By Kim Rahn
The murderous attack by Islamic extremists on Charlie Hebdo in Paris, France, has been taken with a relative sense of detachment here. But some experts claim that Korea is not free from inter-ethnic conflict, considering its growing number of immigrants.
They call for measures to assimilate them into society, while allowing for their diversity to be maintained in harmony with Korean culture and customs.
"Korea has already become a society where foreigners and multicultural families are mixed with Koreans," said Pastor Kim Hae-sung, president of Global Sarang, an NGO that supports immigrants.
"It is natural that problems involving these people take place. But if we only hold them alone accountable for the problems and exclude them, there could be huge resistance, such as protests and even riots," the pastor said.
Kim pointed to the 2005 French riots committed by underprivileged second-generation Arabic immigrants in the suburbs of Paris; and the campus shooting rampage by a Korean-American at Virginia Tech in the United States in 2007.
"The second- or third-generation of immigrant workers in Paris had financial difficulty and received poor education. They rallied to call for jobs, but deaths took place, and it became a race riot," Kim said.
In the Virginia Tech incident, the offender, who immigrated to the U.S. with his family when young, failed to adapt to the new country and many other factors together drove him to the wrong choice, he added.
Kim said many children of multicultural families drop out of school due to poverty, failure to adapt, or other problems.
"They can't get proper jobs without a basic education. Many such children are young now, but if they become older and a community of such children becomes larger, it can result in problems."
To prevent such potential conflicts, Kim said Koreans should regard people from different ethnicities and cultures as partners in society.
"If Koreans don't want to live together with them, it will make such people feel alienated and band together themselves, and this could become a factor of conflict."
Seoul National University professor Mo Kyung-hwan said that government policy for multiculturalism should focus on changing public recognition.
"It needs to help people have qualifications as global citizens — to recognize, accept and understand various cultures."
The Charlie Hebdo incident triggered dozens of websites to press their case against migrant workers, immigrant spouses and foreigners.
A similar pattern is followed when foreigners commit crimes here, such as the recent "torso murder" case where an ethnic Korean-Chinese killed a woman and cut her body into pieces.
The murderous attack by Islamic extremists on Charlie Hebdo in Paris, France, has been taken with a relative sense of detachment here. But some experts claim that Korea is not free from inter-ethnic conflict, considering its growing number of immigrants.
They call for measures to assimilate them into society, while allowing for their diversity to be maintained in harmony with Korean culture and customs.
"Korea has already become a society where foreigners and multicultural families are mixed with Koreans," said Pastor Kim Hae-sung, president of Global Sarang, an NGO that supports immigrants.
"It is natural that problems involving these people take place. But if we only hold them alone accountable for the problems and exclude them, there could be huge resistance, such as protests and even riots," the pastor said.
Kim pointed to the 2005 French riots committed by underprivileged second-generation Arabic immigrants in the suburbs of Paris; and the campus shooting rampage by a Korean-American at Virginia Tech in the United States in 2007.
"The second- or third-generation of immigrant workers in Paris had financial difficulty and received poor education. They rallied to call for jobs, but deaths took place, and it became a race riot," Kim said.
In the Virginia Tech incident, the offender, who immigrated to the U.S. with his family when young, failed to adapt to the new country and many other factors together drove him to the wrong choice, he added.
Kim said many children of multicultural families drop out of school due to poverty, failure to adapt, or other problems.
"They can't get proper jobs without a basic education. Many such children are young now, but if they become older and a community of such children becomes larger, it can result in problems."
To prevent such potential conflicts, Kim said Koreans should regard people from different ethnicities and cultures as partners in society.
"If Koreans don't want to live together with them, it will make such people feel alienated and band together themselves, and this could become a factor of conflict."
Seoul National University professor Mo Kyung-hwan said that government policy for multiculturalism should focus on changing public recognition.
"It needs to help people have qualifications as global citizens — to recognize, accept and understand various cultures."
The Charlie Hebdo incident triggered dozens of websites to press their case against migrant workers, immigrant spouses and foreigners.
A similar pattern is followed when foreigners commit crimes here, such as the recent "torso murder" case where an ethnic Korean-Chinese killed a woman and cut her body into pieces.
