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Life Onboard |
LAST UPDATE
March 13, 2007
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| March 5, 2007 |
An Asian Perspective on Peace through Conflict – Kim Kyungmook |
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| Professor Kim Kyungmook |
With a topic like ‘Peace can not be created without conflict’ curious minds were attracted to this workshop given by Kim Kyungmook, a peace studies professor at Chukyo University. On a daily basis, varying degrees of conflict affect us but how do we deal with it? Are we educated so we are equip with skills to resolve problems effectively within our community, family and ultimately for ourselves? Using hypothetical scenarios, participants discussed different options in each case, considering human rights to personal ways of dealing with confrontation; finally a group consensus was made after weighing in all the alternatives. Some comments from participants were “I had no idea I’d be involved in such a heated debate before coming to this workshop,” and “I have been given the chance to freely express myself without fear of judgment” even after the workshop was over participants stayed behind to continue their discussion. |
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| Participants in discussion on peace through conflict |
In a following session, the first open question posed was: What are some key words that come to mind when you hear the words ‘North Korea’? A lot of responses were negative because media reports are often one sided, Kim Kyungmook reminds us to critically analyze information we receive. Next came a question on refugees: Imagine 1,000,000 people need refugee status in USA, Russia, Japan, South Korea and China, how can we split them? Once again in groups, solutions were division by population, history of refugee acceptance, land mass, political climate, economic development and asking where these refugees want to go.
Kim Kyungmook reiterates that an ideal world would not have refugees but the reality is many countries don’t easily admit them. The Japanese government says they take as many as they can but in 2001 approximately 10-20 asylum seekers were granted refugee status, in the same year USA 10,000 and other developed countries received between 10,000 – 15,000 refugees. Why the large disparity? The last question put forward was how can Japan internationalize itself? Ideas generated were more cultural exchanges in school and amendments in the elementary school curriculum to incorporate positive aspects of cultural diversity. |
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| Kim Chang Haeng |
Award winning entertainer, Kin Chang Haeng, a Zainichi, ethnically Korean born and living in Japan, was invited as a special guest speaker to give his personal views on the treatment of Zainichi in Japan. “When I say I am a third generation Zainichi in Japan some people can not cross the discrimination border and though people say they do not care. Some people say we are all the same, we are all human but are we really all the same? I question that. I was born in Japan, went to a Japanese school, ate the same food and I speak Japanese but there are differences because I can’t vote and I can’t be a public servant because I am not considered Japanese.”
Kim Chang Haeng continues with “The senior generation use the excuse that the younger generation don’t do enough but young people say they don’t know about the past or the war and they don’t do anything even though there is a Zainichi acceptance issue from the war and no one did anything about it. Japan has to be responsible for things they have done and Japanese people have to have a greater understanding. There is discrimination all around us and we need to be aware of this problem to be able to address it.” |
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