I am enjoying the program 911 that comes on American Force Korea Network (AFKN) television every week. I am inspired by policemen’s first-aid crews’, hospital ambulances’ and fire departments’ rapid and selfless responses to life-and-death calls for help. But the acts of heroism by passers-by, who risk their own lives to save the lives of strangers, inspire me even more.
I welcomed the news that Seoul inaugurated a 911-type emergency number, the 112. But then I read in a newspaper article that the 112 number had been rendered nearly useless because of a high percentage of prank calls. Hospitals, already strained to meet the emergency needs of incoming patients, often found that people looking for the fun of seeing and ambulance arrive had made false emergency calls. The ambulance crews grew tired of hearing the cry wolf. Hospitals now respond to less than 10 percent of the calls.
That abuse of the 112 number conforms to a general lack of civic-mindedness I have witnessed here in Korea. The notion of being your brother’s keeper is generally absent in Korea. The reason can be traced to a perversion of the teaching of Confucius and to a breakdown of social relations that has come with urbanisation.
The great Chinese philosopher Kung Fu-tzu (孔子, Master Kong, Confucius, 551-479 BC) and the Korean Neo-Confucian reformers of the 16th and 17th centuries taught the importance of acting with civility in public and of cultivating human-heartedness. But that dimension of Confucius’s teaching has been neglected. Instead, focus has been placed upon respect within the five relationships—father and son, ruler and subject, husband and wife, senior and junior, friend and friend. Unless one is recognised in one of the five relationships listed above, one is a non-person, a person who can be walked through, pushed by, or run over without concern. And why not? If one is a stranger then one is nobody. People who fail to fit into one of the five relationships are strangers, not fellow citizens.
There is an absence of the concept of citizen that is essential to the well-being of a country. Christianity offers a spiritual resource for the rebirth of the concept of citizen. Christianity teaches that we all are candidates for the citizenship in the City of God, where we can all live as brothers and sisters, as a family bound by genuine love and care for each other. Within this family, room certainly exists for Confucian-advocated relationships between father and son, ruler and subject, husband and wife, senior and junior, friend and friend. Indeed. The Confucian concept of the five relationships provides an excellent social framework for a country, as long as it expands the category of friend to cover people of all races, all religions, all ethnic groups and all nationalities.
Buddhism, with its inherent respect for the value of all living things and with its commitment to the realisation of the Buddha (The Awakened One or The Enlightened One, Siddhārtha Gautama, सिद्धार्थ गौतम, c.563-c.483 BC) nature within each of us, also offers a resource in the rediscovery of the concept of citizen. Since we are all able to realise our Buddha nature, we are all of equal value.
The concept of citizen implies recognition of the divinity in every person, regardless of our relationship with them. The people we walk past on the street are not strangers--they are our neighbours. The people in the cars sharing traffic with us are not strangers--they are our brothers and sisters. The people working next to us on the job are not strangers--they are members of the human family. When this view gains ascendancy, then we will witness a rebirth of civic-mindedness in this country. We are, indeed, our brother’s and sister’s keeper, especially when he/she needs out help.
PS. I discovered among old papers of mine this article that I wrote in the 1992 to be published by a local newspaper. Considering that not so much is changed from that time, I guess the article can still be valid today and worth to be read once again.
I welcomed the news that Seoul inaugurated a 911-type emergency number, the 112. But then I read in a newspaper article that the 112 number had been rendered nearly useless because of a high percentage of prank calls. Hospitals, already strained to meet the emergency needs of incoming patients, often found that people looking for the fun of seeing and ambulance arrive had made false emergency calls. The ambulance crews grew tired of hearing the cry wolf. Hospitals now respond to less than 10 percent of the calls.
That abuse of the 112 number conforms to a general lack of civic-mindedness I have witnessed here in Korea. The notion of being your brother’s keeper is generally absent in Korea. The reason can be traced to a perversion of the teaching of Confucius and to a breakdown of social relations that has come with urbanisation.
The great Chinese philosopher Kung Fu-tzu (孔子, Master Kong, Confucius, 551-479 BC) and the Korean Neo-Confucian reformers of the 16th and 17th centuries taught the importance of acting with civility in public and of cultivating human-heartedness. But that dimension of Confucius’s teaching has been neglected. Instead, focus has been placed upon respect within the five relationships—father and son, ruler and subject, husband and wife, senior and junior, friend and friend. Unless one is recognised in one of the five relationships listed above, one is a non-person, a person who can be walked through, pushed by, or run over without concern. And why not? If one is a stranger then one is nobody. People who fail to fit into one of the five relationships are strangers, not fellow citizens.
There is an absence of the concept of citizen that is essential to the well-being of a country. Christianity offers a spiritual resource for the rebirth of the concept of citizen. Christianity teaches that we all are candidates for the citizenship in the City of God, where we can all live as brothers and sisters, as a family bound by genuine love and care for each other. Within this family, room certainly exists for Confucian-advocated relationships between father and son, ruler and subject, husband and wife, senior and junior, friend and friend. Indeed. The Confucian concept of the five relationships provides an excellent social framework for a country, as long as it expands the category of friend to cover people of all races, all religions, all ethnic groups and all nationalities.
Buddhism, with its inherent respect for the value of all living things and with its commitment to the realisation of the Buddha (The Awakened One or The Enlightened One, Siddhārtha Gautama, सिद्धार्थ गौतम, c.563-c.483 BC) nature within each of us, also offers a resource in the rediscovery of the concept of citizen. Since we are all able to realise our Buddha nature, we are all of equal value.
The concept of citizen implies recognition of the divinity in every person, regardless of our relationship with them. The people we walk past on the street are not strangers--they are our neighbours. The people in the cars sharing traffic with us are not strangers--they are our brothers and sisters. The people working next to us on the job are not strangers--they are members of the human family. When this view gains ascendancy, then we will witness a rebirth of civic-mindedness in this country. We are, indeed, our brother’s and sister’s keeper, especially when he/she needs out help.
PS. I discovered among old papers of mine this article that I wrote in the 1992 to be published by a local newspaper. Considering that not so much is changed from that time, I guess the article can still be valid today and worth to be read once again.
Giorgio Olivotto
Seoul, Korea
June 19, 2011
Seoul, Korea
June 19, 2011
Nessun commento:
Posta un commento