BEYOND SAFE HAVEN
2013; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 45; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/14672715.2013.851153
ISSN1472-6033
Autores Tópico(s)Religion, Society, and Development
ResumoABSTRACTFrom providing the basic needs of food, clothing, and shelter to facilitating travel for those seeking refuge, decentralized underground Christian networks in China have assisted countless undocumented North Korean migrants in situations both dire and desperate. However, with no systems for transparency or accountability in place, and with conservative religious agendas structuring spaces of aid and advocacy, these networks also produce troubling paradigms of custodial confinement and discipline. Drawing on field research in the United States, South Korea, and China, this article examines the way a Christian missionary safe house in China illustrates a political theology of custody through its employment of care and control as well as its attention to and detention of vulnerable populations. The author shows that missionaries justify their custodial authority by stressing good intentions and a pastoral prerogative, but deny the unequal power relations that undergird the very structure of their missionary activities for undocumented North Korean migrants. ACKNOWLEDGMENTSEarlierversions ofthis article were presented at UC Berkeley, Simon Fraser University, Rutgers University, NewYork University, University ofWashington, the University of British Columbia, the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, and at the Association forAsian Studies meeting in 2013.1 am grateful to the CAS anonymous reviewers and CAS editor Tom Fenton. I also acknowledge the feedback and support I have received from Jennifer Jihye Chun, Christine Hong, Christine Ahn, Josh Chin, Ki-Min Sung, Sarah Eunkyung Chee, Henry Em, Mimi E. Kim, Jin-heon Jung, and Alexander Horstmann.Notes1See Amnesty International Citation2004; Changet al. 2006; Chang, Haggard, and Nolan 2008; International Crisis Group Citation2006; Muico Citation2005; Smith Citation2012.2See Reitman Citation2002; Heffernan Citation2005; Chin Citation2007; Strangio Citation2011; Tran Citation2010.3Human Rights Watch's 2002 publication The Invisible Exodus: North Koreans in the People's Republic ofChina is a good example of a report that mentions the critical role of Christian networks without any in-depth discussion of that role. The report notes that rumors of the surveillance and detention of humanitarian aid workers and the abduction and arrest of missionaries "provoked intense anxiety among the refugee community because of the practice of many churches in recording in-depth profiles and life histories of the North Koreans they shelter in anticipation of promoting their claims as refugees," and acknowledges that many North Koreans worried that these details of their escape and life history could be revealed to the North Korean government. See Human Rights Watch 2002, 18.4On the so-called Christian passage, see Jung Citation2011.5Kim Citation2013. On evangelical geographical imaginaries, see Han Citation2012.6As of 2009, an estimated 2.3 million ethnic Koreans lived in China, out of which 854,000 resided in Yanbian. See Freeman Citation2011; Kwon Citation2005; Park Citation2005; Seol and Skrentny Citation2009.7Luova Citation2009.8Powell Citation2009.9There are no official statistics to account for undocumented North Korean migrants in China, and estimates by humanitarian workers and researchers range from 30,000 to 300,000.10Several informants in my research corroborated this phenomenon of transnational kinship network, and talked about how family members in China have become increasingly burdened by the dire material needs of their North Korean relatives since the mid 1990s.11Researchers have noted for years that undocumented migrants from North Korea are spreading out to areas farther away from the border, disappearing into the fringes of China's industrial rust belt. See Good Friends 2004. For the region's political-economic importance to China, see Lee Citation2007; Hoffman Citation2006.12Strangio Citation2011; Heffernan Citation2005. There are no official statistics on the number ofNorth Koreans in Southeast Asia.13South Korea statistics are from the South Korean Ministry of Unification and include all North Koreans who have arrived in South Korea since the 1990s. Available online at www.unikorea.go.kr (accessed 1 May 2012).14Chong Citation2012. Interestingly, the article takes the wordyurangja (drifter, vagabond, homeless) to create a neologism, yurangji, to refer to the place where one wanders. In other words, instead of constructing migrant mobility itself as itinerant, the expression attributes migrant mobility as symptomatic of social alienation and displacement rooted in geography.15On the politics of clandestine mission strategies and dynamics of missionary proximity and distance, see Han Citation2009.16Reports of arrests, imprisonment, and deportations of evangelical Christian missionaries occur regularly. High-profile cases include Robert Park in 2009 andAijalon Mahli Gomes in 2010. See Herskovitz Citation2009 and Chosun Ilbo 2010.17Han Citation2009.18Anonymous interview, August 2007.19Jung Citation2011, 164.20Notable exceptions include Jung Citation2011.21For example, see NuclearNorth Korea: A Debate on EngagementStrategies by Victor D. Cha, former president George W. Bush's top advisor on North Korean affairs and former director for AsianAffairs in the White House's National Security Council, and David C. Kang, professor of international relations and business at the University of Southern California. SeeCha and Kang Citation2005.22Hyndman Citation2007, 36.23According to a classic definition offered by Christianity Today, a flagship publication for U.S. evangelicals, an "evangelical Christian" is one who "has had a born again conversion, accepts Jesus as his or her personal Savior, believes that the Scriptures are the authorityfor all doctrine and feels an urgent duty to spread tkefaith" (1978, emphasis in original). This "feeling" of an "urgent duty to spread the faith" is a key affective disposition and purposive energy behind evangelical missions.24Anonymous interview, August 2007.25To protect the anonymity of everyone involved, all names used are pseudonyms and identifying details of the safe house have been removed.26I was accompanied on this research trip by two journalism students, one ofwhom spoke fluent Mandarin Chinese and provided Chinese-English interpretation when conversations took place in Chinese. Most conversations took place in Korean, however, and in these cases I was the Korean-English interpreter.27Ms. Yang's dismissive attitude toward state-sanctioned (registered) Protestant churches in Chinawas consistent with that of other underground missionaries and evangelicals I met. Ms. Yang questioned the religiosity of state-sanctioned churches and claimed that as long as they remained subordinate to the Chinese state they could not be considered truly Christian gatherings. Like many other conservative evangelicals I spoke with in South Korea, China, and the United States, Ms. Yang considered the underground, or "house church," movement to be the truer and more authentic model of Christian community. In contrast, representatives of state-sanctioned churches I interviewed considered the underground house churches to be theologically untrained, politically misguided, and needlessly antagonistic toward the state. The subterranean geography of persecuted house churches contrasts dramatically with the comfortable visibility of official and affluent churches, such as the megachurch in Yanbian built with sizable donations from South Korea.28Grosz Citation1995, 108.29Foucault Citation1980. On the evangelical idea of "reaching," see Han Citation2010.30See Han Citation2009.31Han'gich'ongis shortforHan'guk Kidokkyo ch'ongyonhaphwe (Christian Council ofKorea).32The Pentecostal Assembly of God ofKorea is the denominational home to the Yoido Full Gospel Church, reportedly the largest megachurch in the world.33See Chang and Kim Citation2007; Tedesco Citation2002.34Suh Citation1981, 38.35bid.36Chang and Kim Citation2007, 326.37Dissent is brewing even within evangelical Christian circles, however. With growing public criticism of conservative Christianity and the crisis in moral credibility of church leaders (financial misdeeds, ethical misconduct, improper leadership transition), organized efforts are under way to challenge the narrow control held by an elderly group of ideologically polarizing leaders and end the reign ofHan'gich'ong as the political and moral representative for Christianity in Korea.38Choi, Paik, and Kim Citation2007.39Anonymous interview, Seoul. 2007.40Pak Citation2005, 266.41Versions of this eschatology appear in numerous publications about Korean Christians and China. See, for example, Park Citation2003.42Short-term Christian mission trips and package tours are known to include visits to the historical territorial landmarks of Koguryo as part of "Koguryo mission tours."43The conservatives' ideological signposts can be summarized as "pro-American" and "antiNorth Korea"—^efficiently condensed into a single Korean phrase with just four syllables, ch'inmipanbuk. Critics snidely quip that Han'gich'ong seemed to believe cb'inmipanbuk to be the eleventh commandment in the Bible. In comparison, the so-called Communist sympathizers on the Left are denigrated aspanmi ch'inbuk, literally "anti-American" and "pro-North Korea." These ideological denotations are certainly reductive, but the idiom of pro/anti still reveals the extent to which the United States and North Korea occupy irreconcilable sides of pro- and anti- opposition, such that it is impossible in this ideological landscape for one to claim to be, for example, simultaneously pro-American and pro-North Korea or both anti-American and anti-North Korea.44Protesters had displayed massive Korean and U.S. flags side by side and carried banners that read, "Korea and USA are blood brothers!" "We reject anti-US movement," and "We support US military." Pastor Kim Hong-do, a notorious figure in the Korean Christian right, even gave a public prayer in English in an effort to "capture the hearts ofU.S. President Bush and the U.S. Congress."45Chun Ki-won is sometimes referred to as the "Asian [Oskar] Schindler" after the German industrialist who saved hundreds of Jews from the Nazis.46Among those acknowledged was former senator Sam Brownback, Republican from Kansas, who was once profiled as "God's Senator" in Rolling Stone (see Sharlet Citation2006). The first official North Korean refugee granted asylum in the United States was not Chan Mi, but her older brother Joseph Shin. Sadly, in April 2010, it was reported that he had committed suicide in NewYork. "First N. Korean Refugee in U.S. Commits Suicide," The Chosun Ilbo (English Edition), 7 April 2010. On other suicides, see "A Refugee Family's Fight for Happiness Ends in Tragedy," WHAM Rochester Reports, 20 June 2011; "North Korean Defectors' American Dream," TheHankyoreh, 23January 2012. A remarkable detail that went unnoticed in the me- diawas that the 20-year-old woman who often served as the group's spokesperson went by the name, "Chan Mi," which was a pseudonym given by the missionary, Chun. In all likelihood, ch'an stands for "praise" and mi stands for 'America." The celebrated North Korean refugee, in other words, was born again with the given name "Praise America."47Ms. Yang asked me on several occasions whether I knew American families seeking to adopt North Korean children. It isworth noting that many of the same people behind the 2004 North Korea Human Rights Act also sought to pass the "NK Orphan Bill," or North Korean Refugee Adoption Act (H.R. 1464 and S. 416) to "make it easier to adopt refugee children and reduce waiting time for adopting refugee children." See ThinkChildren.org. Thanks to Christine Hong for raising this important point.48"You could do it," she might say, "but you will have to pay a fine."49On the eschatological imaginary of this movement "Back to Jerusalem," see Han Citation2010.50One missionary chuckled during an interview, "North Koreans are so easy to convert. Just replace Kim Il Sung with God and Kim Jung Il with Jesus, and they understand Christianity. But you never know if the conversion will last. I'm sorry to say, you can't trust them." Anonymous interview, Seoul, 2007.51Han'guk kidokkyo kyoyukkyoyok yon'guwon [Korean Christian Education and Trade Research Institute] Citation2007; Pak Citation2010; Lee Citation2012.52Lee Citation2005.53The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 2009. 4th ed. New York: Houghton Mifflin.54Pak Citation2010. The author of one recent article reports that many North Koreans explain that they find the church intolerable because Christianity feels just as oppressive and disciplinarian as the North Korean regime.55Tellingly, the word "asylum" used to refer to institutions for the maintenance and care of the mentally ill, or an institution for the care and confinement of the destitute, sick, or insane. It is a term laden with carceral and custodial politics.
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