South Korea Is Going Crazy Over a Handful of Refugees
The Yemeni refugees who entered South Korea earlier this year should have been a nonstory. Only 561 escapees from the ongoing Saudi-led war in Yemen made it to Korea’s Jeju Province, where 552 applied for asylum, a pittance compared to, say, Germany, which handled approximately 890,000 asylum-seekers in 2015. The Yemeni refugees were confined to the island of Jeju, hardly in a position to interact with the South Korean population at large, much less compete for a job or pose a threat in any way.
Yet the South Korean public reacted to these handful of refugees with hysteria. The petition to liberal President Moon Jae-in demanding the government not accept the refugees garnered more than 700,000 signatures—the highest number since the Blue House opened its online petition system in August 2017. The response to the petition highlights the problems that South Korea’s liberal government is facing as it copes with the legacy of a poisonous conservatism, and with the demands of a public that has become acutely sensitive to race.
[ … ] In a recent survey, conducted by Hankook Research, 56 percent of those surveyed opposed admitting the Yemeni refugees, while only 24 percent supported letting them in. But women objected more strongly than men (61 percent to 51 percent), respondents in their 20s (70 percent) and 30s (66 percent) objected the most among all age groups, and middle-income households (62 percent) expressed the strongest objections against admitting the refugees..
This is a surprising result, as women, the young, and the affluent are groups generally associated with more generosity toward migrants and refugees. Yet on the ground, grotesque marriages between progressive principles and Islamophobia abound.Yet on the ground, grotesque marriages between progressive principles and Islamophobia abound. One might expect, for example, that South Korean feminists newly energized from a highly successful #MeToo campaign would express solidarity with the vulnerable refugees. Instead, many feminists reinforce myths that Muslim refugees are potential rapists, drawing from a mixture of real and fake news from Europe. [ … ]
※ 포린폴리시(FP)는 미국에서 1970년부터 격월간으로 발행하는 외교전문지입니다.
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