Joshua Syndrome^[1] and Emerging Threats to Life in the World
Noh, Jong Sun^[2]

Korea has been regarded as 'axis of evil' since 2002 by some religious people. As a person from Korea, labeled as axis of 'not-angels' but of evil, I do question myself as to whether or not I am qualified to respond to Angela. But as there is no North or South in Christ, so there is no North Korea or South Korea in Christ according to Galatians 3:28. There is only one Korea, which has been divided into two since 1945 by General Order No.1 of Gen. McArthur of the United States. He did not divide Japan into two for what Japan did in the Pacific War, bombing Pearl Harbor. But Korea became the victim of colonial oppression and killing by imperial Japan and doubly victimized by the US division of Korea, which has one language, one culture and one history for a thousand years. When someone calls North Korea an axis evil, this means the whole of Korea. Hermeneutics of suspicion[3] is necessary to find the truth of the meaning of the language of 'axis of evil' and 'axis of good.'

Angela Wong says, "As the Third Continuation Committee met in December 2001, the tragedies of September 11 and the subsequent war in Afghanistan occupied both our hearts and minds. Despite years of efforts in building peace and reconciliation, rival communities are confronted again with destruction and hatred mounting in an unprecedented scale between 'us' and 'them.' Feelings of devastation and helplessness have been overwhelming. With the world�s strongest military power determined to eradicate all that are against it, how can the world ever be one piece/peace again?" My question is: what do you mean by between 'us' and 'them'? Does 'us' actually mean capital lettered US (United States) and 'them' the non-US?

Angela Wong says that "The scale of violence on September 11 is extensive but what really aggravates our calamities is the sweeping resolve to use violence from all sides in the subsequent days." Violence started from the beginning days of Cain and Abel. In 1914, the United Kingdom occupied Kuwait, then probably one part of Iraq. Probably, the key date for Muslims and for Islamic civilizations may not be September 11, but rather 1914. Following the Gulf War of 1991, where some 160,000 to 190,000 Iraqi soldiers were reportedly killed, they say that some half million young Iraqi children have died of hunger and hunger-related diseases caused by economic sanctions in Iraq, which is known to have some 2% of the world's oil resources.

People say that 'after Iraq, it would be North Korea and Iran, maybe'. On 4 August 2003, CNN reported that Chung Mong Hun, president of Hyundai Asan company, reportedly jumped to death from his office on the 12^th floor of Hyundai building in Seoul.[4] Investigation is going on as to the real cause of the death. He and his father have been working hard to rebuild the economic community between North Korea and South Korea. He has been recently under investigation on charges that he gave some 4 hundred million dollars to North Korea in return for 30-year contracts on the Kaesung Special Industrial Zone and Keumgangsan Economic Zone of some 43 million sq. meters; the project reconnecting the railroad between North and South Korea, which will lead to China, Russia and Europe; and probably also for the summit meeting of President Kim Dae Jung of South Korea and Mr. Kim Jong Il of North Korea in year 2000, for the first time since 1948. These projects would make some 17 to 37 billion dollars. The contract was an excellent deal. North Korean Rhee Jonghyuck, vice-chair of Asia Pacific Committee, North Korea said, that we should have asked for more money for the contract. These projects would support the suffering economy of North Korea for surely more jobs and better income for the people with a current $730 GNP per capita.

My theory and strategy for peace and reunification in Korea was by cooperation of economic community of "Preventive Economy".[5] For the first time since 1950, road was open to Keumgangsan via land, crossing the Demilitarized Zone and Military Demarcation Line. I was invited to join the first bus trip together with some 200 people including Chung Mong Hun and Kim Yoon Kyu last February 2003. Chung is now dead. I wrote many articles and spoke to many people on 'Preventive Economy' and the story that Chung gave money to the North for the people of Korea and for peace. I have some guilty feeling about not having helped to prevent his death.

Chung wrote in his will that his cremated ashes should be buried in the Keumkangsan Mountain, North Korea, where his father was born and he had been working hard for the economic development and reunification of the divided country through economic cooperation and investment. Rev. Kang Young Sup, chairperson of Korea Christian Federation of North Korea, cited at the Tokyo Christian Conference in 2001 that some 3.5 million people have died of hunger and hunger-related diseases. Is it the case that 'those who support North Korean hungry economy may not live a long life'? Economic sanctions by the US for over 50 years against the hungry people with GNP per capita of $730 a year is a human rights violation.

They say that Dr. David Kelly of UK had reportedly committed suicide. Do these alleged suicide deaths have anything to do with globalization or global integration of the world in the so-called free market economy for the rich? The question is 'the pedagogy for the marginalized and also for the victims of the globalization and integration around the center of power from the periphery. Did not these two people try to cross boundaries of integration of the world through free market economy with American Values and American Civil Religion[6]?

I agree with Angela Wong when she critically appreciates the role of religion and also clearly indicates that religion can be in certain cases the critical obstacle for humanization and democratization. Religion can be an opium of the oppressed as Karl Marx said, but at the same time, religion can be the force for liberating the captives and the oppressed. Wong seems to have some special respect and trust on the people and religion of the Hebrew tribes of Yahweh[7] although she seems to try very hard to be more tolerant to the pluralistic truth of the religions of the world. Her trust seems to be especially on "Ruth" (Ruth 1:14-17). Another woman referred to is Hope Antone (Religious Education in Context of Plurality and Pluralism, 2003). There are so many male writers' articles and thoughts quoted to support her thesis. It could have been different if she quoted more resources from the thoughts, life stories of women, for the feminist pedagogy of encounter. "Tears of Lady Meng's biography" of resistance against Chinsiwhang ti was the critically important resource for the peace and demilitarization of China and the world in the writings of C. S. Song[8]. It may be commendable to find cases of liberation struggles among Chinese women, or Hong Kong Women, or women of non-Hebrew tradition for the balance of the religious clash of civilizations.

National Security is a new issue in Hong Kong, China. It has been a critical issue in South Korea for many years under the military general presidents, Park Chung Hee, Chun Du Whan and Roh Tae Woo for some 30 years. It has now become the hot and central issue of the US, with President George W. Bush. Does it have anything to do with religions, quasi-religions, values, greed for materials, or ambitions?  

Wong said, "European imperialistic conquest of land and goods in the last three centuries has defined religions and cultures of the West against those of the East." �West' means the rational, scientific, and civilized; 'East' the exotic, mystifying, and backward. "The politics between East and West since the second World War has aggravated the division and hostility among especially the three universalistic religions and turned neighbors of the same areas into enemies," she pointed out. But she has not mentioned the one historical fact that Japan and Japanese religion of emperor-god worship have been the cause of suffering and division in Korea since some 1900. Now Japan passed the new emergency law for preemptive attacks on some potential enemy situation and has already accumulated some 7-45 tons of plutonium 239, according to Selig Harrison. This plutonium can be turned into some 1,000 to 6,000 nuclear weapons of 7 kg Nagasaki type. Former Prime Minister Hata said that Japan has all the equipment, technology and Pu 239 to produce bombs. Japan seems to have a religion of patriotism and loyalty to emperor-god.

Some 20 million Chinese were killed and some 16 million Chinese were wounded by Japan before 1945, according to the Shenyang, 9.18 Museum, founded by Zhang Zhemin. Religion of military hegemonic conquering and invasion has been the cause of suffering in Asia and in other parts of the world. New emphasis on 'Religion of Militarism' and 'Military-God' should be necessary in the new Pedagogy of Encounter in 2003. Heads of the nation-states nowadays seem to play the role of military-gods for their provincial, national and even tribal interests of some special clans of military-political-industrial complex. I would like to name this the religion of military-god.

Does the emerging global resistance of peoples of the two-thirds of the world play creative forces for alternative 'global civil society'?

Angela Wong said, "There is certainly a dire need for the creation of a counter-empire. It may sound too grand a dream. But what intellectual thinking can contribute is perhaps the uplifting of such a dream, for only can a deep critique of the situation emerge, and a motif in continuous engagement in hope." Does this 'counter-empire' exist only within the psychological state of dreaming and hoping? How to empower the people of resistance for alternatives in terms of strategies and tactics for liberation and humanization?

In her theological proposal, Wong referred to the Story of Exodus, Moses, Deuteronomy 26:5-9, and Genesis 12:1-3. There seems to be a danger in citing the traditions of Hebrew people and Jewish Bible as sources of solutions for the problems that contemporary people face. "You will not oppress the strangers; you know how a stranger feels, for you yourselves were strangers in Egypt (Exod. 23:9)." In reality, however, what we see is that former strangers have become new oppressors in the land in many places of the world. There seems to be a danger of the "Joshua Syndrome", the psychiatric identification with Joshua of Old Testament era. People in power, formerly strangers from Europe in Americas, over against the native Americans, seem to have some illusion that they are Joshua in the 21^st century, with full legitimacy given by God of the Hebrew Tribes to conquer the land and kill 12,000 people in Ai (City). Strangers sometimes become the oppressive powers against the natives.

So perhaps the pedagogy of encounter needed is to tell oppressors of the natives to leave the land they conquered for their material interests and greed for pleasure, and to go to the wilderness and to have 'born-again-experiences'. Perhaps the pedagogy of encounter means to teach the oppressive people with Joshua Syndrome not to kill people with advanced weapons of Tomahawks, but to liberate the natives in the Islamic civilizations, and in the civilizations of non-market economy with the jubilee of political economy, of meal-table for the hungry. Perhaps the pedagogy of encounter means to have a sharing economy of jubilee, sharing the food, oil, energy, nature with the needy and to cancel the debts of the poor, two-thirds of the world, to lift economic sanctions against the poor people, to stop calling the weak "axis of evil", and to live with peace, justice and love. Pedagogy of encounter means to transform the haves to change their bad habits of war-mongering against the marginalized, small and weak natives, and to share what they now have with the needy two-thirds of the world.

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