Got this from today’s Chosun Ilbo:
A family restoration organization called the “Institute for Loving Families” submitted a petition Tuesday to the National Human Rights Commission of Korea, saying that the special clause that prevents bi-racial people from serving in the army may violate human rights.
In the clause stipulating that those who are visibly bi-racial or bi-racial children who were not raised by their father must be assigned to the Defense Corps or be exempted from service, the words “mixed-blood children” are discriminatory and violate human rights to some degree, the petition said. The clause should be abolished or the wording of “mixed-blood children” should be changed to “children from multi-culture families,” it said.
The current law treats bi-racial children as socially unfit by putting them in the same category as people with criminal records or undereducated people, the petition said. In particular, because the wording “mixed-blood children,” refers to children, the word is insulting for people who are over 18 years old and eligible to serve in the army, the organization said.
The word in question, for those who are curious, is honhyeola, which literally means “mixed-blood child.” BTW, the Korean-language Christian Today has a slightly longer treatment of this story that discusses the rather negative connotations of the Korean word honhyeol (hey, just ask the North Koreans) and notes how just as African-Americans are no longer referred to as Negros, it might be time for a more value-neutral term for bi-racial individuals in Korea.
Now, what gets me about the Chosun article is that I checked out the Korean version, and it definitely suggests that Koreans of visibly bi-racial heritage are prevented from serving in the regular military. Thinking this was rather unfair, I wanted to take a closer look at things in order to get the full story. So, I took a look at the relevant law - the Enforcement Ordinance of the Military Service Law - to see what was what. The article dealt with in the pieces above appears to be Article 136 (ominously titled ‘Military Service Disposition of Convicts, Etc.’), in which visibly bi-racial individuals are listed together with felons, orphans, people who haven’t graduated from middle school, and naturalized Korean citizens (Lee Ch’am and Robert Harley can rest at ease) as those who may be exempted from military service. Now, what I can’t make out from the Korean legalese is whether or not those exemptions are mandatory. Like I said, the articles seem to suggest that the exemptions are mandatory, i.e. bi-racial folk need not apply. Any which way, placing bi-racial individuals in a category that sounds disturbingly similar to a list of socially undesirable/handicapped seems rather unjust. Still, I’m not going to assume that the exemptions are mandatory until someone makes heads or tails out of the relevant laws and ordinances, because I sure as hell can’t, and if I look at them anymore my head’s going to explode.
20 Comments
Well, what can i say… Korea is a country with a perfect race that is afraid of losing it’s “purity” to mixed children. It’s sick and disgusting. I hope things will change for the better in Korea’s future and not be so discriminatory to mixed race children and adults.
I was talking with my wife about the Korean-Americans or whatever who are being pressed into the Korean military for their mandatory service when they arrive in Korea, and we got around talking about mixed people, and she told me they can’t serve in the Korean military. Then low and beyold, this story ran the next day. So, I wonder if Korea changes one law but not the other, our future mixed race kids will be pressed into mandatory service???
I have no problem with bi-racial kids having to serve out their military service, provided they are Korean citizens. In fact, I don’t why they need their own clause in the Military Service Law. Make them do their two years just like everyone else does.
Don’t quote me without checking but my recollection is that the law says “?흹징????흹쩌?징흹 ?????쨍??? ??? ???????” in other words, people you can clearly see to be bi-racial, are given exemptions. Maybe they’re right, but I never heard anything about excluding them.
A number of other things can win someone an exemption, such as being the only son, one who is a family’s only earner of income, etc.
I was told that the bi-racial exemption was created when the hazing got so serious with one of them that he shot up his barracks. That would’ve been in the seventies or maybe first half of the eighties at the earliest. In other words, the reason for the exemption was not quite “you’re not Korean, so don’t deserve to serve” but a hazing problem, though I guess that’s pretty close to the same thing. I don’t know how one would check this.
Most importantly, I don’t think the law excludes bi-racial men who don’t look exotic, even if his origins are known to conscription officials.
We took a look at the statute and it surely does look like (on the face of the language — who knows how it’s implemented in actual practice) that there is a broad-brush description of certain people who — for VARIOUS REASONS — “might be” given a different service status. It does look like an option and not mandatory.
Not all of these reasons are necessarily based on the undesirability of the prospective conscript soldier. As oranckay points out, several of the exceptions look very much like a concession to people with unfortunate circumstances (i.e. orphans, sole support to family, etc.). It’s probably in this vein of concession that the option of non-military national service was extended to mixed-race Koreans.
Regarding excluding convicts (I mean, people in age for military duty already with a file with P’odori-man? C’mon…), there had been a long discussion in France regarding sending “bad” people (convicts, anarchists, etc) to disciplinary units, where they would get all the training and skills they’d need later in their “professional” life: B&E, close-combat, explosives, shooting… Apparently the thinking heads in the Army were under the impression that being trained by the Foreign Legion could double as brain-washing. Apparently, only the training part worked.
Those of you who are “disturbed” by this alleged discrimination are being intolerant to Korea’s religious assumptions undergirding their culture.
In other words, you are showing your right wing intolerance for people’s of different creeds and belief systems. Shall I call you western racists?
We must respect the fact that Koreans consider the “individual” as ephemeral as the morning mist. Their religious assumptions do not regard the individual as “eternal”.
Consequently, what is “forever” in the Koreans’ eyes — is one’s race. Race, therefore, is given higher priority than individual human rights. They view the world’s races to be in a Darwinian struggle over which will ultimately survive and dominate the planet. “Dae Han Minguk” is a racial prayer for their ultimate triumph. (They are told in their Korean churches — “The meek shall inherit the earth.”)
Mixed children is, therefore, a dissolution of race, and thus considered a disease process within the corporate body of Korea.
I suggest, instead of “disgust” for this Korean religious sensibility, one should practice his multiculturalism; by embracing this form of diverse belief: part of the beautiful mosaic in the world of diversity.
Remember: Not good, not bad, … just different.
Hmmm… multiculturalism as a cover for xenophobic racism of the most reactionary kind.
Now that’s something you just don’t see everyday.
Apparently I need to broaden my mind some.
“Those of you who are “disturbed” by this alleged discrimination are being intolerant to Korea’s religious assumptions undergirding their culture.
In other words, you are showing your right wing intolerance for people’s of different creeds and belief systems. Shall I call you western racists?”
yes yes yes
the white people should realize that there are some white people’s practices that are equally baffling to Asians
take for example sending one’s folks to nursing homes
or under the pretext of being a “high trust” society, letting people like OJ Simpson go scot free
“Apparently I need to broaden my mind some.”
that’s gonna be one hell of an effort
luxbearer - narrow minded I may be, but one thing I do enjoy is reading blogs written by expat Koreans in the United States. They provide some invaluable commentary/criticism on “white people’s practices” and American affairs that at times is quite unlike that provided by, well, Americans.
I’m not sure if you’ve checked out the site yet, but I have a link to Weblogs in Korean - if you’re ever bored, I suggest you stroll through their weblog community because they’ve got some real gems in there. Coincidentally, have you visited Gatorlog yet? Great blog written by a Korean (in Korean) who lives in Florida - his politics might be somewhat more agreeable, too.
More moral relativism I see. So now we can go ahead and accept ignorance and the striving for the “purity” of races because it’s “different?”
So Hitler was a man ahead of his time, a pioneer?
Incredible.
Forgive me if I see a problem with that. And I’m sure those that are married to someone of another ethnicity whose children shall be “mixed” that will have an even greater problem than I.
Silly Sally, you really are quite silly. Defined RACISM is:
The belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others.
Discrimination or prejudice based on race.
-American Heritage?짰 Dictionary of the English Language
Racism has always been and always will be bad and wrong (never “different”), even when Koreans have that outlook on their own society’s mixed children.
Poor Silly Sally and others who wish to open their minds to her polluted way of thinking IS very disturbing.
The odd thing is that if you read the Korean piece from Christian Today, it points out improvements in the status of Korea’s mixed-raced population (and one would assume other ethnic minorities, particularly its small Chinese “hwagyo” community) are not only important in terms of social justice within Korea, but they can improve the position of Korea in arguing that other countries (and by this, they are referring in particular to Japan) end descriminatory treatment of their own ethnic Korean populations.
Cultural relativism at it’s best. I guess the Mullah’s in Afghanistan were right to beat women to death just because they showed their anckles, right? Hell, it’s just their culture!
over the years, I’ve been told on numerous occasions that the children of mixed-race marriages are healthy and good-looking.
The problem is the foloowing generations, which go downhill from there according to this seemingly widely held belief.
Koreans have no idea how racist they are. They fulminate against Japnaese racism yet they are no different.
I hope they join the human race someday.
re comment: “I’ve been told on numerous occasions that the children of mixed-race marriages are healthy and good-looking.”
I used to hear that a lot, too. A lot of people my age (born in the sixties) were told in school (biology, usually) that biracial children are very intelligent, but when they in turn have children, you have the extreme opposite. I think it was something about hybrids, maybe flowers, something about how the first time they look nice but if you make a hybrid out of a hybrid it dosn’t work… “and btw class, if you apply this to humans…” This garbage was never part of the regular curriculum, but a frequent side comment when talking about various species, and I heard it from friends educated in different regions. In college, and in the only science class I was required to take since I was doing a humanities major, the professor mentioned this once, and explained what nonsense it was and why. It was a class of several hundred, but he kept looking at me as he talked about it.
At best it wasn’t like someone who hated the 98% percent of the human population that is not Korean and then went out of his way to make stuff up, just to encourage people not to “mate” with them. It was racist, but the *cause* of racist thinking, not necessarily the result of racial hatred.
it has
I fail to see how this is a problem. Not having to serve is a feature, not a bug. Why would mixed-race Koreans want to serve in the armed services of a country that systematically discriminates against them? My understanding from a Korean-American classmate and her non-Korean boyfriend way back in college was that they did not plan to visit South Korea, because of overt discrimination from the Korean public. Seems to me that the most logical thing to do would be to leave the country at the first opportunity.
“Remember. Not good, not bad…just different”
Well, that’s advice to live by–subtle thinking!
From now On I’m taking this advice to heart, and I’m going to give a pass to all the child molesters, virulent racists, corrupt officials, and mass murderers I happen to meet. To do otherwise would be….well, just so judgemental!