An international bilingual workshop on “Asian Immigrants and Religion” was held outside Seoul from October 22nd – 24th 2013, hosted by the Asian Conference of Religions for Peace (ACRP), often known as Religions for Peace Asia. It was organized by ACRP’s Seoul Peace Education Center and sponsored by the Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism.
The first of the keynote addresses was given by Dr Desmond Cahill, Professor of Intercultural Studies at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia. Across the world, people are on the move with 214 million migrants now living outside their home country, including 3.4 million young international students. In 2012, US$529 billion was sent back legally to the home country in the form of financial remittances. According to the 2013 World Migration Report, throughout the history of humanity, human beings have migrated in search of greater opportunities and a better life.
While migration is driven by many complex factors, most migrants want to earn a better living, to live in a more agreeable environment or to join family or friends abroad. Many, however, do not move of their own free will but are forced to do so – refugees escaping persecution, for instance; people devastated by conflict or natural disasters; or victims of trafficking. But those who willingly choose to migrate are largely driven by the desire for greater happiness, prosperity and well-being.
Almost half of these migrants are from the poor countries of the South to the rich countries of the North and do so usually successfully though migration is always a risk. In addition, over a third migrate from one poor to another poor country though they do not usually improve their economic status. These migration movements have led to increasingly diverse multicultural nation states such as Australia and now Korea and, secondly, the formation of transnational diasporas.
In these migration and multicultural contexts, what is the role of religion, religious communities and their spiritual leaders? Professor Cahill outlined seven functions for religious communities and their leaders in addressing the challenges and complexities of migration:
- To serve the spiritual and pastoral needs of their co-religionists who have arrived as migrants
- To ensure that the spiritual and pastoral needs of their national co-religionists residing outside the home country are met
- To work with governments in developing appropriate policies and programs for the settlement and integration of all migrants
- To monitor and critique government actions or lack of action in meeting the many needs of immigrants
- To help facilitate the formation of self-help organizations by immigrant communities
- To educate one’s own religious community and to help educate the general community about migration and migrants generally and about the damage caused by racism and discrimination
- To help change the self-image of the nation as a growing diverse nation in cultural, linguistic and religious terms, seeing the newcomers as assets
Religion is about believing, bonding, behaving and belonging. All religious groups, drawing on the deep wells of their own spiritualities must forge their own understanding of migration, multiculturalism and interfaith interaction.
In the second keynote address, Rev. Kim Hae, Christian pastor of Global Love Sharing, drew on his ambivalent experience of the difficulties he faced as a child migrating from the rural Korean context to the urban context of Seoul. Because of the low birth rate in Korea, about 1.5 million migrants are now living in Korea, including the spouses of Korean men, particularly those living in the countryside where there is a lack of young women. One in ten Korean marriages is now between a foreigner and a Korean. The migration movement was especially triggered by the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games when South Korea was introduced to the world. Many Chinese Koreans and Koreans who lived in the Soviet Union have returned.
Since his ministry with migrants began in the early 1980s, dealing with human rights issues or with migrants dying or seriously injured in industrial accidents has been central, leading to the establishment of the House for Migrant Labourers. In a recent ten-year period, he conducted over 1,500 funerals, many deaths being senseless as in the case of an illegal Chinese construction worker who died of tetanus because he was ineligible for medical help.
Another successful campaign in 2004 was for the legal recognition of ethnic Koreans from abroad. A resulting initiative was to establish a Migrant Workers’ Hospital in Seoul. Another was to establish a Global School for Children from Multicultural Families where one parent is not Korean. Many of these families are in serious difficulty, particularly the illegals where any children, if born in Korea, become stateless. His churches have also established a HelpLine in 15 languages and MNTV also telecasts in 15 languages. All the main churches have been part of the campaigns in support of migrant workers.
Rev. Kim Hae said the major underlying issue was to produce a change in Korean self-awareness, including “internal internationalization” – up to now, “we have been constructing a window-dressing type of internationalization”.
In his contribution to the workshop, Rev. Fr. Paul Gwan-Hong from the Po-Hang Catholic Service Centre for Multicultural Families drew on the 2006 Pontifical document, “Christ’s Love of Migrants (Erga Migrantes caritas Christi)”, in developing the notion of a ‘hospitable culture’ in overcoming stress and developing space for multicultural hospitality. In Korea, there are now 22 local areas with 10,000+ migrants, often industrial areas at the end of train lines where rent is low. However, he warned of the danger of ‘collectivizing as a ghetto’ as very real.
A further contribution came from an Anglican Myanmarese priest, Rev. Aung Khaing Nyunt, principal of St Peter’s Bible School in Seoul whose work has focused on legal Christian Myanmarese workers and their problems, including the fall-out from having to borrow large sums to pay for the airfare to Korea. Other Myanmarese go to Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore where they usually have difficulty finding a church except for Singapore where there are special church programs for migrants.
Ms. Fe Damaguen from the Episcopal Church of the Philippines (ECP) focused on the 10.4 million Filipinos working overseas, more than 10 per cent of the Philippines population. The phenomenon, now 40 years old, remains unabated, contributing US$20.1 billion to the economy in legal remittances. But, the negative impacts are huge despite the improved financial situation of the family with issues stemming from mother and/or father absence and consequent estrangement of children. ECP has developed a comprehensive strategy built around (1) Education and training at the pre-departure, during overseas employment and reintegration stages (2) Pastoral and legal support services and (3) Advocacy and training.
The Won Buddhist monk, Rev. Goh Jaeyoung, reflected on his work with migrant women in Korea and in multicultural relationships, pointing out that in A.D. 48 King Kim Suro was married to an Indian woman. The process of bringing in a foreign spouse, including to rural areas, has been streamlined though the role of marriage agencies has been hotly conte
sted. Venerable Batbuyan, chief monk of the Seoul Temple of Mongolian Buddhism which follows the Tibetan tradition, spoke of the disintegration of Mongolian migrant families because of long-term separation and the commuter-type migration involved. He also expressed concern about the aggressive activities of Christian fundamentalists, especially in the 10 per cent tithing requirement.
In her wide-ranging intervention, Rev. Jun-Gi Choi drew attention to the spreading xenophobia in Korean society. The Korean Multiculturalism Scale showed that 86.5 per cent of Koreans regard ‘pure blood’ as very important, the third highest incidence in the world. A social distance survey showed that 45.3 per cent of Catholics, 39.1 per cent of Protestants and 38 per cent of Buddhists said they would make friends with foreign labourers.
In 1994, Migrant Support Centers began to be established by the Jogye Order of Korean Buddhism, beginning with Nepalese migrants. Now there are 29. Their director, Mr Nam Choon Ho, documented this expansion which has brought together various Buddhist groups. Across Korea there are about 30 migrant Buddhist communities, led mostly by priests and monks from abroad. In this way, the migrants are given space to maintain their ethnic faith. However, the level of Buddhist support is lower as compared to other faith groups. This results from a lack of social consciousness. Buddhist attitudes to migrants need to be changed, including in temple ceremonies and special education programs, and support work needs to be quickly expanded. Venerable Urgen Lama, chief priest of the Nepalese Youn-Su-Sa Temple, spoke of his experience in his role and the difficulties faced by Nepalese migrants. He drew attention to the Nepalese Hindus who feel very isolated because of the very low numbers of Hindus in Korean society.
Mr Vasudevan, Director of the Indian Council of Gandhian Studies in New Delhi, outlined the ‘push’ and ‘pull’ factors in international migration, emphasizing the importance of human rights for migrants. He also highlighted the issue of ‘brain drain’ and remittances – India receives about US$72 billion and China about US$64 billion with Mexico, the Philippines, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Viet Nam and Pakistan being the other major recipients. India has also been a receiving country with 3.2 million Bangladeshis, 2.2 million Nepalese, 70,000 Sri Lankan Tamils and 100,000 Tibetans.
The conference ended on a high note of cooperation and engaged learning and sharing of ideas and experiences. It highlighted how the differing experiences of nations can become potent learning nodes for nations now beginning to grapple with international migration. Hopefully migrants will find contentment and fulfilment in their home countries. According to the Vietnamese proverb often quoted by Vietnamese refugees, Birds come to rest in peaceful lands.
