Friday, November 14^th,2014

The SNUAC Colloquium sponsored by Seoul National University Asian Center, Myongji University Institute of Middle Eastern Affairs, and Istanbul Cultural Center.

By: Joo, Do Kyung

On last Friday, November 14^th, the SNUAC Colloquium co-sponsored by Seoul National University Asian Center, Myongji University Institute of Middle Eastern Affairs, and Istanbul Cultural Center had taken place.

This colloquium was intended to foster the unbiased and balanced knowledge on West Asia and South Asia, where Korea had relatively insufficient knowledge and understandings of. Most of the information accessible are reviewing West Asia and South Asia from the perspective of the Western societies. The Middle East conflicts were scrutinized, especially focusing on the IS (Islamic State), that has gained the latest international attention.

The first presentation was by Isa Afacan, a professor at Turgut Özal University. According to Afacan, the phenomena so-called ‘the spring of Arab’ can be viewed more as a revolutionary process, then a one-time incident. Some of its characteristics are the changes of political power, uprisings, civil wars, and many other various events.

At the moment, the process is on hold. Unless the revolution comes to its end within the earliest possible time, countries such as Libya, Iraq, and many others under such a situation now, will be inevitable to face the collapse of its nation. In the past, the collapse of the nation not only deprived the citizenship and the broke down its national boundaries, but it also caused the appearance of various groups, including the IS, due to the loss of a focal point.

The growth of these groups are based on pragmatism, such as the network capacity, the united state of mind, financial support, and their resource capacity. Professor Isa Afacan has presented the correlation between the appearances of the IS and the revolutions in the Middle East.

The second presentation was on “Refuting IS – The Open Letters of Muslim Intellectuals” by Park, Hyun Dow, HK research professor at Myungji University Institute of Middle Eastern Affairs.

Park has pointed out that the IS conflicts has become an issue lately, but it actually has a long historical background, and it needs to be understood with political, religious, and international situation consideration. According to Park, the initiation of the IS goes back to 1999. For Korean people, the IS is better known as the group that executed Kim, Sun Il in 2004. The IS believes that the world is divided into the Islamic world, and the non-Islamic world, including the Jews, Americans, Russians, and others. So they build their own communities and attack the non-believers. They are trying to conquer as many the territories as possible, to ultimately, build the united Muslim nations of the caliphate. (Caliphate is believed as the leader to replace Allah)

To condemn the IS activities as being Non-Islamic, 126 Muslim scholars from the elite-class had signed a public letter last September. The major ground for the criticism by these scholars was that the IS is under its own literal and arbitrary interpretation, that the armed struggle that has caused numerous innocent killings, absurd Islamic Jihad, and the abuse of women and children are all against the Islam. The presentation of Park, Hyun Dow has offered the historical background and the various views of the IS issues, making the IS issues more solid.

The third presentation was by Abdul Wahab, Director of Help Syria, on “The Current Situation in Syria.” Abdul Wahab is the first Syrian student to study in Korea. He had just recently visited Rakka, his home and also the center of the IS. Wahab had provided a rich description of the current situation in Syria. According to him, most of the hospitals in Syria were under the IS attack, and are unable to provide any medical treatment. The children are not only unable to go to schools, but they are also suffering from mental pains and physical diseases. The production activities has been stopped, hence, the cost of living has jumped 10 times. There has been increasing number of merchants taking the opportunity of excessive profit. Relief activities are under difficulties due to security reasons. But most importantly, the attack of the US and the UN solider on IS are causing greater destruction to the Syrian civilians. The foreigners being executed by the IS often receive the heated attention in the media, but a lot more Syrian are killed by the IS, said Abdul Wahab. Abdul has represented the local Syrian civilians in the situation, and urged for realistic action rather than a mere sympathy.

While the first two presentations introduced the Middle East issues and the general understandings of the IS, the last presentation by Abdul Wahab had directed us to the reaction with an action as it closed the colloquium.

The circumstantial appropriateness and the scarcity of the topic on the Middle East conflicts in Korea has attracted many regional researchers and the interested students to the colloquium.

It offered a ground for a better understandings of the IS and the Middle East conflicts, as it included various perspectives of both the researchers and practicians, as well as that of Korean and the foreigners.