So as I sure all of you who are not living under a rock know, a Korean man Kim Son-il was beheaded in the middle east. This is a sad event, I feel sorry for him and his family, but living here in Korea, this event is being dealt with much differently that it has been overseas, or even how the beheadings of Americans were dealt with in America…and to be frank, it kind of sucks for several reasons.
Reason 1: The day that his beheading was announced the Korean media was at his parent’s house, filmed and broadcast their reaction to learning of their son’s brutal and horrific death. Shame on you Korean media!
Reason 2: I later learned that the woman crying uncontrolably was his step-mother. She had only met him twice, and the guy had claimed to not like her, and hadn’t really kept in touch with his family after his father remarried (his real mom had died). She went from being a sympathetic mother-figure, to a money grubbing fake. Shame on you fake mom!
Reason 3: “Who Killed Kim Son-il?” So I’m on the subway and I see this flyer stuck up on the door asking in Korean “Who killed Kim Son-il?” Under this question were four pictures (President Roh, President Bush, a man who was a company head [I assume the company KSI worked for], and a fourth man who I believe is a government offical involved in international affairs [though I could be wrong]). Who was noticable abscent from this list of “killers?” Ah…the people who actually did the beheading. Sure the war might be unjust and assinine, but at least place the blame where it really belongs. I understand the point the sticker was making, but still don’t cheapen the man’s death by blaming people who had no direct influence on his death. Shame on you “Who Killed KSI?” sticker thing!
Reason 4: The lack of critical thinking that followed this event was quite disturbing. The majority of the Korean people failed to realize that KSI chose to go to Iraq. Instead of understanding this, the majority of Koreans buy into the KSI was there because the Korean government is a puppet of the United States. Now I’m not saying KSI should have been there. I think the whole war is fairly stupid and unjust, but people need to understand KSI chose to be there. He was not a soldier forced to go there, he worked for a trading company. He had studied Arabic language and culture. I have read that he desired to marry an Arabian woman. These do not sound like the skills and desires of someone who was in the middle east against his will. People need to realize that when going to a dangerous place (war zone) one runs the risk of injury or death. I realized that coming to Korea (which is a lot less dangerous than the powder keg that is the middle east). I am aware that there is the possibility (albeit slim) of Kim Jong Il and his cronies rolling down the street in Goyang-shi and shooting me with a cannon. The Korean people need to realize that America didn’t force KSI to go to Iraq. He chose to go there…and when you choose to go to such places…well bad shit can and does happen. Shame on you non-thinking Korean people.
Reason 5: The government’s reaction to this event was in one regard horrible and smacked of totalitarianism. Like the beheadings that proceeded this one, the men involved commited it to video. People being the sick / curious beings that they are, this video began making the rounds on the internet. The Korean government began blocking access to sites found to be hosting this video. There are a couple of reasons this bugs me (no, I don’t want to watch the video). The first reason I’m bothered by this is that they made no such efforts to block any of the other beheading videos. Are this videos less offensive? The only difference in them…Nick Berg and Paul Johnson are white. What if a Japanese man had been beheaded? Would that video be blocked as well? I’m going to guess probably not. The second reason I’m pissed off by this decission is that it feeds that kind of lack of critical thinking this whole event has illustrated. Ok, I don’t know what kind of people go out of their way to view such things, but people should have the ability to decide for themselves if they want to watch such things…it shouldn’t be the government deciding for them. The third reason I am frustrated by this decision (and this is where I’m directly effected) in the efforts to “protect the population,” a lot of inoffensive sites were blocked as well, including some sites that I visted. Shame on you Korean government for blocking websites I visited…
I’ll state again that I feel incredibly sorry about the death of Kim Son-il. Anytime someone dies, and especially if they die in a horrific fashion like KSI did, it’s an incredibly sad event. KSI should be remembered, but he should not be made into something more than he was. He was just a guy who chose to go to Iraq.
