By Oh Young-jin
Assistant managing editor
Yeouido Full Gospel Church founder-pastor Cho Yong-gi’ s open challenge to the government’s effort to allow “sukuk” or Islamic bonds can be better understood, when it is considered one of the outstanding characteristics of Christianity ― exclusivity.
Christians are told to believe no other gods but theirs. Their god is the only one there is. To them, those who don’t believe in their god are called pagans and those who go against the words of the Bible are regarded as heretics, both facing ostracism and persecution.
This doesn’t deny countless virtues Christianity has offered for mankind, being best represented by love.
Still, the Christian exclusivity can explain why Pastor Cho, the leader of one of Korea’s biggest churches, threatened to oust President Lee Myung-bak, a fellow Christian, from office. Unfortunately, Cho’s threat showed one of the religion’s very few mean sides for everybody to see.
Although Cho argued parts of money earned in profit through sukuk ends up supporting terrorists, in all likelihood, it was nothing but t an ostensible excuse that hides his ulterior motive ― protecting Christianity against Islam.
After all, sukuk was developed to go about Islamic laws that prohibit the charging and receiving of interest, carrying a strong Islamic characteristic.
From the perspective of the 75-year-old pastor, who has built his 100,000-member congregation from scratch, allowing sukuk may be felt like opening Pandora’s Box.
It wouldn’t be hard to guess that sukuk will strengthen Korea’s economic ties with Islamic countries, opening Korea up to their goods and cultures together with their religion.
Already, the Islamic tide is flowing in Korea.
A walk through the street of Itaewon shows many people from Southeast Asia, Africa and Central Asia. Many small factories can’t operate without their labor. They are often taken together in the category of “foreign workers” but the faith tying them together is Islam.
Although we still see Islam as an exotic religion, there are Western countries that experienced inflows of immigrants from the Islamic countries, most of them their former colonies. Now in such countries as Britain and France, the Islamic communities have grown so big that their influence can’t be ignored.
Thus, Pastor Cho went to the extent of threatening to break up with Lee in order to block sukuk and nip the Islamic invasion in the bud. Already, the ruling Grand National Party (GNP) dropped its attempt to handle the sukuk bill at the National Assembly for now in the face of church leaders’ threat to mobilize against the lawmakers who support it.
Considering the political docket starting with by-elections, moving to general elections and ending with presidential election for the next two years, neither the ruling party nor President Lee would easily bring back the sukuk bill.
Or Pastor Cho may have been disappointed with Lee, seeing that the President played a key role in winning a big nuclear power plant project in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and is trying to use sukuk to finance it.
Interestingly, Cho’s stance appears to represent the core of the church leadership, thereby making Cho’s threat even more credible.
Still, there are two points to consider.
First, how would the Islamic world see Korea engulfed by the sukuk controversy?
We know that much of the Islamic world may not afford to pay attention to the Korean case, with the Middle East and Northern Africa consumed by the people’s power revolution, but when they do, it won’t help our image in the Islamic countries.
Korea depends on the Middle East for its oil imports. As an export-driven economy, we can little afford to let any barriers stand in the way in order to sustain its growth. Sukuk can offer Korea new business opportunities and boost the existing level of relations.
Thus, President Lee should take it as a test of his leadership because he can use this opportunity to show people that he sets aside his personal interests and pushes ahead with what he believes to promote national interest. After all, it is his government that started to push for sukuk.
If he avoids taking his stand on this issue, he would run the risk of going down in history as CEO running the country, not as the President leading the nation. Despite Cho’s direct challenge, Lee has been silent.
Islamists have been made conspicuous by its absence in this heated discussion.
No Islamic nations have asked us to introduce sukuk. It is our need that initiated discussions over it.
Then, I wonder whether they may feel like a passer-by being slapped on the face without any obvious reason, while walking on the street. Jesus told us to turn the other cheek or would they?