Mr. Kim came to Canada; he had dreams; did he realize them?

(지난 호에 이어)

This situation invites a fertile ground for ambitious groups to get hold of the community. The behavior of these groups is motivated by three types of desires: monetary benefits, social prestige, political domination or simple jealousy.

There is a group of people who become community leaders, because the position provides some money to spend for lunches and dinners, travels. The position of the community presidency allows access to privileges: invitation by the Consulate General, invitation by the Korean government, being recognized as official representative in the eyes of outside world, the privilege of sitting at the front role at official meetings. It is not a coincidence that when the Association has money to spend, many become want to become president.

There are some people who have unhealthy desire to dominate other people. This desire may be a part of human being, but in the Korean community in Montreal there are one or two persons who have pathetic tendency to dominate others.

Koreans are known to be jealous of others. This unfortunate trait can be attributable to the historical legacy and social environment.

First, as pointed out above, Koreans are exclusive in their perception of interpersonal relationship because of the legacy of traditional value system.

Second, the Korean society is extremely competitive. Right from the kinder-garden period, the children are taught to win, because winning is survival. This winning psychosis makes loser aggressive toward the winner. There is old saying:  “My cousin buys land; I got stomach ache!”

Koreans have lived in highly exclusive, hostile and insecure environment.

This is the reason for generalized jealousy. The jealousy is even worse in the church because of easier revelation of personal secrets; it is so bad that some minister perform special prayers against the jealousy.

For all these reasons, some persons want to become president of the Association. There are some decent people who served as president not for these negative motivations but for the good of the community.

As a matter of fact, up until several four years ago, most of the presidents were decent people with very positive and constructive motivations; the Korean community owes them a lot. But in recent years, the situation rapidly deteriorated. In one case, the president was elected even by violating the bylaws of the Association.

The Korean community consists of many small groups by hobbies, home towns, alumni, church and so on. But their interest does not go beyond their narrow scoped interests and they are not disciplined groups; they have no political ambition; they are mostly unorganized; their main interests to fraternize and fight against solitude.

These people represent more than 95%; they are not interested in the activities of the Korean Association; they do not have any expectation from the Association.

The remaining 5 % are organized and interested in controlling the Association. Actually, there are two sub-groups. One is “the conservative group; it is composed of those who regard the Association as a playground of politics and they are very doctrinaire; everybody who has different ideas is “Red” which is a dirty word in the Korean community.

Then, there is a group who regard the Association as rival and it tries to plant its “person” in the management of the Association in order to protect its interests.

The great majority of the conservative group members are retired seniors who came to Montreal before 1990. These people keep the Korean value system of 1990s and prefer living like in Korea. This is understandable in view of the fact that they have serious language barrier.

They prefer leading a quiet life of meeting friends, play with grand-children, make occasional voyage; they like to be respected and treated well by the young. In fact, a few churches invite them a few times a year to lavish picnics with rich Korea foods. This is also understandable.

The trouble starts when they are manipulated and used for unhealthy purpose by politically motivated or business motivated groups. For these interest groups, the senior people are of great value, because they have time and they are not strict about the procedure of democracy.

In fact, 95% of participants in the meetings of the Association are senior people. This makes easier for the interest groups to manipulate the procedure of the meeting and get what they want. In fact, for last several years, they have been successful in placing their own men on the position of the Association president.

Here is how the procedure is manipulated. First, the interest group agree on the pre-meeting scenario regarding the nomination of the meeting chair-person, items to be discussed, who are to motion mover, who are to be seconded, who are to be elected. In their plan, the role of the chair is crucial. 

Almost without exception, they nominate one of their group members as the chair. If anybody proposes somebody else as the chair, they shout and prevent the person from recommending a non-group member as the chair.

Second, once nominated, the chair person dictates the meeting procedures. Take an example. It was a meeting for the election of the Board members of the Association. The chair said: “Those who are old should not be the candidate”. This is a violation of the bylaw.

If the chair judges that the meeting is going against the interest of his group, he imposes votes by raising hand instead of confidential written vote. When the victory of his group is uncertain, he impose his own decision declaring:  “I declare this by virtue of the decisional power bestowed on me!”.

The violation of the bylaw is especially frequent at the meeting for the approval of financial statements. In principle, the financial report is audited, but the auditor is one of their own group members. Therefore, it is never clear how reliable the report is.

(다음 호에 계속)

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