why we need to hold hope together with anger and courage...

November 10, 2007

I have kept a homepage for my center, the center for contemporary social ethics research, for more than 10 years. Recently I renamed it "Center for Human Rights and Peace in Asia" (CHRPA) after having experiences of being in Asian countries. There I found many accumulated social ethical problems, poverty, misuse or abuse of power, militarism, dictatorship, torture, corruption, out of juridical killing, sexism, AIDS, sex tourism, and violence. Asia comes to me as a suffering land with suffering people.

I am very much grateful that I could have wonderful opportunities to have time for further studies both in Germany and the United States during my young days. Thereafter I was invited to many universities as visiting scholar for my research and teaching. Through my past experiences as a social ethicist, I used to think with what I have learned from the western scholars. However, when in their teachings I noticed a long silence about Asian suffering people, I felt that I am obliged to speak for Asian suffering people.

I was forced to have an exile due to my protest against an unfair treatment of two female scholars in the Methodist Theological Seminary in Seoul. It was really painful experience because the incident was a clear evidence of sexism in an educational institution. It was a bitter incident inflicted upon those who were expelled to the street, particularly me because it was made by my life long old friends and colleagues. As I was in the situation, I cannot refrain myself from speaking out.

Now I am realizing that the domineering people are using counter propaganda based on false and arbitrary information, and filing unjust suits against the protesters. Even the victimizes are using violence against the victims. When I read the human rights report, "The Sate of Human Rights in Eleven Asian Nations - 2006," I found the same repressive things are happening to the victims in Asian countries.

When I visited the office of the Asian Human Rights Commission in Hong Kong, I was introduced to the many tasks we have to resolve. I was almost shocked to find the facts that in Philippines 750 were killed out of juridical process during the last year, and in Sri Lanka the number is much bigger which is 850. In some Asian countries there still exist killing fields. I wonder why world greatest theologians did not pay their attention to this grime situation of Asia.

This is why I open this new blog. I named my blog "Peace in Solidarity" because it is my experience that without sharing solidarity there is no peace among people. Human history itself is full of stories about the long sage of people's struggling against various violence. One of Sri Lankan human rights activist in Hong Kong said to me, "where were the theologians when Sri Lankan people were suffering?"

Before going to have a forced exile I had to resolve the legal sue filed by the former president of my seminary. He filed a sue, accusing me of dishonoring him because I openly criticized him of his abuse of power. He filed the case with 12 items with his arbitrary interpretation of the situation, denying his intention to get rid of two female scholars from the seminary. But most of them were not identified not valid in the court. And the Korean National Human Rights Commission identified that his role and involvement in the incident resulted in a clear discriminating against two female scholars, therefore a clear violation of human rights.

However the trustee committee consisted of mostly patriarchal males, his staffs, and the student represents were in support for him. They tended to keep institutional value and authority rather than personal human rights deeply violated by the institutional decisions. Sexism was to them a common fallacy. Until now my seminary did not accept the recommendation from the Korean Human Rights Commission to reinstall the expelled. For this reason, I was asked to have an exile for three years.

Retrospecting the three years I am very much grateful to God. During the period I was offered to have wonderful opportunities for studying and teaching by many institutions. I had to spend infertile time to defend myself from the suit filed by the former president of my seminary. After resolving the legal sue, I was accepted to a Quaker Peace Center for Study and Contemplation: the Pendle Hill in Philadelphia where I could practice meditation and have research on peace. I was lucky to be near the Peace Libray of the Swarthmore College in Philadelphia.

After studying at Pendle Hill, I was invited to the Union Theological Seminary in Manila, Philippines. I taught there two classes: Methodology of Christian Social Ethics, Peace and Christian Ethics. Thereafter I was invited to the Tainan Theological College and Seminary. There I met many international students from Austria, USA, Kiribati, Thailand, Burma and Taiwan. I had many occasions being invited to the Annual Conference of Taiwan Presbyterian Church, Taipei Theological Seminary, Chai Presbytery and Taiwanese churches. I met there many foreign scholars including Prof. Choan Sang Sung. We did have wonderful dialogues about ding theology in Asia.

For the Fall semester of 2007, I was invited to the religious and cultural department of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. The director of divinity school, Dr. Lo has been my friend since we had a conference on religion and science in 2000. He provided me a good apartment and wonderful conditions as visiting scholar. For this divinity school, I have taught two classes: Christian social ethics and bioethics tutorial for graduate school students.

Being abroad brings me not only a sense of being alienated but also many insightful moments. However unlike my experience in Germany, the United States, and UK, being in Asia is little bit different because we all look alike. I am not really looking as a foreigner in Asia unless I expose myself as a Korean. In Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, even in Philippines many confused me with their people. However, as a foreigner I could see what they do not see. Moreover I could learn many things from their thought which is different from my tradition.

According to Augustine hope has two daughters: anger and courage. Anger to what is, courage to change what is into what ought be. As long as we look for a meaningful life, I think we need both sound anger and courage. Today I open this blog to talk about why we have to hold our hope, with anger and courage, a hope for peace in solidarity.

Wishing you all be guided by the Light!
CK