hankyoreh

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.

Please direct questions or comments to [englishhani@hani.co.kr]