setting a precedent on racism

COMMUNITY18 FRIDAY NOVEMBER 6, 2009

Expat Living is a section dedicated to the daily living of expatriates. It is printed on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. To share stories about your life abroad, send stories or story ideas to Matthew Lamers at mattlamers@heraldm.com Submissions may be edited for length or clarity.

By Paul Kerry and Matthew Lamers

Bonojit Hussain’s family didnot know he was headline newsuntil the story spread to hishome country of India.

Hussain’s incident was re-ported in national dailies inKorea extensively after prosecu-tors charged the assailant withcontempt, the first time thecharge has been applied to analleged act of racism here.

The case has also been fol-lowed closely by Indian media— India Today, Mail Today, theHindustan Times and TimesNow all reported on the incidentand its aftermath. One labeledhim a national hero. More re-cently, his case received world-wide attention in theInternational Herald Tribune,the global edition of the NewYork Times.

In a country with a rapidly ris-ing foreign population, incidentsof racism have have been a hottopic of debate amongst manynon-Koreans, but had so far es-caped national debate in what isstill a homogeneous society.

There is still no law to protectforeigners from racial abuse(the attacker in this case hasbeen charged with contempt).But there has been someprogress on the issue. Hussaindelivered a speech last month atthe National Assembly that wasorganized by the oppositionDemocratic Party and NationalHuman Rights Commission todebate a proposed anti-racismbill. The law has been proposedto give prosecutors legalgrounds to act on crimes insti-gated by race.

The man

“My brother or sister wouldsay that if I think I should dosomething, I am adamant about

it. Even in this case, my familydid not know about it until (thatmorning),” said Hussein. “Ofcourse, my mom was crying, butmy brother and sister were hap-py, they said they know I amadamant: ‘if you want to dosomething you will do it.’”

Hussain describes himself asthe quintessential shy guy whotakes a while to open up. “Theperception people have of me isthat I am a philosophical kind ofguy,” he said.

But, as a former campaigner,he appears bolder than this im-plies.

Born to middle class parents,he grew up in Assam, a region ofIndia famous for tea.

“Assam has been a politicallydisturbed region for last 30years or so, so when I was grow-ing up there were massive mili-tary operations going on,” he ex-plained. “People getting killedwas not big news. My father is ajournalist so he would comehome at night and tell us whathappened every day.”

He sums his early life up intypical understatement: “I grewup in a different atmosphere.”In 1999 he moved to New Delhito attend university, where hesays he was active on social is-sues.

“In India I used to be an ac-tivist. I worked with tradeunions. Especially with migrantconstruction workers,” he said.After graduate school he workedat the University of Delhi, con-ducting research on homelesspeople. It was an experiencethat he learned a lot from, anddemonstrated the importance ofavoiding assumptions.

“There are these homelesspeople in the city, but they areinvisible for most people. Ratherthan seeing them as mentallysick, it would be more fruitful tolook at them like workers and

how they live their lives,” hesaid. Once he started interact-ing with them, he began to un-derstand the social structure,community and economy theyhad developed in their lives. “Ifound the park (they lived in)operates like a labor market, ajob agency.”

His interest in labor relationsbrought him to SungkonghoeUniversity in Seoul, where theyhad a special program for Asianactivists. He said he came toKorea because he simply didn’tknow a lot about it. “UsuallyIndians go to the United Statesor United Kingdom for higherstudies. Not many Indians con-sider Korea, but I came herewith an open mind,” he said.

“I did my thesis on theKorean labor movement. I wantto do a comparative study onKorea, India and one otherAsian country and look intowhat kind of exchanges havetaken place since the economiesopened up,” Hussain said.

When he finished the course,the university offered him a job.

Hussain is currently on a six-month vacation in India work-ing on his Ph.D. proposal. Hisfocus is on the labor movementsof India and Korea after liberal-ization.

Indeed, both countries haveopened up considerably in thelast 20 years, particularlyKorea. With this has come a fairbit of soul-searching, includingawareness of racism and otherprejudice against minorities.

The incident

Despite being proposed sever-al times, there is still no specificlaw against racial discrimina-tion.

The Republic of Korea’sConstitution guarantees free-dom from discrimination on the

basis of race, religion and otherthings, but it is still undefinedas to how far the court could ap-ply the clause.

The charges filed by Hussainand his companion, a Koreanwoman named Han Ji-sun, arecharges of contempt.

They accuse a man namedPark, who was riding the sameBucheon bus as them, of kickingHan and hurling sexual andracial insults at them, refusingto stop when asked by them andanother passenger. When Parkgot off the bus, he pushed Hanin the chest — something thatHan argues is an act of sexualviolence.

A fellow passenger helped es-cort Park to the Jungbu PoliceStation in Bucheon, wheretheir complaints were filed, butnot without some difficulty.Han alleges that the police didnothing to physically separateher and Hussain from the as-sailant, and that they gave un-fair hearing to Park, who wasintoxicated.

Both also say that the policeinitially refused to accept thatHussain could be a universityprofessor and that they ques-tioned the authenticity of hisAlien Registration Card. Theysay police questioned his immi-gration status in “banmal” —the low honorific of Korean —and referred to him as a “for-eigner with a hard life,” imply-ing that his employment situa-tion was poor.

Han has since complained tothe National Human RightsCommission about the police of-ficers’ conduct.

“I was deeply disappointedand was insulted by Park’s ac-tions and those of the policemenat the Bucheon Jungbu PoliceStation,” said Han of the inci-dent. “But at the same time wasvery embarrassed when I real-

ized that Korean society stillhad a strong sense of ethnic na-tionalism, xenophobia and a pa-triarchal social system.

“As of now, I have nothingagainst Park, since Park is justone of many Koreans who treatforeigners in such a manner.However, I would like to takethis chance and let people knowthat this can actually be a mat-ter for punishment,” she said.

While the charges filed byHan and Hussain are separate,both seem motivated more byprinciple than by feeling person-ally aggrieved. Hussain saidthat he had been racially as-saulted several times before.

“I have always wanted to goto the police,” said Hussain“This time there was a Koreanperson with me. I was confidentI could take it to the police (asshe could translate). The inci-dent itself became very seri-ous.”

Hussain said Park’s punish-ment is not his main concern.Rather, his goal was to makethis issue public to spark a na-tional debate on racial accep-tance and tolerance.

He urges victims of racialabuse to come forward and reg-ister a complaint.

“People should at least reportthe crime. Even if the person isnot there, you can still reportthe crime. Even if you look intomy case, if I had not registeredit, nobody would have talkedabout the issues,” he said.“Another issue is statistics oncrimes against foreigners.Ultimately, when policies aremade, they are made on the ba-sis of statistics.”

Hussain hopes his case willencourage migrant workers toreport abuse. “Most of the time,they face much worse situationsthan mine,” he said. “They can-not complain for two reasons.

One, they might lose their jobs.Two, (they think) ‘even if I go tothe police, nothing will hap-pen.’”

Migrant workers, more oftenthan not employed in the coun-try’s factories, often complainabout discrimination in theform of non-payment and physi-cal assault.

“The problem is very realwhen you talk to factory work-ers. Almost all of them havesimilar experiences. I interactwith many migrant factoryworkers and after my incidentthey said: ‘This is nothing. Themedia are taking it up becauseyou are a research professor. Weface much more serious situa-tions.’”

Hussain conceded that hiscase has received more than itsshare of publicity, although hethinks the attention may lead topositive changes. He also saidthat both prejudice and weakjob security make migrantworkers more vulnerable tosuch abuse.

The prejudice faced byHussain was vague in itsracial element. Among the al-leged insults are references toHussain both as an Arab and ablack man, indicating that hisrace made little difference toPark.

Unlike the historical reasonsfor anti-Japanese and Americanprejudice, there appears to be nospecific reasoning behind dis-crimination against people fromAfrica, and southern parts ofAsia, which runs rampant inKorean society.

“I think there is the elementof economic superiority amongKoreans. Most of these workersare coming from poor coun-tries,” said Hussein. “And theyare the easiest target.”

(paulkerry@heraldm.com)(mattlamers@heraldm.com)

Setting a precedent on racism

PHOTO CHALLENGE — Monthly theme Bokeh Nights winner — Amasked man poses for a photograph in Seomyeon, Busan.

Matthew Hanson

By Matthew Lamers

A new poll shows that Koreais in the second tier of the mostdesired destinations for thosethat want to migrate to anothercountry.

The Gallup poll shows thatbetween 5 million and 25 mil-lion people consider Korea theirtop desired destination countryto migrate to. The group also in-cludes Japan and Russia,among others.

According to the poll, 16 per-cent of the world’s adults wouldlike to move to another countrypermanently if they had thechance; meaning about 700 mil-

lion people around the world. The top tier of most desired

destinations was led by theUnited States, with about 165million people, followed byCanada (45 million), UnitedKingdom (45 million), France(45 million), Spain (35 million),Saudi Arabia (30 million),Germany (30 million) andAustralia (25 million).

The third tier includes coun-tries chosen by 1 million to 5 mil-lion as their most-desired migra-tion destinations. Some countriesincluded in this tier are China,Indonesia, India and Mexico.

The last group — where fewerthan 500,000 marked as their

most-desired migration destina-tions — includes Vietnam, thePhilippines and Bangladesh,among others.

The report said that implica-tions of hundreds of millions ofpeople harboring desires to mi-grate are on government lead-ers in both countries of originand destination to develop im-migration policies and develop-ment strategies.

“If all adults who desire tomove to another country perma-nently actually moved to theirdesired destination country to-day, some countries would suf-fer tremendous losses in humancapital and others would be

overwhelmed,” the report said. Gallup’s Potential Net

Migration Index is the numberof adults who want to move outof a country subtracted from thenumber who would like to moveto it. Countries with a higherPotential Net Migration Indexhave high potential populationgains. At the top of this list isSingapore (+260 percent), whilethe Democratic Republic of theCongo posts the highest nega-tive PNMI (-60 percent).

Of the 700 million that wouldlike to move to another country,Gallup found that citizens ofsub-Saharan African countrieshave the highest desire to do so.

About 165 million people, or 38percent of the population, saidthey’d migrate internationally ifthe opportunity arose.

On the flip side, people livingin Asian countries have theleast desire to migrate interna-tionally. Only 10 percent of thepopulation said they would liketo move permanently to anothercountry.

Gallup conducted the surveyfrom 2005 to 2009 by telephoneand face-to-face interviews with259,542 people aged 15 and old-er. They live in 135 countries,representing 93 percent of theworld’s adult population.

(mattlamers@heraldm.com)

700 million want to migrate internationally: Gallup

Bonojit Hussain poses infront of graffiti in downtownSeoul. An incident on July 10in which Hussain and hisKorean friend found them-selves the victims of racismhas captured both nationaland international attention.Matthew Lamers/The Korea Herald

‘I was deeply disappointed andwas insulted byPark’s actionsand those of thepolicemen at theBucheon JungbuPolice Station,’said Han of theincident. ‘But atthe same time wasvery embarrassedwhen I realizedthat Korean society still had astrong sense ofethnic nationalism,xenophobia anda patriarchal social system.