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September 01, 2008
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| The Buddhist protest against perceived religious bias in the Lee Myung-bak administration reached a new peak over the weekend. Some 10,000 temples nationwide held services and one angry monk stabbed himself to condemn the government. At Jogye Temple in downtown Seoul’s Jongno District, the service began at 9:30 a.m., led by Venerable Jigwan. Jigwan leads the Jogye Order, Korea’s largest Buddhist sect. About 2,000 believers attended the gathering, which was called “a service to condemn the Lee Myung-bak administration’s destruction of the Constitution and religious discrimination.” “When the senior member of a family does not treat younger members fairly and equally, the family can never be happy,” Jigwan said. “The same applies for a society. Members of a society must respect each other, although they may have different religious views. When all of society’s members become one, a nation can be powerful and develop.” On Saturday, a 60-year-old Buddhist monk used a knife to cut open his own abdomen at Jogye Temple to protest perceived religious bias in the government. The monk, Venerable Sambo, is the former head monk of Sangwon Temple in Gangwon Province. The Jogye Order said he was rushed to a hospital and that the injury was not fatal. “I became very disappointed because [Protestant] Reverend Kim Jin-hong of the New Right Union and others were invited to the Blue House for a luncheon the day after Buddhists had a massive outdoor gathering on Wednesday,” Venerable Sambo said from the Dongguk University International Hospital in Ilsan, Gyeonggi, where he was being treated for the injury. Dongguk University is run by the Jogye Order. According to the order, the 60-year-old monk was Sangwon Temple’s head monk when he was arrested during the Chun Doo Hwan regime’s Buddhist crackdown in 1980 in what the government called “religious purification.” On Oct. 27, 1980, 153 Buddhist monks were arrested and 5,731 temples were raided in an intensive crackdown. The Defense Ministry’s fact-finding team said last year that the operation was to oppress Jogye Order leaders who questioned the legitimacy of the military regime. It is not the first time that Venerable Sambo has inflicted wounds on his body, the Jogye Order said. In 2005, he had stabbed his belly, demanding that the truth about the crackdown be revealed. By Ser Myo-ja Staff Reporter/ Baik Sung-ho JoongAng Ilbo [myoja@joongang.co.kr] |
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