Pawikirogi, #51:

Pawi,

the Danes did not distribute their cartoons in Afghanistan or any other Muslim country - they published it in the local newspaper of the Danish city of Aarhus (pop. 250,000).

I have this Korean friend (person will remain namelss) who works at the Afghanistan Embassy here in Seoul. So, over the past coupleof years or so, I have visited there many times, hung out with some Aghan diplomats and others many times. This is my experience:

The government tried many times to prevent missionaries from going to that country on Church trips for whatever reason, that is according to the folks that work at the embassy. Sometimes they (government folks) convinced the church goers not to go, and at other times, they convinced the embassy to deny them visas, which means poor Afghanistan loses money and aid. At least that is how the people working at there at the embassy talked about it.

One more thing. The folks at the embassy, to their credit, were instantly deny visas to church groups, if the pastor in charge, “seemed inexperienced about the culture of Afghanistan” in the words of one person there at the embassy.

My conclusion is this: The church groups that manage to get in the country are experienced about missionary, aid work, speak some languages, been there before.

Any thoughts???

‘The Koreans have never been involved in relief and development…’

a lie. according to nation master, sk is in the top 20 when it comes to aid donors. in fact, just last year, korea increased it’s aid to africa to almost a hundred million. korea was also one of the top donors for the tsunami that hit se asia a couple years ago. and how many of you remember korean rescue teams saving those taiwanese folk right after they had an earthquake? yeah, i know, not many of you. mr coyner, tell your friend he’s a liar.

‘vietnamese boat people behind barbed wire…’

yes, and? they were illegal immigrants. maybe korea should have housed them in hotels with room service. and i wonder, did mr coyner’s friend visit the refugee camps along the thai border? the fact of the matter is, the author used embellished language to villify a people he obviously despises.

‘he doesn’t hate koreans or korea…’ my coyner

uh, yes, he does.

I might first clarify that the letter’s author was not in the Peace Corps, in Korea or anywhere else. (Sorry about that erroneous introduction.) And he is most definitely NOT a missionary.

His academic background is in development and aid, and except for a few years spent in Korea in the 1990s, he has worked for NGOs in that field in several Asian locations as well as in Kosovo (as he describes).

He is currently working for a New England-based NGO in development in South Asia, but not Afghanistan; I’m not aware that he has visited Afghanistan.

His comments on the Korean character are based on first-hand experience — not only here on the peninsula, but also on numerous encounters in other countries, with Koreans from both sides of the DMZ.

(I might add that he is not at all fond of what Korean entrepreneurs and the tourists they bring in have done to Siem Reap, Cambodia.)

To the best of my knowledge, he does not follow Marmot’s Hole or other Korea blogs. He comes up with his own thoughts.

I hope this helps clarify who is this person and from where he is coming.

For what it may be worth…

“In all cases the aid was predictable; the donors descended and dumped money on the known and proven players who took the money and started working to address the needs. The individuals who are on the ground doing the work in such cases are known. They have been to other hot spots doing the same thing. They know each other because it is a small community and a tight profession.”

“I know of several organizations that, even now, maintain a strict policy of forcing development workers to get on a plane and get out of there every 5th or 6th week for R&R. They have professional counselors assigned to the staff. They have bodyguards. They work in walled compounds with razor wire on the top of the wall. They can’t fraternize with the locals because they can’t get out of the compound.”

“These are mono-linguistic tourists who would be a lot better off staying clear of the world’s danger zones and out of the paths of bullets.”

I got out of the aid game for these very reasons.”
“Professional” aid workers rarely speak the local language, always buy brand new expensive vehicles for their occasional jaunts to the villages, enjoy fly-in-fly-out Med conditions behind barb-wire, draw +US$100,000 tax-free salaries, enjoy the services of qualified masseurs upon arrival, etc.

These “professional” aid workers are indeed members of a traveling circus, the costs of their 5-star package trips to scenes of suffering consume most of the resources donated by well-meaning tax payers (gov’t aid) or private contributors (private aid organizations).
Very little gets to the ground.
RORT, FRAUD, CORRUPTION
Thats without getting into the issue of their “aid projects” ,
top-down aid projects by “professionals” (read colonials) with little idea about the communities in which they work rarely succeed.
These “professional” aid organizations have long lost their ability to act as neutral actors in conflict zones (much like journalists) because they lack the human resources to work effectively in the required communities.
Ive got no more time for the “professional” aid workers that make a career of 5-star junkets to some of the places of greatest suffering on earth, than I do for this group of happy-clappies.
This “professional” should have a look at himself before questioning the right of others to contribute to those in need, even if it was Taekwondo performances and Kumbaya.

I don’t know whether this is unique to Korea or not.