Korea and the World

It is a bit late, but I've just been getting in this Korean hostage situation in Afghanistan.

It's sad and intriguing... rife with politics and agendas. The war of ideas, roles, feelings, and beliefs. And in the end, there is still the lives of 22 young naive Koreans to care about.

Questions being asked are whether this is the price the Koreans must pay for joining in on the 'war on Terror' or whether the hostages were taken without actual consideration to whether they were Korean or not, just that they were a foreign group that could be used for trades? Or perhaps it was their Christianity and attempted proselytizing that infuriated the Muslim radicalists.

Meanwhile, sections of the Korean people are surely blaming this on Korea's efforts in Iraq. The anti-war groups are capitalizing upon this opportunity to capture the hearts of Koreans to stop sending troops. Nevermind the anti-US groups...

Koreans are then asking Ban Ki-Moon to use his status as UN secretary-general to save the Korean hostages. Surely in Ban-Ki Moon's heart he would want to move mountains for these people, but who is he anyway? He may be a Korean national, but he's also frontman of the organization that unites and represents the world. He can't make special exceptions for the Koreans... can he?

And then, the Americans are desperate not to have any more pullouts disrupt their mission and wish not to fan the flames of the fickle Korean populace and disturb an already fragile relations, but they sure as hell do not, as of yet, want to negotiate with the terrorists. US House of Representatives just passed the resolution put forward by Mike Honda which demands Japan to apologize to WWII sex slaves, of which Korea has demanded for 50 years. Now is this timing coincidental? I think not. And Japan is definitely not happy about being called out by the US for previous war crimes.

And yet the Korean government, while wanting to keep strong relations with the US, must balance this out with managing local concerns. Korea, one of the most strongly nationalistic countries, has seen a barrage of protests and candlelight vigils over this matter. They need to show resolve... But how?
They've taken measures such as refusing to allow Koreans to travel to Afghanistan, punishable by law. Is this a political move, trying to avoid further drama in the world's stage or is it the paternalistic aspect of which Asian countries are so famous for, taking care of their 'children'. I suspect its more political... but who knows. And what about the workers there? Do all of them want to leave? Or are some of them unfairly being kept away from their life's calling?

Even stranger, is the situation for the tiny tiny minority of Muslim Arabs in Korea. Yes, they do exist! They've issued several statements, had photo-ops of praying in their mosques for the hostages...

The more zealous Christians are calling this an attack on Christianity. I saw that on one blog, referring to this situation, commenting that Christianity is the most victimized religion in the world. Wow the absolute stupidity of that comment made me want explode. If anything Christianity has been victimized by... Christianity. And perhaps reason. But whatev.

But of course, the remaining 22 hostages, their grieving families... it's hard to report on their condition - but if you just look at the pictures, it hits home. These are real individuals going through real trauma...
And in this world today... I don't believe in simple solutions... but in the case of saving these 22 people's lives... I do hope and even pray for one.