference rather than discrimination rules:
Artists’ Statement
On the Maseok Mass Crackdown
On November 12th Maseok and Chungsan area (Yonchon-gun) of the Namyangjoo city appeared as if a war took. It was because Ministry of Justice launched a massive crackdown jointly with the police department under the pretext of arresting ‘illegal’ foreign migrant workers. As a result, about one hundred thirty foreigners got arrested while many others were injured in the process. Three out of them were required for a surgical operation. The government’s crackdown on that day was done without any respect for human rights of foreign migrant workers. For example, a Bangladeshi woman had to ease herself with a handcuff still placed on one hand and a Korean colleague of hers watching for her. Later on, while asserting for further crackdown, Ministry of Justice stated that “regulations on illegal foreigners and their illegal activities are necessary for the maintenance of legal order and protection of local residents as well as the foreigners’ own human rights”. This event gives us a concrete picture of how the current government’s policy on foreign workers will be processed from now on.
As clearly shown in the current worldwide economic crisis triggered by the financial crisis in the US, national borders proved to be useless with the free migration of capital. The same situation is true with labor. Our economy cannot function without migrant workers. Recently there arose voices complaining that foreigners are taking our jobs. But, with a close look, one will find how such way of thinking is groundless. Foreign workers are not taking away what young job seekers are looking for. They work in furniture factories with permanent risk of their fingers cut, in leather manufacturing factories with lethal odors from chemical materials, and in small restaurants where they have to wash dishes all day without a rest. The government knows this as well as the small business owners who were also inflicted by the November 12 crackdown. Nonetheless, it is trying a worse scenario out of the Employment Permit System, which already has been criticized as a slavery system without migrant’s freedom to choose their workplaces. As an example, Ways to Improve Unskilled Foreign Workforce Policy presented by the Presidential Council on National Competitiveness on September 25 suggests to lower the minimum wage of migrant workers and requires them to pay for their own meal and accommodation, which originally were charged to their employers. It is doubted if such policy would strengthen the national economy. Even if so, it cannot be a desirable direction in a long-term perspective. We, who have the history of long labor migration to foreign countries, should seriously worry what kind of ill consequences will be brought by such discriminatory policies on foreign workers.
At this moment, we need to reflect fundamentally on how our society has been treating foreigner workers. Isn’t our deep prejudice towards foreign workers from the so-called developing countries shaming our grand project towards becoming an advanced nation? There is a sect in our society that treats them as a potential source of crime. It is problematic to generalize the whole group with a few cases. We vividly remember the terrible infanticide that occured a few years ago in the Seorae Vaillage. In regards to the event, while substantially shocked by its brutality, we still displayed a mature attitude by not generalizing it as the problem of the whole French resident community in Korea. When Cho Seung Hee’s massacre occurred in Virginia Tech, many Koreans felt a kind of collective guilt. Americans found it unintelligible why so many Koreans found it as their own deed not as Cho’s individual misdeed. What should be deported out of the country are not migrant workers but our own prejudice and ignorance.
The Lee government asks what is wrong with regulating ‘illegal’ migrant workers and execute law legitimately. Not only it is doubted if they strictly followed the law in the course of their crackdowns, but what is more crucial is the danger with the idea that whatever is by law is always just. We are deeply worried that the tyranny of legalism will not stop at policing and deporting ‘illegal’ migrant workers but will further oppress various minorities in our society including irregular workers.
We see the issue of migrant worker as the measure of our own consciousness and awareness of multiculturalism. With a growing migrant population in the past ten some years, we should overcome the idea of exclusive nationalism. We should acknowledge that there can be Koreans who are dark skinned. We should accept marriage immigrants as equally Korean mothers even though they cannot speak Korean language well. We should accept all of them as our good neighbors whether they be Southeast Asian migrant workers laboring in factories in Ansan, French residents in Seorae Village, or the foreign guests in the TV show Minyodul eui suda. We cannot sustain the Korean Wave with the same mentality that discriminated the halfies born between Korean women and US soldiers and the apathy towards their suffering.
Pulled over the car
Saw it on my way
Written in a clear, green board
Vietnam, that proud name in red letters
And that blurb just below it . . .
They will never run away
-From A Placard to be Abused by Park Nam Joon
Language devoid of tolerance towards the other easily becomes violent. Unfortunately, since the Independence, we have been speaking only one language without accepting others. The language of progress, defeat, and nationalistic victory… Today such language gave birth to expressions like “foreign brides keep the house well” or “Vietnamese girls do not run away,” which reveal the shameless ignorance we have. ‘Different’ languages do not mean ‘they are wrong.’
A multicultural society where respect of difference rather than discrimination rules is our future. Forced orderliness cannot be what we want today. The real power in this global era comes from diversity and difference.
1. Stop crackdown against all migrant workers.
1. Improve the Employment Permit System, the modern slavery.
1. Include Korean Chinese under the Overseas Koreans Law.
1. Amend the Korean Nationality Act that mandates the candidates to pass Korean language written exam and to complete the social unification course from January 1, 2009.
1. Provide a comprehensive blueprint for a multicultural and human rights-friendly society.
Association of artists concerned with migrant issues in Korea, December 17, 2008
STATEMENT II
MTU members strongly condemn the Korean government's barbaric crackdown in Maseok!
"The ongoing action that Korean government is utterly inhumane and directly goes against their policy of globalization. The Korean government's actions towards migrant workers establish the impression of the Korean psyche in general, that they are ungrateful opportunistic bunch who would squeeze out every drop of blood from their workers and discard of them like they were less than trash. To think that in Korea's early years, migrant workers gave great contributions to the manufacturing industries, the primary reason why Korea is enjoying their tiger economic status today.""This crackdown against Migrants are extremely inhumanity. Stop this cruelty.""It is no good. Therefore MTU design is OK""Let's fight for Migrants' rights"
OUR STATEMENT:A Call to Action against the Massive Crackdown Against Migrant Workers in Masok, South KoreaA massive and unlawful crackdown by the Ministry of Justice and police force took place in the Seong-Sang Furniture Factory Complex in Masok (Namyangju City, Gyounggi-Do, Korea) today on November 12th from 9:30AM. This crackdown was a co-operation between the Prosecutor's Office and the Police force, with 100 police officers, and immigration offices of Seoul, Eujeongbu, and Incheon Airport. The crackdown began with the block-down of the front and the back gate of the Masok factory complex with police buses, and the immigration officers grabbed migrant workers on the street, in the factories, in the dormitories and homes, resulting in more than 100 migrant workers in custody. During the crackdown, human rights of migrant workers were severely violated during the crackdown, as the immigration officers failed to present proper identification, verbal and physical abuse, excessive use of force including handcuffs, unlawful breaking and entering into personal homes and factories, and racially-based targeting of migrant workers regardless of checking their passport or visa. Among those who were taken by the immigration include a young Bangladesh mother of a four-year-old, and a Nepalese male worker in de facto marriage with a Korean woman, awaiting official documentations sent from Nepal with their 11-month-old son. Also, many migrant workers were injured during this violent crackdown while running away from the chase from immigration officers, two among which needing serious operations. One migrant worker injured his knees and foot while running away from the immigration, but was locked in the immigration office without given treatment despite his several pleas of pains and medical needs. According to the press release from the Ministry of Justice, another crackdown also took place in the Cheong-San Farm in Yeon-Chon, Gyounggi-Do in a similar manner. This massive crackdown is putting migrant workers, documented and undocumented, in the state of terror and fear, depriving them of their labor and human rights. The fact that police force was active and present during the immigration crackdown makes us question the willingness from the government to protect the basic human rights of migrant workers. In this state of terror that the crackdown created, many migrant workers are afraid of stepping out of their homes, to the extent that a pregnant Filipina woman with a valid working visa was afraid of going to a hospital. Despite of the apparent violence that was place upon the lives of migrant workers, the Ministry of Justice is claiming that “this massive crackdown operation is to uphold the order of foreigners’ residence because the living area of illegal aliens has become slums free of public order and the hotbed of crimes committed by foreigners,” according to their press release. The Ministry further argues that this crackdown “is inevitable to uphold the national legal order, to protect local citizens, and to protect the human rights of illegal aliens themselves.” Yet the data on the crimes in Masok area shows that the rate of crime for foreigners is even lower than that of Korean citizens, and the local citizens contest the absurdity of claiming Masok as a slum full of crimes. Rather, the factory complex of Masok is the center of local economy, and this kind of massive crackdown against migrant workers who work and live side by side with Korean citizens hurt the local residents, rather than protecting them, let alone protecting the rights of migrant workers. In fact, the true reason that these two places—Masok and Yeon-Chon-- were selected as targets of massive crackdown under the Lee Myoung-Bak government is because of their previous history of resisting the violent immigration crackdown, where local Korean citizens and migrant workers all came together to fight for their rights. In the face of this unlawful and violent crackdown, we demand the government to apologize and to release those who were taken during the crackdown. The legal order cannot be stepped upon the human rights violation of migrant workers nor the violent against them. Therefore, we ask the government to take the following action:-- Stop unlawful and violent crackdown against migrant workers-- Stop the proposed co-operation of massive crackdown with immigration and police force-- Apologize for human rights violations and bring those responsible to justice-- Release the migrant workers from the crackdown immediatelyNovember 12, 2008Seoul-Incheon-Gyounggi Migrant Trade Union
Towards a multicultural society where respect of difference rather than discrimination rules:
Artists’ Statement
On the Maseok Mass Crackdown
On November 12th Maseok and Chungsan area (Yonchon-gun) of the Namyangjoo city appeared as if a war took. It was because Ministry of Justice launched a massive crackdown jointly with the police department under the pretext of arresting ‘illegal’ foreign migrant workers. As a result, about one hundred thirty foreigners got arrested while many others were injured in the process. Three out of them were required for a surgical operation. The government’s crackdown on that day was done without any respect for human rights of foreign migrant workers. For example, a Bangladeshi woman had to ease herself with a handcuff still placed on one hand and a Korean colleague of hers watching for her. Later on, while asserting for further crackdown, Ministry of Justice stated that “regulations on illegal foreigners and their illegal activities are necessary for the maintenance of legal order and protection of local residents as well as the foreigners’ own human rights”. This event gives us a concrete picture of how the current government’s policy on foreign workers will be processed from now on.
As clearly shown in the current worldwide economic crisis triggered by the financial crisis in the US, national borders proved to be useless with the free migration of capital. The same situation is true with labor. Our economy cannot function without migrant workers. Recently there arose voices complaining that foreigners are taking our jobs. But, with a close look, one will find how such way of thinking is groundless. Foreign workers are not taking away what young job seekers are looking for. They work in furniture factories with permanent risk of their fingers cut, in leather manufacturing factories with lethal odors from chemical materials, and in small restaurants where they have to wash dishes all day without a rest. The government knows this as well as the small business owners who were also inflicted by the November 12 crackdown. Nonetheless, it is trying a worse scenario out of the Employment Permit System, which already has been criticized as a slavery system without migrant’s freedom to choose their workplaces. As an example, Ways to Improve Unskilled Foreign Workforce Policy presented by the Presidential Council on National Competitiveness on September 25 suggests to lower the minimum wage of migrant workers and requires them to pay for their own meal and accommodation, which originally were charged to their employers. It is doubted if such policy would strengthen the national economy. Even if so, it cannot be a desirable direction in a long-term perspective. We, who have the history of long labor migration to foreign countries, should seriously worry what kind of ill consequences will be brought by such discriminatory policies on foreign workers.
At this moment, we need to reflect fundamentally on how our society has been treating foreigner workers. Isn’t our deep prejudice towards foreign workers from the so-called developing countries shaming our grand project towards becoming an advanced nation? There is a sect in our society that treats them as a potential source of crime. It is problematic to generalize the whole group with a few cases. We vividly remember the terrible infanticide that occured a few years ago in the Seorae Vaillage. In regards to the event, while substantially shocked by its brutality, we still displayed a mature attitude by not generalizing it as the problem of the whole French resident community in Korea. When Cho Seung Hee’s massacre occurred in Virginia Tech, many Koreans felt a kind of collective guilt. Americans found it unintelligible why so many Koreans found it as their own deed not as Cho’s individual misdeed. What should be deported out of the country are not migrant workers but our own prejudice and ignorance.
The Lee government asks what is wrong with regulating ‘illegal’ migrant workers and execute law legitimately. Not only it is doubted if they strictly followed the law in the course of their crackdowns, but what is more crucial is the danger with the idea that whatever is by law is always just. We are deeply worried that the tyranny of legalism will not stop at policing and deporting ‘illegal’ migrant workers but will further oppress various minorities in our society including irregular workers.
We see the issue of migrant worker as the measure of our own consciousness and awareness of multiculturalism. With a growing migrant population in the past ten some years, we should overcome the idea of exclusive nationalism. We should acknowledge that there can be Koreans who are dark skinned. We should accept marriage immigrants as equally Korean mothers even though they cannot speak Korean language well. We should accept all of them as our good neighbors whether they be Southeast Asian migrant workers laboring in factories in Ansan, French residents in Seorae Village, or the foreign guests in the TV show Minyodul eui suda. We cannot sustain the Korean Wave with the same mentality that discriminated the halfies born between Korean women and US soldiers and the apathy towards their suffering.
Pulled over the car
Saw it on my way
Written in a clear, green board
Vietnam, that proud name in red letters
And that blurb just below it . . .
They will never run away
-From A Placard to be Abused by Park Nam Joon
Language devoid of tolerance towards the other easily becomes violent. Unfortunately, since the Independence, we have been speaking only one language without accepting others. The language of progress, defeat, and nationalistic victory… Today such language gave birth to expressions like “foreign brides keep the house well” or “Vietnamese girls do not run away,” which reveal the shameless ignorance we have. ‘Different’ languages do not mean ‘they are wrong.’
A multicultural society where respect of difference rather than discrimination rules is our future. Forced orderliness cannot be what we want today. The real power in this global era comes from diversity and difference.
1. Stop crackdown against all migrant workers.
1. Improve the Employment Permit System, the modern slavery.
1. Include Korean Chinese under the Overseas Koreans Law.
1. Amend the Korean Nationality Act that mandates the candidates to pass Korean language written exam and to complete the social unification course from January 1, 2009.
1. Provide a comprehensive blueprint for a multicultural and human rights-friendly society.
Association of artists concerned with migrant issues in Korea, December 17, 2008
STATEMENT II
MTU members strongly condemn the Korean government's barbaric crackdown in Maseok!
"The ongoing action that Korean government is utterly inhumane and directly goes against their policy of globalization. The Korean government's actions towards migrant workers establish the impression of the Korean psyche in general, that they are ungrateful opportunistic bunch who would squeeze out every drop of blood from their workers and discard of them like they were less than trash. To think that in Korea's early years, migrant workers gave great contributions to the manufacturing industries, the primary reason why Korea is enjoying their tiger economic status today.""This crackdown against Migrants are extremely inhumanity. Stop this cruelty.""It is no good. Therefore MTU design is OK""Let's fight for Migrants' rights"
OUR STATEMENT:A Call to Action against the Massive Crackdown Against Migrant Workers in Masok, South KoreaA massive and unlawful crackdown by the Ministry of Justice and police force took place in the Seong-Sang Furniture Factory Complex in Masok (Namyangju City, Gyounggi-Do, Korea) today on November 12th from 9:30AM. This crackdown was a co-operation between the Prosecutor's Office and the Police force, with 100 police officers, and immigration offices of Seoul, Eujeongbu, and Incheon Airport. The crackdown began with the block-down of the front and the back gate of the Masok factory complex with police buses, and the immigration officers grabbed migrant workers on the street, in the factories, in the dormitories and homes, resulting in more than 100 migrant workers in custody. During the crackdown, human rights of migrant workers were severely violated during the crackdown, as the immigration officers failed to present proper identification, verbal and physical abuse, excessive use of force including handcuffs, unlawful breaking and entering into personal homes and factories, and racially-based targeting of migrant workers regardless of checking their passport or visa. Among those who were taken by the immigration include a young Bangladesh mother of a four-year-old, and a Nepalese male worker in de facto marriage with a Korean woman, awaiting official documentations sent from Nepal with their 11-month-old son. Also, many migrant workers were injured during this violent crackdown while running away from the chase from immigration officers, two among which needing serious operations. One migrant worker injured his knees and foot while running away from the immigration, but was locked in the immigration office without given treatment despite his several pleas of pains and medical needs. According to the press release from the Ministry of Justice, another crackdown also took place in the Cheong-San Farm in Yeon-Chon, Gyounggi-Do in a similar manner. This massive crackdown is putting migrant workers, documented and undocumented, in the state of terror and fear, depriving them of their labor and human rights. The fact that police force was active and present during the immigration crackdown makes us question the willingness from the government to protect the basic human rights of migrant workers. In this state of terror that the crackdown created, many migrant workers are afraid of stepping out of their homes, to the extent that a pregnant Filipina woman with a valid working visa was afraid of going to a hospital. Despite of the apparent violence that was place upon the lives of migrant workers, the Ministry of Justice is claiming that “this massive crackdown operation is to uphold the order of foreigners’ residence because the living area of illegal aliens has become slums free of public order and the hotbed of crimes committed by foreigners,” according to their press release. The Ministry further argues that this crackdown “is inevitable to uphold the national legal order, to protect local citizens, and to protect the human rights of illegal aliens themselves.” Yet the data on the crimes in Masok area shows that the rate of crime for foreigners is even lower than that of Korean citizens, and the local citizens contest the absurdity of claiming Masok as a slum full of crimes. Rather, the factory complex of Masok is the center of local economy, and this kind of massive crackdown against migrant workers who work and live side by side with Korean citizens hurt the local residents, rather than protecting them, let alone protecting the rights of migrant workers. In fact, the true reason that these two places—Masok and Yeon-Chon-- were selected as targets of massive crackdown under the Lee Myoung-Bak government is because of their previous history of resisting the violent immigration crackdown, where local Korean citizens and migrant workers all came together to fight for their rights. In the face of this unlawful and violent crackdown, we demand the government to apologize and to release those who were taken during the crackdown. The legal order cannot be stepped upon the human rights violation of migrant workers nor the violent against them. Therefore, we ask the government to take the following action:-- Stop unlawful and violent crackdown against migrant workers-- Stop the proposed co-operation of massive crackdown with immigration and police force-- Apologize for human rights violations and bring those responsible to justice-- Release the migrant workers from the crackdown immediatelyNovember 12, 2008Seoul-Incheon-Gyounggi Migrant Trade Union
A Letter From MAY By May, President of the Filipino Migrants’ Association in Bucheon
A Letter From MAY
By May, President of the Filipino Migrants’ Association in Bucheon
Good afternoon everybody, and first I would like to say thank you to Mr. Elmer & Ms. Mauren of Armnet for inviting me to join on this seminar. My name is "May Cordova".Born in Bacolod city, married in korean, have an 8 yrs. old daughter and a legal residence of Bucheon city South Korea. As we gather here today to share everybody's story about our married and living life in the foreign land. And my story is going like this; I meet my husband in Manila year 1999, during those days i'm working as a saleslady in "supermarket".He is a member of a group called UNIFICATION. This group founded by a North Korean guy name MOON SUN MYUNG or as known as Rev. Sun Myung Moon here in philippines. How I meet my husband? Oh that's so interesting..He decided to join on this group for the purpose to marry a pinay, and he submitted his picture in the church he belong in korea ( one of the requirements) to get married. Then he match with pinay through their pictures, they got married, he attend the blessing in korea and this lady also attend the blessing ceremony here philippines. They never meet yet in personal its just they're already couple in the pictures cause they marry them self holding the pictures of each others. Then he decided to came here in philippines to meet the lady he married in pictures, together with some korean guys, and when he arrive in the one of the center of unification. the troubles start. The lady can't meet him for some reasons and the leaders assign some unification members to find somebody to become his couple on that day. I'm working as a saleslady near in one of the main center in quezon city. Virgie dela Cruz is one of my regular costumer in supermarket but I have no idea that she is also a member of unification group, but on that day she approach me to join in the party she prepared for the koreans she said but even how convincing words she's saying still I response her NO but maybe shes desperate to bring me on the center even my co-workers convincing me telling " why won't you try who knows this is your lucky chance ".Until I decided to accept the invitation but, I decided also to bring my cousin for the purpose of what happen with me I have my witness. Virgie dela Cruz, bring us in Antipolo i'm not sure which part of Antipolo cause its already almost 10:30 in the evening when we arrive the place. And the shocking part is when we enter the entrance gate I saw a lot of koreans, then the leader guide us to the office and giving us a 2 pages biodata type to answer the questions. Me and my cousin are looking each others (it seems asking whats this) because some questions are so sensitive & too personal but we answer all those questions and the second shocking part is after we response all the questions they're telling us to prepared, make our self presentable then they bring us to another room on that room theres a lot of pinay candidates they're talking each other about there korean spouse, their plans, some are look so happy and excited with matching a great smile saying to somebody "i saw him I know that's him his so handsome wearing nice outfit "and so on and so fort .But me and my cousin hearing those topic feel so nervous were talking oh my god whats this, asking its other if were in prostitute. After a while some leaders announcing that the name called transfer to another room. And that's the 3rd shocking, me & my cousin are belong to the names called so we followed the instruction, we transfer to the next room koreans are sitting in the opposite side with us, then its started calling names until my turn came & my husband is my partner some korean leader guided us in to the garden starting asking some information about me .Then next morning they gathered us again for some another announcement that's the 4th shocking part , why? because they are announcing to be prepared for wedding ceremony at the afternoon .Maybe some of you thinking why i'm still following them, right? simple, because you can't ran out on that place, no neighbors no vehicles to bring back where you from its sorrounded by the mountains and a lady age 19 from the province of Bacolod is so young don't know what to do so I think that's the reason why still following them. To continue my story on that day afternoon they prepared us for wedding ceremony, they give us weeding gown , until the ceremony's finish .Then after the ceremony they bring back us to Antipolo for some unification traditional things one of this is hitting the butt of each couples. The good thing is no honeymoon happen that's out of the rules of unification. After a year he came back here in philippines to meet my parents ,and after a months the unification office send my passport with visa & ticket to korea. And just after a month i'm already bringing the child of us still don't know how to speak korean also can't eat yet korean spicy foods, but I have no choice anymore but to face all the circumtances i've entered. At first I think I can't stay longer in the land of korea , for much reason theres a cultural, weather, foods, language, and most specially of living style differences. We always have a trouble about the cultural & some families problems. Most of the koreans are forcing us (they're foreign wives) to followed their culture, yeah we did but the trouble is they want us to forget our culture for the reason we married them, but for me that's the big cause of the problems of the migrant married couples. All I wanted is to be fair for us, we accept their culture so I think they must also accept the culture of they're wives. Until I meet "BUCHEON CITY MIGRANT OFFICE"They're handling different cases of foreign workers before , until our group founded since year 2004 , the first members are just 5 persons including ate Anna, she is the brain of this kfwa group also the first president of the said group, until the number of members become bigger & bigger. The purpose of our group is to "INSPIRE & ENCOURAGE " each member to share experiences & ideas, helping each other in any terms and to inspired everybody to become strong for all struggle in life here in korea, and the plans of the group is to become more active in any programs of the center. All the members are joining migrant center for the reason that we can shout & show who we are & where we from, here in migrant house we can share to anybody our culture we had. The benefits here , we have free korean classes , computer classes ,also art class for the kids, and also some seminars for migrant families, also we had a new group also under by migrant house its a group of filipino workers in korea legal & illegal, man & women are welcome to join on this group. We are very much thankful to migrant house for supporting us as their part of the house. We are just hoping that they will continue this kind of humanly projects not only for filipino but for all the migrants workers & migrant wives.
THANK YOU....
TRULY YOURS,
MAY
By May, President of the Filipino Migrants’ Association in Bucheon
Good afternoon everybody, and first I would like to say thank you to Mr. Elmer & Ms. Mauren of Armnet for inviting me to join on this seminar. My name is "May Cordova".Born in Bacolod city, married in korean, have an 8 yrs. old daughter and a legal residence of Bucheon city South Korea. As we gather here today to share everybody's story about our married and living life in the foreign land. And my story is going like this; I meet my husband in Manila year 1999, during those days i'm working as a saleslady in "supermarket".He is a member of a group called UNIFICATION. This group founded by a North Korean guy name MOON SUN MYUNG or as known as Rev. Sun Myung Moon here in philippines. How I meet my husband? Oh that's so interesting..He decided to join on this group for the purpose to marry a pinay, and he submitted his picture in the church he belong in korea ( one of the requirements) to get married. Then he match with pinay through their pictures, they got married, he attend the blessing in korea and this lady also attend the blessing ceremony here philippines. They never meet yet in personal its just they're already couple in the pictures cause they marry them self holding the pictures of each others. Then he decided to came here in philippines to meet the lady he married in pictures, together with some korean guys, and when he arrive in the one of the center of unification. the troubles start. The lady can't meet him for some reasons and the leaders assign some unification members to find somebody to become his couple on that day. I'm working as a saleslady near in one of the main center in quezon city. Virgie dela Cruz is one of my regular costumer in supermarket but I have no idea that she is also a member of unification group, but on that day she approach me to join in the party she prepared for the koreans she said but even how convincing words she's saying still I response her NO but maybe shes desperate to bring me on the center even my co-workers convincing me telling " why won't you try who knows this is your lucky chance ".Until I decided to accept the invitation but, I decided also to bring my cousin for the purpose of what happen with me I have my witness. Virgie dela Cruz, bring us in Antipolo i'm not sure which part of Antipolo cause its already almost 10:30 in the evening when we arrive the place. And the shocking part is when we enter the entrance gate I saw a lot of koreans, then the leader guide us to the office and giving us a 2 pages biodata type to answer the questions. Me and my cousin are looking each others (it seems asking whats this) because some questions are so sensitive & too personal but we answer all those questions and the second shocking part is after we response all the questions they're telling us to prepared, make our self presentable then they bring us to another room on that room theres a lot of pinay candidates they're talking each other about there korean spouse, their plans, some are look so happy and excited with matching a great smile saying to somebody "i saw him I know that's him his so handsome wearing nice outfit "and so on and so fort .But me and my cousin hearing those topic feel so nervous were talking oh my god whats this, asking its other if were in prostitute. After a while some leaders announcing that the name called transfer to another room. And that's the 3rd shocking, me & my cousin are belong to the names called so we followed the instruction, we transfer to the next room koreans are sitting in the opposite side with us, then its started calling names until my turn came & my husband is my partner some korean leader guided us in to the garden starting asking some information about me .Then next morning they gathered us again for some another announcement that's the 4th shocking part , why? because they are announcing to be prepared for wedding ceremony at the afternoon .Maybe some of you thinking why i'm still following them, right? simple, because you can't ran out on that place, no neighbors no vehicles to bring back where you from its sorrounded by the mountains and a lady age 19 from the province of Bacolod is so young don't know what to do so I think that's the reason why still following them. To continue my story on that day afternoon they prepared us for wedding ceremony, they give us weeding gown , until the ceremony's finish .Then after the ceremony they bring back us to Antipolo for some unification traditional things one of this is hitting the butt of each couples. The good thing is no honeymoon happen that's out of the rules of unification. After a year he came back here in philippines to meet my parents ,and after a months the unification office send my passport with visa & ticket to korea. And just after a month i'm already bringing the child of us still don't know how to speak korean also can't eat yet korean spicy foods, but I have no choice anymore but to face all the circumtances i've entered. At first I think I can't stay longer in the land of korea , for much reason theres a cultural, weather, foods, language, and most specially of living style differences. We always have a trouble about the cultural & some families problems. Most of the koreans are forcing us (they're foreign wives) to followed their culture, yeah we did but the trouble is they want us to forget our culture for the reason we married them, but for me that's the big cause of the problems of the migrant married couples. All I wanted is to be fair for us, we accept their culture so I think they must also accept the culture of they're wives. Until I meet "BUCHEON CITY MIGRANT OFFICE"They're handling different cases of foreign workers before , until our group founded since year 2004 , the first members are just 5 persons including ate Anna, she is the brain of this kfwa group also the first president of the said group, until the number of members become bigger & bigger. The purpose of our group is to "INSPIRE & ENCOURAGE " each member to share experiences & ideas, helping each other in any terms and to inspired everybody to become strong for all struggle in life here in korea, and the plans of the group is to become more active in any programs of the center. All the members are joining migrant center for the reason that we can shout & show who we are & where we from, here in migrant house we can share to anybody our culture we had. The benefits here , we have free korean classes , computer classes ,also art class for the kids, and also some seminars for migrant families, also we had a new group also under by migrant house its a group of filipino workers in korea legal & illegal, man & women are welcome to join on this group. We are very much thankful to migrant house for supporting us as their part of the house. We are just hoping that they will continue this kind of humanly projects not only for filipino but for all the migrants workers & migrant wives.
THANK YOU....
TRULY YOURS,
MAY
Mixed Marriage and keys to Happiness
Mixed Marriage and
Keys to Happiness
A Story of One Asian Immigrant
By Tatiana Simbirtseva, Moscow
We are a mixed couple. I am Russian, 51, and my husband is an Indian, 64. We have been together for 12 years. We met in our mature age, so I did not know my husband when he, an 18-year old boy from a hot Asian country, first came to Moscow in 1963. He remembers it was snowing on the day of his arrival and it was the first snow he saw in his life. This unusual experience marked the beginning of his long travel inside another civilization, which has been lasting for more than 40 years already. This travel was sometimes exciting, sometimes tragic or troublesome. I can only sigh with pity that I was not with him then. Now, when I have got to know the life of my husband very well, I am sure that it deserves been described in a novel. The world is becoming very wide and simultaneously small. Millions of people leave for other countries in search of luck, happiness, peace, fortune, truth, faith, adventure and many other things… What should be preserved and what can be abandoned? What should an immigrant cherish? I feel that the story of my husband, which I describe below, can be a useful on-the-way reading for the world travelers.
***
My husband was born in 1944 in an Indian family in Burma – a country, which is presently called Myanmar. That is why he has two names. One is Indian – Khanhaya, as his parents called him, and the second is Burmese – Aun. This name he chose himself when he got in touch with the Burmese people for whom pronunciation of Indian names was very difficult. I call him Aun. His native place was a distant village some hundred miles from Rangoon, where only Indian peasants lived. They were forcefully brought there to cultivate sugar cane in the time when India was a colony of England. Living in Burma they never mixed with Burmese and strictly preserved their national traditions. The village has not changed much since. There is still no electricity there, no TV or telephone and Aun, who graduated as an engineer from a university abroad, is remembered as one of most prominent fellow-villagers. At 7 Aun went to a primary Indian school in the neighborhood, which taught in Hindi. Four years later he entered a middle Burmese school and walked there seven kilometers every morning and back at daytime in any weather. Burmese language is very different from Hindi, but it was essential for an educated man in Myanmar, and soon Aun learned it very well. Now he says that it is his native tongue. At the middle school he got his first experience of another culture as his class-mates there were all Burmese. Aun had a passion for studying and was an excellent student, especially in mathematics. In his class he was surrounded with respect and thus his adjustment to the Burmese society was not difficult. Very early he got a dream of studying abroad. It was realized in 1963, when the new military government of Burma, which decided to build socialism in their country, sent him to the Soviet Union as one of the best school graduates. It was the time when many Asian countries sent their young people to the USSR to learn and gain experience of socialism. So Aun came to Moscow along with many Vietnamese, Mongol, Afghan and other Asians.
Tatiana and her husband, AunThey were complete strangers in Russia. From the first day here they got a lot of problems and food was most difficult of them. Asian food, especially Indian, is very hot. Russian food is unflavored. Russians don’t use spices, which are so essential for Indians. They also eat much beef, and Aun was a vegetarian. His parents were Hindu believers. This faith strictly prohibits eating meat in general and particularly cow flesh, which is perceived like eating one’s mother. Every time when Aun got to the eatery he got dizzy. The smell there seemed disgusting to him. For several days he could not make himself to eat even a piece. The same was with the other new-comers. So they began to search for a way out. The Vietnamese, who were most numerous and lived in a group, every day appointed a person in charge of the kitchen and by turns prepared collective morning and evening meals. Other students prepared food in their native style by themselves. It took a lot of time not only because of cooking but because there were no necessary ingredients in Moscow shops and the students had to hunt for them at private markets. Restaurants were scarce and very expensive. Some students could not stand those torments. They gave up the idea of studying in Russia and returned home.
“They never quarreled. Unanimity of views in upbringing children, mutual understanding and tolerance were the main things, which they treasured.”
Aun was the only Burmese student in his university and decided the food problem in his own way. “If I have come to study, I can’t spend time preparing food”, - he thought. So he began to eat in eateries together with his Russian classmates. It was not tasty, but saved time and money. Several weeks later the dizziness, which he felt every time when he got into the eatery, disappeared. In some months he started to eat beef. It was a big victory. His new habits allowed him to visit Russian houses. He made some local friends and met Masha – a Russian girl who worked in his university. They fell in love and settled together. Their family life started not without complications. Before Aun left for the USSR his father had signed an obligation that his son would not marry while studying abroad. Otherwise his father was to pay a big fine. An opinion prevailed that family was an obstacle to studying well. But any rule has an exception. Aun spoke Russian almost as a native and his marks were so excellent that a special permission to marry was granted to him by the Burmese government. He was invited to the embassy and an official there told him that it was an exceptional privilege for his excellent performance in the university. Aun married with Masha officially by the end of his studies.
By that time Aun had finally solved his food problem. He invented a sauce of bitter pepper, lemons and green tomatoes and prepared it in big quantities once a year in autumn when pepper was available in the market. He added it to Russian dishes and the new taste somehow reminded him of Indian food, which he missed. He was sure that people ate in order to live, but did not live in order to eat. Masha would have liked to cook Indian or Burmese food for him but a serious reason prevented her from any cooking. Soon after their first daughter was born she got a disease – asthma. Smells – spices, fried oil, soap, etc. - caused asphyxiation and threatened her condition. So Aun began to prepare food and wash clothes by turns with his mother-in-law. He was devoted, young, energetic and responsible, and the home routine did not seem boring to him. The thought that Masha needed him and relied on him made him even stronger. They enjoyed every minute together in spite of their sudden misfortune.
In 5 years Aun graduated from the university with highest marks and went to Burma with his family. Masha followed him without hesitation in spite of the fact that Burma was much poorer than the Soviet Union. They settled in Rangoon with his mother and younger brother, as his father had died by that time. Aun’s mother could neither read nor write but she was a wise woman. She cordially met her Russian daughter-in-law, prepared meals for all the family and never imposed her will on them. She suspected that her son had eaten beef in Russia but preferred never to ask about it in order to preserve peace in the family. Otherwise she would have to curse him for violation of faith. Remembering those years Aun says: “If you bring a foreign wife to your country you take a responsibility, which is much bigger than that of husbands in ordinary families. It’s double efforts. Not only you must provide for the family and train your wife to live in unknown surroundings. You also must train your relatives to treat her well and smooth cultural discrepancies. You become an intermediary and usually receive the first blow if their contact is not positive. Such an adjustment could last for years, but you should be persistent for the sake of your family”.
In Burma Aun worked as a civil officer. The salary was not enough for six people. They counted every penny, but neither poverty, not Masha’s disease, which steadily aggravated, disturbed their peace and harmony. They never quarreled. Unanimity of views in upbringing children, mutual understanding and tolerance were the main things, which they treasured. Being a good engineer, Aun arranged their small 2-room apartment in European style, which included lavatory, bathroom and other facilities, to which Masha had got used at home. She liked reading and they had a big collection of Russian books, which made their home look like a library. Being busy in the office and with the family in the evenings Aun wrote fiction at nights. He felt as if he had wings. In some years he was admitted into the Association of Burmese writers. His stories were gladly published by literary magazines. They brought little income but gave satisfaction and attracted new friends. Soon their second daughter, Sanda, was born. They lived in Burma for 7 years. At home they spoke mostly in Russian. Masha learned very little of Hindu or Burmese – enough to communicate with relatives and go to the market. Meanwhile Aun’s younger brother learned good Russian and his little daughters spoke Hindi and Burmese fluently and readily translated for their mother. Then her health began to deteriorate rapidly and they returned to Moscow in hope that change of climate would improve her condition. The hope turned to be vain. In 6 years she died. She was 38. Their 18-year-long married life was over. After her death Aun remained in Russia for ever. He began to work at the Radio Moscow World Service and grew his daughters alone. The girls forgot the Burmese language rather quickly, but they never forgot their experience at their father’s native country. It influenced their lives in future.
There was a rule in Russia till some years ago that people wrote their nationality in their passports. When Aun’s daughters became 16 and the time came to receive their passports the elder daughter Nila (with her pale skin she resembled her mother) wrote that she was “Russian” in her passport. The second daughter Sanda, who was swarthy and looked very much like her father, wrote that she was “an Indian”. This separation of nationalities turned to be symbolic. After graduating school, at 17, Sanda went to India to search for her roots. Aun supported her decision and provided her with money necessary to pay for living and education. Sanda learned Hindi, studied for 4 years and graduated from Delhi University with a ‘tourism manager’ diploma. She also married a nice Indian man - Harry. His parents, provincial nobility, were against their marriage but they had to put up with it when their two grandchildren were born. Harry was a capable engineer and wanted to establish his own business. Aun adviced him to come to Russia. “If you manage to run your business successfully in Russia, which is in transition period from socialist system to capitalism and business is very complicated, you’ll be able to prosper anywhere”, - these were his words. Harry followed the advice. He came to Moscow, hired a very qualified teacher of Russian and began to speak rather fluently in less than half year. Soon he established a company, which sold communication equipment, and gained recognition as a highly qualified expert in his field. Sanda helped him in the office and took care of the household. After 10 years in Moscow they returned to India. I remember our last meeting before their departure. It was Sanda’s birthday. When all the guests were seated, Harri took his cup of wine and looking at his wife said: “I drink it for you. You’re my everything”. I was greatly moved by his words as Asian men seldom say beautiful words to their wives.
Now Sanda, Harry and their daughter of 15 and son of 13 live in Bangalore, India, together with his parents. At home they speak Hindi and English and actively communicate in Russian with relatives in Moscow. Aun’s eldest daughter Nila lives in Moscow. As Sanda has not become a ‘complete Indian’ Nila is not a ‘complete Russian’. She also married an Indian man, who is a doctor. I feel that Aun, their Indian father, once and for all set an example for his children and greatly influenced their choice of spouses. Nila has 4 children, speaks fluent Hindi, wears Indian traditional clothes ‘sari’ at home and prepares tasty Indian dishes. Generally speaking, both Aun’s daughters live in the world where Indian and Russian cultures are equally present, and their children speak languages of both parents.
Is it necessary to teach the mother’s (father’s) language, if the family lives in the father’s (mother’s) country? Judging by his experience Aun answers the following: “It is desirable. The world is wide. Life is complicated and it may happen so that people have to move from the father’s native country to that of the mother. Mastering mother’s language is an obvious advantage in such a case. But it is not an indispensable condition of human happiness. Not every mixed family has an opportunity to teach languages to their children. No need to be too much upset because of it. As Sanda’s example proves, the other parent’s language can be learned when the child grows up. On the other hand, it may never be learned at all. To my mind, the main thing, which we can do for our children, is to plant an interest to the family origins and respect to cultures of both parents from early years. Such family education enriches children’s personality; makes them tolerant, flexible, open-minded, receptive. These qualities of character create a firm basis for their future success in this quickly changing and globalizing world”. ###
Keys to Happiness
A Story of One Asian Immigrant
By Tatiana Simbirtseva, Moscow
We are a mixed couple. I am Russian, 51, and my husband is an Indian, 64. We have been together for 12 years. We met in our mature age, so I did not know my husband when he, an 18-year old boy from a hot Asian country, first came to Moscow in 1963. He remembers it was snowing on the day of his arrival and it was the first snow he saw in his life. This unusual experience marked the beginning of his long travel inside another civilization, which has been lasting for more than 40 years already. This travel was sometimes exciting, sometimes tragic or troublesome. I can only sigh with pity that I was not with him then. Now, when I have got to know the life of my husband very well, I am sure that it deserves been described in a novel. The world is becoming very wide and simultaneously small. Millions of people leave for other countries in search of luck, happiness, peace, fortune, truth, faith, adventure and many other things… What should be preserved and what can be abandoned? What should an immigrant cherish? I feel that the story of my husband, which I describe below, can be a useful on-the-way reading for the world travelers.
***
My husband was born in 1944 in an Indian family in Burma – a country, which is presently called Myanmar. That is why he has two names. One is Indian – Khanhaya, as his parents called him, and the second is Burmese – Aun. This name he chose himself when he got in touch with the Burmese people for whom pronunciation of Indian names was very difficult. I call him Aun. His native place was a distant village some hundred miles from Rangoon, where only Indian peasants lived. They were forcefully brought there to cultivate sugar cane in the time when India was a colony of England. Living in Burma they never mixed with Burmese and strictly preserved their national traditions. The village has not changed much since. There is still no electricity there, no TV or telephone and Aun, who graduated as an engineer from a university abroad, is remembered as one of most prominent fellow-villagers. At 7 Aun went to a primary Indian school in the neighborhood, which taught in Hindi. Four years later he entered a middle Burmese school and walked there seven kilometers every morning and back at daytime in any weather. Burmese language is very different from Hindi, but it was essential for an educated man in Myanmar, and soon Aun learned it very well. Now he says that it is his native tongue. At the middle school he got his first experience of another culture as his class-mates there were all Burmese. Aun had a passion for studying and was an excellent student, especially in mathematics. In his class he was surrounded with respect and thus his adjustment to the Burmese society was not difficult. Very early he got a dream of studying abroad. It was realized in 1963, when the new military government of Burma, which decided to build socialism in their country, sent him to the Soviet Union as one of the best school graduates. It was the time when many Asian countries sent their young people to the USSR to learn and gain experience of socialism. So Aun came to Moscow along with many Vietnamese, Mongol, Afghan and other Asians.
Tatiana and her husband, AunThey were complete strangers in Russia. From the first day here they got a lot of problems and food was most difficult of them. Asian food, especially Indian, is very hot. Russian food is unflavored. Russians don’t use spices, which are so essential for Indians. They also eat much beef, and Aun was a vegetarian. His parents were Hindu believers. This faith strictly prohibits eating meat in general and particularly cow flesh, which is perceived like eating one’s mother. Every time when Aun got to the eatery he got dizzy. The smell there seemed disgusting to him. For several days he could not make himself to eat even a piece. The same was with the other new-comers. So they began to search for a way out. The Vietnamese, who were most numerous and lived in a group, every day appointed a person in charge of the kitchen and by turns prepared collective morning and evening meals. Other students prepared food in their native style by themselves. It took a lot of time not only because of cooking but because there were no necessary ingredients in Moscow shops and the students had to hunt for them at private markets. Restaurants were scarce and very expensive. Some students could not stand those torments. They gave up the idea of studying in Russia and returned home.
“They never quarreled. Unanimity of views in upbringing children, mutual understanding and tolerance were the main things, which they treasured.”
Aun was the only Burmese student in his university and decided the food problem in his own way. “If I have come to study, I can’t spend time preparing food”, - he thought. So he began to eat in eateries together with his Russian classmates. It was not tasty, but saved time and money. Several weeks later the dizziness, which he felt every time when he got into the eatery, disappeared. In some months he started to eat beef. It was a big victory. His new habits allowed him to visit Russian houses. He made some local friends and met Masha – a Russian girl who worked in his university. They fell in love and settled together. Their family life started not without complications. Before Aun left for the USSR his father had signed an obligation that his son would not marry while studying abroad. Otherwise his father was to pay a big fine. An opinion prevailed that family was an obstacle to studying well. But any rule has an exception. Aun spoke Russian almost as a native and his marks were so excellent that a special permission to marry was granted to him by the Burmese government. He was invited to the embassy and an official there told him that it was an exceptional privilege for his excellent performance in the university. Aun married with Masha officially by the end of his studies.
By that time Aun had finally solved his food problem. He invented a sauce of bitter pepper, lemons and green tomatoes and prepared it in big quantities once a year in autumn when pepper was available in the market. He added it to Russian dishes and the new taste somehow reminded him of Indian food, which he missed. He was sure that people ate in order to live, but did not live in order to eat. Masha would have liked to cook Indian or Burmese food for him but a serious reason prevented her from any cooking. Soon after their first daughter was born she got a disease – asthma. Smells – spices, fried oil, soap, etc. - caused asphyxiation and threatened her condition. So Aun began to prepare food and wash clothes by turns with his mother-in-law. He was devoted, young, energetic and responsible, and the home routine did not seem boring to him. The thought that Masha needed him and relied on him made him even stronger. They enjoyed every minute together in spite of their sudden misfortune.
In 5 years Aun graduated from the university with highest marks and went to Burma with his family. Masha followed him without hesitation in spite of the fact that Burma was much poorer than the Soviet Union. They settled in Rangoon with his mother and younger brother, as his father had died by that time. Aun’s mother could neither read nor write but she was a wise woman. She cordially met her Russian daughter-in-law, prepared meals for all the family and never imposed her will on them. She suspected that her son had eaten beef in Russia but preferred never to ask about it in order to preserve peace in the family. Otherwise she would have to curse him for violation of faith. Remembering those years Aun says: “If you bring a foreign wife to your country you take a responsibility, which is much bigger than that of husbands in ordinary families. It’s double efforts. Not only you must provide for the family and train your wife to live in unknown surroundings. You also must train your relatives to treat her well and smooth cultural discrepancies. You become an intermediary and usually receive the first blow if their contact is not positive. Such an adjustment could last for years, but you should be persistent for the sake of your family”.
In Burma Aun worked as a civil officer. The salary was not enough for six people. They counted every penny, but neither poverty, not Masha’s disease, which steadily aggravated, disturbed their peace and harmony. They never quarreled. Unanimity of views in upbringing children, mutual understanding and tolerance were the main things, which they treasured. Being a good engineer, Aun arranged their small 2-room apartment in European style, which included lavatory, bathroom and other facilities, to which Masha had got used at home. She liked reading and they had a big collection of Russian books, which made their home look like a library. Being busy in the office and with the family in the evenings Aun wrote fiction at nights. He felt as if he had wings. In some years he was admitted into the Association of Burmese writers. His stories were gladly published by literary magazines. They brought little income but gave satisfaction and attracted new friends. Soon their second daughter, Sanda, was born. They lived in Burma for 7 years. At home they spoke mostly in Russian. Masha learned very little of Hindu or Burmese – enough to communicate with relatives and go to the market. Meanwhile Aun’s younger brother learned good Russian and his little daughters spoke Hindi and Burmese fluently and readily translated for their mother. Then her health began to deteriorate rapidly and they returned to Moscow in hope that change of climate would improve her condition. The hope turned to be vain. In 6 years she died. She was 38. Their 18-year-long married life was over. After her death Aun remained in Russia for ever. He began to work at the Radio Moscow World Service and grew his daughters alone. The girls forgot the Burmese language rather quickly, but they never forgot their experience at their father’s native country. It influenced their lives in future.
There was a rule in Russia till some years ago that people wrote their nationality in their passports. When Aun’s daughters became 16 and the time came to receive their passports the elder daughter Nila (with her pale skin she resembled her mother) wrote that she was “Russian” in her passport. The second daughter Sanda, who was swarthy and looked very much like her father, wrote that she was “an Indian”. This separation of nationalities turned to be symbolic. After graduating school, at 17, Sanda went to India to search for her roots. Aun supported her decision and provided her with money necessary to pay for living and education. Sanda learned Hindi, studied for 4 years and graduated from Delhi University with a ‘tourism manager’ diploma. She also married a nice Indian man - Harry. His parents, provincial nobility, were against their marriage but they had to put up with it when their two grandchildren were born. Harry was a capable engineer and wanted to establish his own business. Aun adviced him to come to Russia. “If you manage to run your business successfully in Russia, which is in transition period from socialist system to capitalism and business is very complicated, you’ll be able to prosper anywhere”, - these were his words. Harry followed the advice. He came to Moscow, hired a very qualified teacher of Russian and began to speak rather fluently in less than half year. Soon he established a company, which sold communication equipment, and gained recognition as a highly qualified expert in his field. Sanda helped him in the office and took care of the household. After 10 years in Moscow they returned to India. I remember our last meeting before their departure. It was Sanda’s birthday. When all the guests were seated, Harri took his cup of wine and looking at his wife said: “I drink it for you. You’re my everything”. I was greatly moved by his words as Asian men seldom say beautiful words to their wives.
Now Sanda, Harry and their daughter of 15 and son of 13 live in Bangalore, India, together with his parents. At home they speak Hindi and English and actively communicate in Russian with relatives in Moscow. Aun’s eldest daughter Nila lives in Moscow. As Sanda has not become a ‘complete Indian’ Nila is not a ‘complete Russian’. She also married an Indian man, who is a doctor. I feel that Aun, their Indian father, once and for all set an example for his children and greatly influenced their choice of spouses. Nila has 4 children, speaks fluent Hindi, wears Indian traditional clothes ‘sari’ at home and prepares tasty Indian dishes. Generally speaking, both Aun’s daughters live in the world where Indian and Russian cultures are equally present, and their children speak languages of both parents.
Is it necessary to teach the mother’s (father’s) language, if the family lives in the father’s (mother’s) country? Judging by his experience Aun answers the following: “It is desirable. The world is wide. Life is complicated and it may happen so that people have to move from the father’s native country to that of the mother. Mastering mother’s language is an obvious advantage in such a case. But it is not an indispensable condition of human happiness. Not every mixed family has an opportunity to teach languages to their children. No need to be too much upset because of it. As Sanda’s example proves, the other parent’s language can be learned when the child grows up. On the other hand, it may never be learned at all. To my mind, the main thing, which we can do for our children, is to plant an interest to the family origins and respect to cultures of both parents from early years. Such family education enriches children’s personality; makes them tolerant, flexible, open-minded, receptive. These qualities of character create a firm basis for their future success in this quickly changing and globalizing world”. ###
Damunhwa as Sensitivity Rearing Programs
Damunhwa as Sensitivity Rearing Programs*
By EuyRyung Jun,
Ph.D. Student, Anthropology,
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA
Terrence Turner, an anthropologist, has once distinguished what he calls “critical multiculturalism” from what he calls “difference multiculturalism” (1993). According to him, while the former uses cultural difference and diversity as the basis of challenging, rethinking, and relativizing the dominant culture of power, the latter tends to reify and even fetishize difference and otherness. In Alain Badiou’s term, it is a “tourist’s fascination for the diversity of morals, customs and beliefs” (2001: 26). Arguing the notion of a ‘recognition of the other (e.g., Taylor 1994) does not shed any light on the concrete real, Badiou criticizes contemporary ethics for being reduced to humanitarianism and discourses of rights to difference. He continues that the ‘differences’ that are so much celebrated in such discourses are only ‘acceptable differences’ – if not exactly the same as ‘us’ (24). This is the ethics of dominant groups that distinguishes what is acceptable from what is not in its conception of difference. That is, while a display of ‘benign differences’ is openly appreciated and consumed under the narcissistic celebration of the tolerant or cosmopolitan self, any radical difference is used to justify further exclusion of foreigners and migrants, which again leads to naturalization and racialization of culture, and fixation of identities. In a similar vein, Mahmood Mamdani warns against what he calls the “culture talk” or “culturalization of politics,” a process in which political issues, relations, and processes are explained as results or parts of some ‘cultural essences’ (2000; 2004).
“The subject of multicultural sensitivity is almost always marked as native Koreans distinguished from their objects, i.e., migrants and racially mixed people and families.”
Although the discourse of damunhwa in Korea has appeared only recently – in early to mid-2000s and thus it is difficult to predict exactly how it will evolve, the present movements in the country invite many of the above critiques. A few of the characteristics of the phenomenon of damunhwa in Korea can be summarized as follows. First, the majority of actors who mobilize damunhwa and tolerance towards Other are middle-class Koreans working in NGOs, government, and academic sectors. Second, most of what are called damunhwa programs organized by local NGOs and sponsored by state agencies feature cultural festivals and cultural classes where individuals, who are mostly Koreans, can learn about migrants’ traditional cultures and experience exotic cuisines, costumes, and customs (or the 3Cs). Third, while ‘culture’ in the discourses of damunhwa is often referred to mean something natural, essential, and thus before or separate from politics,[1] cultural difference and rights to it emerged as something to be protected unconditionally. Fourth, it has become a widespread practice, especially among concerned NGO, government, academic, and media circles, to use the word damunhwa to directly refer to migrants’ racially different and mixed family and children, e.g., damunhwa gajong (“multicultural family”) and damunhwa orini (“multicultural children”).[2]
All of the above tendencies combined together in damunwha discourses and practices, I argue, depoliticize the issues of difference and otherness transforming them into a technical matter; individual Koreans can simply improve their attitudes towards foreigners and migrants, be open and tolerant towards their different food, customs, and cultures, and thus develop what is called damunhwajok gamsusong (“multicultural sensitivity”). In her powerful critique of discourses of tolerance, Wendy Brown notes how they always designate tolerating subjects separately from tolerated objects, in which the latter “will always be those who deviate from the norm, never those who uphold it, but they will also be further articulated as (deviant) individuals through the very discourse of tolerance.” (2006: 44). She continues to criticize how tolerance discourses involving minority groups redefine the problem of inequality and social justice as that of “therapeutic and behavioral” one (16):
It is important to note how various damunhwa programs that have emerged since early 20
00s have been precisely focusing on rearing multicultural and human rights-friendly sensitivity among individual Koreans. In one of the interviews I conducted in 2006, the representative of a local NGO, who initiated the first such program in the migrant advocacy circle, asserted how it felt necessary to organize a program for local residents to develop a cultural sensitivity needed to co-exist peacefully with migrants. She especially emphasized how Koreans are ignorant of diverse and different cultures of migrants and how such ignorance may become a significant barrier in bridging the social gap and distance between Koreans and migrants. Another interview I conducted in the same year with another activist from a different organization reverberated a similar logic in organizing damunhwa programs. What they commonly agreed upon is the importance of damunhwa education on children that such sensitivity training on difference and human rights is much more effective when done in and on the youth. The children who learn to respect others’ difference and rights would grow as good multicultural citizens. For example, the pamphlet of the “human rights class - difference means beautiful,” one of such programs for children organized by a local NGO introduces the class like below:
Our human rights class - difference means beautiful is an Asian cultural experience and human rights education program that supports our children to become free from prejudices and fear of what is different from us and to grow up as healthy and tolerant members of society who are capable of cohabiting with global citizens through experiences in cultures of various Asian countries.
The program is apparently focused on developing multicultural sensitivity among the ‘native,’ or racially or ethnically Korean, children who are referred to as “our children” vis-à-vis migrants and their children. The subject of multicultural sensitivity is almost always marked as native Koreans distinguished from their objects, i.e., migrants and racially mixed people and families. Increasingly, while munhwa, or “culture,” in the term da-munhwa, or multi-culture, is used to refer not simply to any culture[3] but specifically to those that have been stigmatized as inferior, undesirable, peculiar, primitive, and/or under/less-developed, things Korean, e.g., Korean culture and Korean people, are further articulated as a relatively color-less, ‘culture’-less subject thus assuming a position of universality and reasserting superiority vis-à-vis migrants’ particularity and their inferiority (Brown 2006; Zizek 1997).
To sum up, more or less operating as a technical manual of how to treat better and behave with various Others, damunhwa programs as they emerged in Korea naturalize existing power relations between natives and migrants, and citizens and foreigners by defining an issue of structural inequality as a matter of developing and improving individual sensitivity. Discussions on issues of difference and inequality cannot simply be reduced to a narcissistic critique of the Korean self or a matter of individual activists’ good will to build a ‘good society.’ Rather, what we need now is a radical inquiry on the political, economic, and social conditions in which discourses of damunhwa have emerged in Korea and their overall effects.##
* This is a part of a paper titled Beyond Damunhwa and Discourses of Sensitivity Rearing, which was delivered at the IAPH Symposium XIII, Seoul, Korea, 2008.
[1] For example, in a symposium titled “Making Multi-Cultural Society: Comparison between Germany and the U.S,” held in May 2008, I observed how some of the participants, who were indeed debating against one another, more or less treated ‘culture’ commonly as some kind of sanctuary from things political.
[2] I have even encountered a term such as “damunhwa tea”!
[3] The term damunhwa is hardly used to refer to things that have been traditionally associated with powerful Others, e.g., ‘American culture,’ ‘Japanese food,’ or ‘French literature.’
By EuyRyung Jun,
Ph.D. Student, Anthropology,
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA
Terrence Turner, an anthropologist, has once distinguished what he calls “critical multiculturalism” from what he calls “difference multiculturalism” (1993). According to him, while the former uses cultural difference and diversity as the basis of challenging, rethinking, and relativizing the dominant culture of power, the latter tends to reify and even fetishize difference and otherness. In Alain Badiou’s term, it is a “tourist’s fascination for the diversity of morals, customs and beliefs” (2001: 26). Arguing the notion of a ‘recognition of the other (e.g., Taylor 1994) does not shed any light on the concrete real, Badiou criticizes contemporary ethics for being reduced to humanitarianism and discourses of rights to difference. He continues that the ‘differences’ that are so much celebrated in such discourses are only ‘acceptable differences’ – if not exactly the same as ‘us’ (24). This is the ethics of dominant groups that distinguishes what is acceptable from what is not in its conception of difference. That is, while a display of ‘benign differences’ is openly appreciated and consumed under the narcissistic celebration of the tolerant or cosmopolitan self, any radical difference is used to justify further exclusion of foreigners and migrants, which again leads to naturalization and racialization of culture, and fixation of identities. In a similar vein, Mahmood Mamdani warns against what he calls the “culture talk” or “culturalization of politics,” a process in which political issues, relations, and processes are explained as results or parts of some ‘cultural essences’ (2000; 2004).
“The subject of multicultural sensitivity is almost always marked as native Koreans distinguished from their objects, i.e., migrants and racially mixed people and families.”
Although the discourse of damunhwa in Korea has appeared only recently – in early to mid-2000s and thus it is difficult to predict exactly how it will evolve, the present movements in the country invite many of the above critiques. A few of the characteristics of the phenomenon of damunhwa in Korea can be summarized as follows. First, the majority of actors who mobilize damunhwa and tolerance towards Other are middle-class Koreans working in NGOs, government, and academic sectors. Second, most of what are called damunhwa programs organized by local NGOs and sponsored by state agencies feature cultural festivals and cultural classes where individuals, who are mostly Koreans, can learn about migrants’ traditional cultures and experience exotic cuisines, costumes, and customs (or the 3Cs). Third, while ‘culture’ in the discourses of damunhwa is often referred to mean something natural, essential, and thus before or separate from politics,[1] cultural difference and rights to it emerged as something to be protected unconditionally. Fourth, it has become a widespread practice, especially among concerned NGO, government, academic, and media circles, to use the word damunhwa to directly refer to migrants’ racially different and mixed family and children, e.g., damunhwa gajong (“multicultural family”) and damunhwa orini (“multicultural children”).[2]
All of the above tendencies combined together in damunwha discourses and practices, I argue, depoliticize the issues of difference and otherness transforming them into a technical matter; individual Koreans can simply improve their attitudes towards foreigners and migrants, be open and tolerant towards their different food, customs, and cultures, and thus develop what is called damunhwajok gamsusong (“multicultural sensitivity”). In her powerful critique of discourses of tolerance, Wendy Brown notes how they always designate tolerating subjects separately from tolerated objects, in which the latter “will always be those who deviate from the norm, never those who uphold it, but they will also be further articulated as (deviant) individuals through the very discourse of tolerance.” (2006: 44). She continues to criticize how tolerance discourses involving minority groups redefine the problem of inequality and social justice as that of “therapeutic and behavioral” one (16):
It is important to note how various damunhwa programs that have emerged since early 20
00s have been precisely focusing on rearing multicultural and human rights-friendly sensitivity among individual Koreans. In one of the interviews I conducted in 2006, the representative of a local NGO, who initiated the first such program in the migrant advocacy circle, asserted how it felt necessary to organize a program for local residents to develop a cultural sensitivity needed to co-exist peacefully with migrants. She especially emphasized how Koreans are ignorant of diverse and different cultures of migrants and how such ignorance may become a significant barrier in bridging the social gap and distance between Koreans and migrants. Another interview I conducted in the same year with another activist from a different organization reverberated a similar logic in organizing damunhwa programs. What they commonly agreed upon is the importance of damunhwa education on children that such sensitivity training on difference and human rights is much more effective when done in and on the youth. The children who learn to respect others’ difference and rights would grow as good multicultural citizens. For example, the pamphlet of the “human rights class - difference means beautiful,” one of such programs for children organized by a local NGO introduces the class like below:
Our human rights class - difference means beautiful is an Asian cultural experience and human rights education program that supports our children to become free from prejudices and fear of what is different from us and to grow up as healthy and tolerant members of society who are capable of cohabiting with global citizens through experiences in cultures of various Asian countries.
The program is apparently focused on developing multicultural sensitivity among the ‘native,’ or racially or ethnically Korean, children who are referred to as “our children” vis-à-vis migrants and their children. The subject of multicultural sensitivity is almost always marked as native Koreans distinguished from their objects, i.e., migrants and racially mixed people and families. Increasingly, while munhwa, or “culture,” in the term da-munhwa, or multi-culture, is used to refer not simply to any culture[3] but specifically to those that have been stigmatized as inferior, undesirable, peculiar, primitive, and/or under/less-developed, things Korean, e.g., Korean culture and Korean people, are further articulated as a relatively color-less, ‘culture’-less subject thus assuming a position of universality and reasserting superiority vis-à-vis migrants’ particularity and their inferiority (Brown 2006; Zizek 1997).
To sum up, more or less operating as a technical manual of how to treat better and behave with various Others, damunhwa programs as they emerged in Korea naturalize existing power relations between natives and migrants, and citizens and foreigners by defining an issue of structural inequality as a matter of developing and improving individual sensitivity. Discussions on issues of difference and inequality cannot simply be reduced to a narcissistic critique of the Korean self or a matter of individual activists’ good will to build a ‘good society.’ Rather, what we need now is a radical inquiry on the political, economic, and social conditions in which discourses of damunhwa have emerged in Korea and their overall effects.##
* This is a part of a paper titled Beyond Damunhwa and Discourses of Sensitivity Rearing, which was delivered at the IAPH Symposium XIII, Seoul, Korea, 2008.
[1] For example, in a symposium titled “Making Multi-Cultural Society: Comparison between Germany and the U.S,” held in May 2008, I observed how some of the participants, who were indeed debating against one another, more or less treated ‘culture’ commonly as some kind of sanctuary from things political.
[2] I have even encountered a term such as “damunhwa tea”!
[3] The term damunhwa is hardly used to refer to things that have been traditionally associated with powerful Others, e.g., ‘American culture,’ ‘Japanese food,’ or ‘French literature.’
Damunhwa as Sensitivity Rearing Programs
Damunhwa as Sensitivity Rearing Programs*
By EuyRyung Jun,
Ph.D. Student, Anthropology,
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA
Terrence Turner, an anthropologist, has once distinguished what he calls “critical multiculturalism” from what he calls “difference multiculturalism” (1993). According to him, while the former uses cultural difference and diversity as the basis of challenging, rethinking, and relativizing the dominant culture of power, the latter tends to reify and even fetishize difference and otherness. In Alain Badiou’s term, it is a “tourist’s fascination for the diversity of morals, customs and beliefs” (2001: 26). Arguing the notion of a ‘recognition of the other (e.g., Taylor 1994) does not shed any light on the concrete real, Badiou criticizes contemporary ethics for being reduced to humanitarianism and discourses of rights to difference. He continues that the ‘differences’ that are so much celebrated in such discourses are only ‘acceptable differences’ – if not exactly the same as ‘us’ (24). This is the ethics of dominant groups that distinguishes what is acceptable from what is not in its conception of difference. That is, while a display of ‘benign differences’ is openly appreciated and consumed under the narcissistic celebration of the tolerant or cosmopolitan self, any radical difference is used to justify further exclusion of foreigners and migrants, which again leads to naturalization and racialization of culture, and fixation of identities. In a similar vein, Mahmood Mamdani warns against what he calls the “culture talk” or “culturalization of politics,” a process in which political issues, relations, and processes are explained as results or parts of some ‘cultural essences’ (2000; 2004).
“The subject of multicultural sensitivity is almost always marked as native Koreans distinguished from their objects, i.e., migrants and racially mixed people and families.”
Although the discourse of damunhwa in Korea has appeared only recently – in early to mid-2000s and thus it is difficult to predict exactly how it will evolve, the present movements in the country invite many of the above critiques. A few of the characteristics of the phenomenon of damunhwa in Korea can be summarized as follows. First, the majority of actors who mobilize damunhwa and tolerance towards Other are middle-class Koreans working in NGOs, government, and academic sectors. Second, most of what are called damunhwa programs organized by local NGOs and sponsored by state agencies feature cultural festivals and cultural classes where individuals, who are mostly Koreans, can learn about migrants’ traditional cultures and experience exotic cuisines, costumes, and customs (or the 3Cs). Third, while ‘culture’ in the discourses of damunhwa is often referred to mean something natural, essential, and thus before or separate from politics,[1] cultural difference and rights to it emerged as something to be protected unconditionally. Fourth, it has become a widespread practice, especially among concerned NGO, government, academic, and media circles, to use the word damunhwa to directly refer to migrants’ racially different and mixed family and children, e.g., damunhwa gajong (“multicultural family”) and damunhwa orini (“multicultural children”).[2]
All of the above tendencies combined together in damunwha discourses and practices, I argue, depoliticize the issues of difference and otherness transforming them into a technical matter; individual Koreans can simply improve their attitudes towards foreigners and migrants, be open and tolerant towards their different food, customs, and cultures, and thus develop what is called damunhwajok gamsusong (“multicultural sensitivity”). In her powerful critique of discourses of tolerance, Wendy Brown notes how they always designate tolerating subjects separately from tolerated objects, in which the latter “will always be those who deviate from the norm, never those who uphold it, but they will also be further articulated as (deviant) individuals through the very discourse of tolerance.” (2006: 44). She continues to criticize how tolerance discourses involving minority groups redefine the problem of inequality and social justice as that of “therapeutic and behavioral” one (16):
It is important to note how various damunhwa programs that have emerged since early 20
00s have been precisely focusing on rearing multicultural and human rights-friendly sensitivity among individual Koreans. In one of the interviews I conducted in 2006, the representative of a local NGO, who initiated the first such program in the migrant advocacy circle, asserted how it felt necessary to organize a program for local residents to develop a cultural sensitivity needed to co-exist peacefully with migrants. She especially emphasized how Koreans are ignorant of diverse and different cultures of migrants and how such ignorance may become a significant barrier in bridging the social gap and distance between Koreans and migrants. Another interview I conducted in the same year with another activist from a different organization reverberated a similar logic in organizing damunhwa programs. What they commonly agreed upon is the importance of damunhwa education on children that such sensitivity training on difference and human rights is much more effective when done in and on the youth. The children who learn to respect others’ difference and rights would grow as good multicultural citizens. For example, the pamphlet of the “human rights class - difference means beautiful,” one of such programs for children organized by a local NGO introduces the class like below:
Our human rights class - difference means beautiful is an Asian cultural experience and human rights education program that supports our children to become free from prejudices and fear of what is different from us and to grow up as healthy and tolerant members of society who are capable of cohabiting with global citizens through experiences in cultures of various Asian countries.
The program is apparently focused on developing multicultural sensitivity among the ‘native,’ or racially or ethnically Korean, children who are referred to as “our children” vis-à-vis migrants and their children. The subject of multicultural sensitivity is almost always marked as native Koreans distinguished from their objects, i.e., migrants and racially mixed people and families. Increasingly, while munhwa, or “culture,” in the term da-munhwa, or multi-culture, is used to refer not simply to any culture[3] but specifically to those that have been stigmatized as inferior, undesirable, peculiar, primitive, and/or under/less-developed, things Korean, e.g., Korean culture and Korean people, are further articulated as a relatively color-less, ‘culture’-less subject thus assuming a position of universality and reasserting superiority vis-à-vis migrants’ particularity and their inferiority (Brown 2006; Zizek 1997).
To sum up, more or less operating as a technical manual of how to treat better and behave with various Others, damunhwa programs as they emerged in Korea naturalize existing power relations between natives and migrants, and citizens and foreigners by defining an issue of structural inequality as a matter of developing and improving individual sensitivity. Discussions on issues of difference and inequality cannot simply be reduced to a narcissistic critique of the Korean self or a matter of individual activists’ good will to build a ‘good society.’ Rather, what we need now is a radical inquiry on the political, economic, and social conditions in which discourses of damunhwa have emerged in Korea and their overall effects.##
* This is a part of a paper titled Beyond Damunhwa and Discourses of Sensitivity Rearing, which was delivered at the IAPH Symposium XIII, Seoul, Korea, 2008.
[1] For example, in a symposium titled “Making Multi-Cultural Society: Comparison between Germany and the U.S,” held in May 2008, I observed how some of the participants, who were indeed debating against one another, more or less treated ‘culture’ commonly as some kind of sanctuary from things political.
[2] I have even encountered a term such as “damunhwa tea”!
[3] The term damunhwa is hardly used to refer to things that have been traditionally associated with powerful Others, e.g., ‘American culture,’ ‘Japanese food,’ or ‘French literature.’
By EuyRyung Jun,
Ph.D. Student, Anthropology,
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA
Terrence Turner, an anthropologist, has once distinguished what he calls “critical multiculturalism” from what he calls “difference multiculturalism” (1993). According to him, while the former uses cultural difference and diversity as the basis of challenging, rethinking, and relativizing the dominant culture of power, the latter tends to reify and even fetishize difference and otherness. In Alain Badiou’s term, it is a “tourist’s fascination for the diversity of morals, customs and beliefs” (2001: 26). Arguing the notion of a ‘recognition of the other (e.g., Taylor 1994) does not shed any light on the concrete real, Badiou criticizes contemporary ethics for being reduced to humanitarianism and discourses of rights to difference. He continues that the ‘differences’ that are so much celebrated in such discourses are only ‘acceptable differences’ – if not exactly the same as ‘us’ (24). This is the ethics of dominant groups that distinguishes what is acceptable from what is not in its conception of difference. That is, while a display of ‘benign differences’ is openly appreciated and consumed under the narcissistic celebration of the tolerant or cosmopolitan self, any radical difference is used to justify further exclusion of foreigners and migrants, which again leads to naturalization and racialization of culture, and fixation of identities. In a similar vein, Mahmood Mamdani warns against what he calls the “culture talk” or “culturalization of politics,” a process in which political issues, relations, and processes are explained as results or parts of some ‘cultural essences’ (2000; 2004).
“The subject of multicultural sensitivity is almost always marked as native Koreans distinguished from their objects, i.e., migrants and racially mixed people and families.”
Although the discourse of damunhwa in Korea has appeared only recently – in early to mid-2000s and thus it is difficult to predict exactly how it will evolve, the present movements in the country invite many of the above critiques. A few of the characteristics of the phenomenon of damunhwa in Korea can be summarized as follows. First, the majority of actors who mobilize damunhwa and tolerance towards Other are middle-class Koreans working in NGOs, government, and academic sectors. Second, most of what are called damunhwa programs organized by local NGOs and sponsored by state agencies feature cultural festivals and cultural classes where individuals, who are mostly Koreans, can learn about migrants’ traditional cultures and experience exotic cuisines, costumes, and customs (or the 3Cs). Third, while ‘culture’ in the discourses of damunhwa is often referred to mean something natural, essential, and thus before or separate from politics,[1] cultural difference and rights to it emerged as something to be protected unconditionally. Fourth, it has become a widespread practice, especially among concerned NGO, government, academic, and media circles, to use the word damunhwa to directly refer to migrants’ racially different and mixed family and children, e.g., damunhwa gajong (“multicultural family”) and damunhwa orini (“multicultural children”).[2]
All of the above tendencies combined together in damunwha discourses and practices, I argue, depoliticize the issues of difference and otherness transforming them into a technical matter; individual Koreans can simply improve their attitudes towards foreigners and migrants, be open and tolerant towards their different food, customs, and cultures, and thus develop what is called damunhwajok gamsusong (“multicultural sensitivity”). In her powerful critique of discourses of tolerance, Wendy Brown notes how they always designate tolerating subjects separately from tolerated objects, in which the latter “will always be those who deviate from the norm, never those who uphold it, but they will also be further articulated as (deviant) individuals through the very discourse of tolerance.” (2006: 44). She continues to criticize how tolerance discourses involving minority groups redefine the problem of inequality and social justice as that of “therapeutic and behavioral” one (16):
It is important to note how various damunhwa programs that have emerged since early 20
00s have been precisely focusing on rearing multicultural and human rights-friendly sensitivity among individual Koreans. In one of the interviews I conducted in 2006, the representative of a local NGO, who initiated the first such program in the migrant advocacy circle, asserted how it felt necessary to organize a program for local residents to develop a cultural sensitivity needed to co-exist peacefully with migrants. She especially emphasized how Koreans are ignorant of diverse and different cultures of migrants and how such ignorance may become a significant barrier in bridging the social gap and distance between Koreans and migrants. Another interview I conducted in the same year with another activist from a different organization reverberated a similar logic in organizing damunhwa programs. What they commonly agreed upon is the importance of damunhwa education on children that such sensitivity training on difference and human rights is much more effective when done in and on the youth. The children who learn to respect others’ difference and rights would grow as good multicultural citizens. For example, the pamphlet of the “human rights class - difference means beautiful,” one of such programs for children organized by a local NGO introduces the class like below:
Our human rights class - difference means beautiful is an Asian cultural experience and human rights education program that supports our children to become free from prejudices and fear of what is different from us and to grow up as healthy and tolerant members of society who are capable of cohabiting with global citizens through experiences in cultures of various Asian countries.
The program is apparently focused on developing multicultural sensitivity among the ‘native,’ or racially or ethnically Korean, children who are referred to as “our children” vis-à-vis migrants and their children. The subject of multicultural sensitivity is almost always marked as native Koreans distinguished from their objects, i.e., migrants and racially mixed people and families. Increasingly, while munhwa, or “culture,” in the term da-munhwa, or multi-culture, is used to refer not simply to any culture[3] but specifically to those that have been stigmatized as inferior, undesirable, peculiar, primitive, and/or under/less-developed, things Korean, e.g., Korean culture and Korean people, are further articulated as a relatively color-less, ‘culture’-less subject thus assuming a position of universality and reasserting superiority vis-à-vis migrants’ particularity and their inferiority (Brown 2006; Zizek 1997).
To sum up, more or less operating as a technical manual of how to treat better and behave with various Others, damunhwa programs as they emerged in Korea naturalize existing power relations between natives and migrants, and citizens and foreigners by defining an issue of structural inequality as a matter of developing and improving individual sensitivity. Discussions on issues of difference and inequality cannot simply be reduced to a narcissistic critique of the Korean self or a matter of individual activists’ good will to build a ‘good society.’ Rather, what we need now is a radical inquiry on the political, economic, and social conditions in which discourses of damunhwa have emerged in Korea and their overall effects.##
* This is a part of a paper titled Beyond Damunhwa and Discourses of Sensitivity Rearing, which was delivered at the IAPH Symposium XIII, Seoul, Korea, 2008.
[1] For example, in a symposium titled “Making Multi-Cultural Society: Comparison between Germany and the U.S,” held in May 2008, I observed how some of the participants, who were indeed debating against one another, more or less treated ‘culture’ commonly as some kind of sanctuary from things political.
[2] I have even encountered a term such as “damunhwa tea”!
[3] The term damunhwa is hardly used to refer to things that have been traditionally associated with powerful Others, e.g., ‘American culture,’ ‘Japanese food,’ or ‘French literature.’
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