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My wife has said the attitudes she's seeing in online discussions about South Korea's refugee policies are disturbingly variable, depending on the group. (Ironically, those *married* to foreigners are more supportive, while those just *dating* foreigners are practically Nazis.) @sonia_hensley/1009255975155449856Permalink On twitter.com
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One sickening-but-popular trope is that the Yemeni Refugees currently trapped on Jeju Island are all rapists or violent religious extremists, because, you know, those are the local "Muslim" stereotypes. Petitions have gone the rounds, getting hundreds of thousands of signatures.Permalink On twitter.com
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Korean Protestants are being their usual shitty bigoted selves, of course, and driving some of this. But they're not the only ones: there's a thread of ethnonationalism running through this and everything else to do with Damunhwa (Korean "Multiculturalism" policy).On twitter.com
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The transition to multiculturalism isn't really being helped by the persistent "single race society" + "homogenous" rhetoric lingering, or the race-baiting/xenophobic basis of a lot of the news cycle here.Permalink On twitter.com
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Not that things aren't *slowly* improving on may fronts. I mean, recently the law changed so that despite my not being Korean, people like me are allowed to be on family documentation that is routinely used for many things.Permalink On twitter.com
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(As my wife quipped, "Congratulations, you're finally legally human in Korea!" And it kind of felt like it, in some way.)Permalink On twitter.com
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Of course, there *are* Koreans who're stepping up to help these people, too. I don't mean to erase them. There are many. A tiny minority, but still, they exist, and are the hope of this society. hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_international/849739.htmlPermalink On twitter.com
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It's especially worth noting that some of them explicitly remember what many refuse to acknowledge: that many of their own parents/grandparents suffered in a similarly horrible war, and during and after they relied on aid from others—including foreign aid—to survive.Permalink On twitter.com
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Meanwhile, though, the Yemenis in Jeju are basically stuck. Not quite imprisoned: as one pointed out, in prison they actually feed and house you. koreaexpose.com/yemeni-refugees-flee-civil-war-languish-jeju-korea-holiday-island/Permalink On twitter.com
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If you read between the lines, it looks more like this: yes, Korea's signed the UN agreement to accept refugees, but... doesn't really like taking refugees and accepts very, very few of them. (Canada's acceptance rate is something like ten times Korea's.) cbc.ca/news/canada/asylum-seekers-overview-data-1.4503825Permalink On twitter.com
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(I wonder whether the continued greying of the population will provoke change on that front, though I suspect the preference would be first world immigrants—who mostly won't come—and robots to do the unwanted jobs.)Permalink On twitter.com
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Also, it seems, the "visa-free" status for Jeju Island was probably floated as a way of boosting tourism. Perhaps nobody thought about how things could possibly "go wrong" (in terms of tourists illegally overstaying, in terms of refugees landing there, and so on).Permalink On twitter.com
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So, I mean, yeah, they're not putting people in cages in a former Wal-Mart, but... is America always going to define how low we set the bar? I think that's WAY too low, at this point.Permalink On twitter.com