The presence of Koreans in Africa is a multifaceted story, encompassing historical ties, cultural exchanges, and the evolution of Korean communities on the continent. This article delves into the historical context of Korean involvement in Africa, focusing on both North and South Korea, and explores the experiences of Koreans in South Africa.
Historical Ties: North Korea and Africa
Tycho van der Hoog‘s book, Comrades Beyond the Cold War: North Korea and the Liberation of Southern Africa, sheds light on the relationship between North Korea and Africa, dating back to the Cold War era. Liberation forces in Southern Africa sought international military and diplomatic support, and North Korea, inspired by its own history of Japanese colonialism and struggle against the US, answered the call.
The relationship had its genesis in ties dating back to the Cold War era, when liberation forces throughout Southern Africa, fighting for self-determination against colonialism and white supremacy, sought international military and diplomatic support.
Juche Ideology and Aid
North Korea's nationalist ideology, Juche, which emphasizes self-reliance, resonated with African liberation movements. North Korea sponsored 30 Juche study centers during the Cold War, where liberation activists learned about this ideology. Pyongyang also extended aid to its African friends, including building a national stadium in Lesotho and donating cement for housing projects in the Seychelles.
Aid was often targeted at countries with influence over the continent’s liberation movements. Tanzania, which hosted the Organization of African Unity’s Liberation Committee, and Ghana, home to Kwame Nkrumah’s pro-liberation Bureau of African Affairs, both received agricultural assistance. After liberation, the former “frontline states” of Angola, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Zambia all received assistance.
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Nevertheless, its influence was felt in Africa. North Korea sponsored 30 Juche study centres during the Cold War years. Liberation activists travelled across the continent to learn about this Korean ideology and how it might be applied to their struggles in their own countries.
Military Training and Hardware
Military training and hardware were central to the relationship between North Korea and Africa. While military support was originally directed towards the liberation struggle against colonialism, it continued to favor African allies even after liberation. A notable episode occurred in Zimbabwe, where North Korean-trained Fifth Brigade initiated a purge of ZAPU "dissidents," resulting in the deaths of over 20,000 people in what is known as Gukurahundi.
At the time of liberation Zimbabwe was divided between two major fighting forces - the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) and the Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU). ZANU, led by Robert Mugabe, recruited mainly from the majority Shona people, whereas ZAPU drew its greatest support in Matabeleland, in the south west of the country.
Mugabe, who assumed the prime ministership in 1980, signed an agreement with then North Korean leader Kim Il Sung in October of that year to have the North Korean military train a brigade for the Zimbabwean army.
The result was one of the bloodiest and most shameful episodes in North Korea’s African involvement. The consensus of the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) is that more than 20,000 people were killed in what is known as Gukurahundi - roughly “cleansing rain” in the Shona language - exceeding the death toll in Matabeleland during the liberation struggle.
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Visual Propaganda and Exploitation
North Korea has influenced African iconography through visual propaganda, designing statues, memorials, and buildings across Africa. The Mansudae Overseas Project (MOP), a North Korean studio, has been central to these projects. However, North Korea's influence in Africa has often been negative, with the state turning to illicit revenue generation such as counterfeiting, drug dealing, and trading in African ivory and rhino horn.
In recent years, several striking monuments have been erected across the African continent that assert a confident vision of African identity. In 2010, Senegal unveiled the African Renaissance Monument which is, at 50m high, the largest statue on the continent.”
Central to these projects is a North Korean studio, the Mansudae Overseas Project (MOP). North Korean statues have appeared in Maputo, Mozambique (Samora Machel); in Gaborone, Botswana (the Three Dikgosi Monument); and in Luanda, Angola (Agostinho Neto).
Given that aggressive militarism and propaganda have always gone hand in hand in the hermit kingdom, it is little surprise that the influence of North Korea in Africa has often been overwhelmingly negative.
These criminal enterprises, the brutality of the Kim regime, and the country’s quest for nuclear weaponry have made North Korea a pariah state.
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South Korea and Africa
During the wave of Korean labour migration to the Arab world in the 1970s and 1980s, many Koreans went to Arab countries of North Africa, including Libya, and to a lesser extent, Egypt and Sudan. Though Libya did not receive its first South Korean workers until 1977, it was the only Arab country which experienced consistent growth in the number of Korean workers between 1981 and 1985. By 1985 it had already become the Arab world's second most popular destination, with 23,138 arrivals from South Korea.
The Cairo Korean School, founded on 5 December 1979 is Africa's only Korean day school and the earliest registered Korean educational institution of any kind in Africa; it enrolled 84 elementary school students and 119 middle school students as of September 2007.
Weekend Korean language schools for South Korean nationals have been established in eighteen other African countries as well, enrolling a total of 640 students.
For Egypt, the relationship was especially close; North Korean pilots flew Egyptian fighters in the 1973 Yom Kippur War and Egypt exported Scud missiles to North Korea. North Korea was also involved in several armed insurgency movements in Angola, Rhodesia and in the Seychelles, and provided support to the African National Congress and South West Africa People's Organization (SWAPO).
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Korean Community in South Africa
South Africa had considered importing labourers from Korea as early as 1903 to control rising mining wages, but eventually decided on Chinese workers instead. The Immigration Act of 1913 classified all Asians as "prohibited immigrants", thus preventing them from settling in the country or conducting commercial activities there.
The Korean community in South Africa only began to take shape after the 1992 establishment of relations between South Korea and South Africa. South Korean companies began sending expatriate employees and their families to the country, and international students found themselves able to enroll in South African universities.
From 658 people in 1997-19% of all Koreans on the continent and little larger than the Korean community of 589 people in Ghana-their numbers doubled to 1,356 by 2001 and grew again by 155% to 3,452 in 2005, making then 44% of all Koreans in Africa and nearly five times the size of the next-largest community.
By 2011, the Korean population of South Africa had grown another 9% to 4,186. Of South Korean nationals or former nationals in the country, 126 had South African nationality, 1,227 were permanent residents, 954 were international students, and the remaining 1,879 had other types of visas. Most resided in or Gauteng (2,240 people, 54% of all Koreans in the country) or Western Cape (1,800, or 43%).
Most are located in Johannesburg, with a smaller community in Cape Town. South Korean tourists generally choose Cape Town as their primary destination, due to the Table Mountain and other famous natural attractions.
Education and Community Life
In total, more than a quarter of the Korean population in South Africa may consist of students or family members who moved to the country primarily to give their children the opportunity for an English-language education. Koreans in South Africa have also established three weekend schools to educate their children in Korean language and culture.
There are eight Korean churches in South Africa, staffed by pastors sent from parent churches in South Korea. Aside from their religious functions, they often serve as community centres for Korean migrants and expatriates. Most are Protestant, but a Korean Catholic Church also opened in Glenferness, Johannesburg in 2009.
At the end of 2006, there were 79 South Korean Christian missionary families and 16 individual South Korean missionaries in South Africa totalling 174 people, making up nearly 70% of all South Korean missionaries in southern Africa.
Challenges
Crime in South Africa has not left the Korean community untouched; one widely reported case was the 1999 murder of Kwon Yong-koo, the president of Daewoo Motor South Africa, in the driveway of his home in Johannesburg.
Perceptions and Cultural Understanding
Racist representations are very common in the public sphere, particularly on TV, with blackface and other stereotypical depictions of black people, quite widespread. TV programs as well as cigarettes ads such as ‘This Africa’ are intended for a national market, which translates into a 50 million-strong and almost entirely homogeneous South Korean population.
Knowledge of Africa is not considered essential in schools here or the career prospects of students. So, people simply have no idea about Africa, except that it is ‘black’, ‘very far’ and ‘primitive’.
Here the problem arises from the self-identification of the locals with ‘whiteness’ which in their minds is economically-based, among other things. Being a part of the ‘white club’ entails adopting ‘developmentalist’ and ‘charitable’ attitudes towards Africa akin to that of other members of the ‘club’.
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