The Reason Why the Eyes of the Lady of Justice are Covered...

"Chief Prosecutors secretly get bribed from Sam Sung"

Several years ago when I was staying in a Quaker Monastery, Pendel Hill in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, I got an important lesson from the community. The Board of Directors of Pendle Hill has been applying a principle of fair trade to their community life. Whenever they purchase coffees and vegetables, they paid much more money in comparison with the case they buy in a supermarket.

One of the cooks told me that they are willing to pay for the fair trade, concerning about the goods produced by fair labor or trade. If we buy cheaper coffee, that means we might come to assist the system of unfair labor of children in the farms where they seek for cheap labor from children. Or if we purchase cheap vegetable that means also that the farmers are forced to use cheap labor or fertilizer to make the vegetable grow rapidly. For this reason, Pendel Hill purchases goods through fair trade process. To practice fair trade, Pendle Hill makes contact with the farmers who promise Pendle Hill to produce the goods using fair labor and organic farming as well.

Quakers, they are living without luxurious things. Simplicity is one of the basic Quaker principles. Integrity, simplicity, and pacifism are the fundamentals for Quaker life. They really believe in the fact that they could be perfectly obedient to the biblical commandments as far as they are guided by the Light of Christ. Thus, a life with integrity is to pay fairly for the goods we need for our daily life. In order to live out a life with fairness, they make a contract to encourage farmers to be honest in farming. The farmers, mostly Mennonites, they also ask fair trade when they sell what they produced honestly. It was a striking story I heard for the first time.

From my experiences, when I eat with my students in Korea it was natural to me as well as to my student that I usually pay for the foods. They do say thanks, but I feel there is some assumption that professors should pay for the foods because they earn more money. When I was in Philippines, I had to pay for the foods because I was the richest person among us. However, when I was teaching at Tainan Theological College and Seminary, I was refused to pay for the foods by the students who were willingly paying for their own foods respectively. They told me, “Why are you going to pay for the foods we ate?” I told them, "because I am professor who earns more money." However they were laughing and asking me “why?”

In Hong Kong, I had several times to get together with my students. But at each occasion they paid for their foods and I for my foods. They seemed to think that it was unfair to me if they let me pay for their foods. To maintain dignity and higher self esteem I thought we need to practice the fair principle of fair relationship. Aristotle once said that pride is to deserve what one has to be offered. If I get something without paying, then I might get profit in the sense of getting something. But at the same time, I might be subjected to the person who gave me a favor. Thus, I could lose my pride, not be able to ask for my own.

These days, I got news about the bribery of the chief prosecutors. Even such higher authoritative public figures they pond of getting money for free from a huge company like Sam Sung. This secrete ”give and take” bribery habit was exposed by a former prosecutor and later one of the chief chair for Sam Sung legal staffs. Suddenly the prosecutors have lost respect and authority from people. Lacking of the sense of fairness, what did the prosecutors, the bribery takers do for the bribery giver? Getting something for free charge is a crime because it ruins the basic trust in our society. By bribing the prosecutors the bribery give might have got much more interests than what they bribe.

It is really a red signal indicator of our society that those who are responsible for keeping the basic democratic values turned out bribery takers. At the court yard we could see the carved three words: justice, freedom and equality. How shameful news! It is not the shame that there were some bribery relationships, but the shame that those who should keep eyes on the democratic values are the very bribery takers. Yet, before we stone them, we should be critical with ourselves whether we have the possibility of becoming unfair bribery takers. If we are far from the sense of fair trade in our daily life, we might also fall into the same spot being bribed. The prosecutors might have misunderstood the lady of justice. They seems to think that she covers her eyes for letting them to be bribees....