Thought this worth sharing. The following is an editorial from a south
Korean progressive newspaper. It highlights a growing relationship
between the new government and protestant religious leaders. Buddhists
responded last Sunday with a massive march (you can see some pictures at
http://www.newscham.net/news/view.php?board=news&nid=49326
<http://www.newscham.net/news/view.php?board=news&nid=49326>). In many
ways South Korean politics is going the way of US politics.
Marty
Editorial-- Religious bias returns to the Blue House, August 27^th , 2008
http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/306907.html
The government is acting all flustered over the country’s Buddhist
protests against the Lee Myung-bak administration. President Lee, at a
meeting the other day of senior Blue House secretaries, declared that
“when it comes to issues of religion, public servants should not say
things or perform their duties in ways that hurt national unity.”
Culture and Tourism Minister Yu In-chon apologized yesterday for
religious bias in the administration and issued guidelines on preventing
religious discrimination. The Buddhist community, however, is still
upset, because the best the administration is doing is coming up with
temporary fixes. Surely the administration knows the reason for the
Buddhists’ anger, but it is not doing what most needs to be done.
The reasons for the largest Buddhist protest in history has originated
purely with President Lee. Even after he caused controversy by “offering
Seoul to God” while he was mayor he went right on displaying his
preferences for Protestantism in his official functions. His Cabinet and
Blue House staff appointments have been filled largely with connections
he made through his church, and he made one Protestant clergyman a key
presidential secretary. He had a minister do a Christian worship service
at the Blue House, and he appointed former Pohang Mayor Jung Jang-sik, a
man who tried to use city funds to “make Pohang a Christian city” as the
head of the Central Officials Training Institute. He sent a video
message to a major event at Full Gospel Church, the largest church in
Korea, but then forgot to send a telegram to the country’s largest
Buddhist denomination on the occasion of Buddha’s birthday, something
the country’s presidents have all done as a matter of tradition.
When public servants saw what the president’s attitude was, they started
following without needing to be told what to do. The man second in
charge at the presidential security service said it was his desire to
“gospelize” the whole of government, and the chief of the National
Police Agency made an appearance on a poster announcing an event to pray
for the gospelization of the police. The police were far more severe
when searching the automobile of the head of the Jogye Order, the
country’s largest Buddhist denomination, because of who he is. The
country’s temples were excluded from the Ministry of Land, Transport and
Maritime Affairs’s mass transit information system and the Ministry of
Education and Science Technology’s geography education information
system. Excited Protestant ministers have been criticizing Buddhism and
other religions with special passion lately. “All the countries that
have Buddhism are poor,” said one minister lately in a series of
comments that encourage religious conflict. “Even Buddha shouldn’t have
made Buddhism.”
President Lee has said absolutely nothing about his own responsibility
in all of this. All he did was criticize public servants. Who, then,
will believe he is sincere? Even if he was not going to issue an
official apology, he needed to have been stern with symbolic individuals
who have been displaying religious preferences in the course of their
duties, because doing so would have done at least something about the
discrimination on the part of those government officials. Now, massive
Buddhist protests are inevitable, and the whole world is watching as
Korea shows itself to be a country with pre-modern religious
discrimination. This unfortunate situation is not going to be changed
without some painful introspection by the president.
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