I was wondering why I was getting a lot of hits for "Citizens' Association for Lawful English Education" lately, and I see that it turned up in a
Korea Times article about the new ATEK president, Greg Dolezal. The "Citizens' Association for Lawful English Education" was originally, and is better, known as the "
Anti-English Spectrum." The
Korea Times piece ran these paragraphs third and fourth in the article by Kang Shin-who:
Above all, reports of misbehavior by some English teachers are among the first things Dolezal has to address.
"There are many foreign instructors who are leading disorderly lives involving sex and drugs, although the foreign group is denying it," said Lee Eun-ung, founder of the Citizens' Association for Lawful English Education, a group dedicated to mounting surveillance on foreign English teachers. "Without accepting the facts, they will never succeed in removing their bad image."
They didn't run a quotation from Dolezal or anyone with ATEK until the last paragraph, and that was taken from a news release, demonstrating that the reporter didn't even bother picking up the phone. The byline reads Kang Shin-who, though he's gone by Kang Shin-woo before, and has picked up quite a
reputation as a shoddy journalist.
I write that the
Korea Times continues to give attention, because this group has been given sympathetic treatment in the paper before. From a May 15th, 2008 article by Kang Shin-who/Kang Shin-woo titled "
Civic Group Fights Against Illegal Teachers":
Pictures depicting foreign teachers holding a ``sexy costume party'' in 2005 were the key driver for the creation of the civic group.
``There are many illegal foreign teachers. We organized this group to help make our schools and hagwons free of these problematic teachers,'' said Lee Eun-ung, manager of the Internet cafe.
Most members of the group participate in online activities, and some also actively engage in off-line activities to help police find foreigners who engage in drug use. So far, they have played a role in nabbing more than 60 people in illegal drug-related cases.
``Sometimes we stay up at night tracking and watching foreign nationals. We have even found some foreign teachers that take drugs then teach students at hagwons the following day,'' Lee said. ``We will continue to help police deport these foreign teachers.''
The group got started by busting consenting adults having a party. Though the group's site now has a banner of schoolchildren at the board, the
old banner was a bit more, um, revealing, in more ways than one:
It's a little hard to see here, and I couldn't find the original pictures, but some of you will recognize those as pictures from a wet t-shirt contest held at a Korean club a few years ago. The article concludes:
The group also plans to work on improving the bad images of foreigners, tarnished by a few illegal foreign nationals.
Shortly after that ran,
Korea Beat translated the group's statement of purpose; it reads in part:
Anger at the arrogant English Spectrum, alive and well as ever despite criticism for its debasement of Korean women, and the expulsion of illegal, low-quality English instructors.
The small but powerful country, the Republic of Korea!
We are Anti-English Spectrum, fighting for justice for a land whose heart is not yet shriveled up.
Our work holds meaning for our country and our society. We do it together!
This is the citizens’ movement for the expulsion of illegal foreign language teachers.
The group has tried to present itself as one trying to clean up the English industry, and favorable media reports have furthered this, though just take a look at the first line of the statement of purpose to see what their real ambitions seem to be:
Until the degradation of Korean women by English Spectrum is ended
While "Spectrumgate," the huge backlash against foreign male English teachers (summarized
here and
here with links), wasn't our greatest moment as a profession, the reaction was extraordinary, galvanized in part by the Anti-English Spectrum. To the extent that the US Embassy here issued news of a "
Potential Threat to US Citizens in University Areas" on January 21, 2005:
Recently, inflammatory sexual content was posted to a website for English language teachers in Korea. That posting together with subsequent postings were taken by some to demean Korean women. We have noted recently, strong reaction in the form of web postings threatening attacks in the vicinity of Hongik University and the Sinchon area against Americans and other foreigners who speak English. All Americans and their families (especially young adults) are encouraged to exercise prudence and caution when visiting these neighborhoods. The Embassy advises that inappropriate social behavior in public may be seen as provocative by Korean nationals.
A part of "our" history we shouldn't forget. In November 2008, Lee Eun-ung gave
an interview with Seoul Shinmun; here he is talking about the group's beginnings:
In 2005 photos and writings which degraded Korean women were posted on a community site for native English speakers teach English here. I confirmed that these native speakers had a corrupted perspective on Korea and carried on sexual relationships with minors and married women and realized that we could not entrust our children to such people and the movement was begun. We want a system to improve English education while stopping the harm that these native speakers do to Korea.
And continues by talking about his duties:
I prepare some policy reports or pursue an illegal foreign lecturer, braving fire and water and working until past midnight. And after my office job I don’t sleep, I feel tired all over. Some of our members collapse from the exhaustion. There are some funny times, like when we report a foreign lecturer to the police for doing drugs at his workplace but the people there actually didn’t realize he was doing drugs. And some of our members have quit their jobs because of the time they spent on the movement.
Boy, that is funny. In February, Lee Eun-ung wrote
on the threat of foreign English teachers, disagreeing with ATEK's decision to protest the mandatory drug and health exams as discriminatory:
In some quarters, they claim that only some teachers are drug offenders or criminals, but making tests of these kinds mandatory could plant stereotypes by making it the problem of all teachers. But when we look at the examples uncovered, statistics, and drug crimes committed by foreign teachers, the National Human Rights Commission petition protesting drug testing will have a tough time earning the agreement of the bulk of Korean citizens.
We are not taking issue with the English teachers’ petition itself. This is because unqualified foreign teachers provided the reason for the execution of AIDS tests and drug tests. More than anything, we have a duty to lessen the insecurity of school parents who entrust their children to foreign teachers. Only if foreign teachers, sensing the stinging glances of Korean citizens, formulate their own measures to eradicate illegal teachers will their petition earn the agreement of many Koreans.
More recently the group was responsible for feeding
Chosun Ilbo reporter Choi Hee-seon stories about misbehaving English teachers---the five are
listed here---and typically they were stories presenting rumor and gossip as fact.
Additionally, in June
Gusts of Popular Feeling demonstrated
the pull the group has, showing that it was influencing legislation that would touch all E-2 instructors:
In my last post, I mentioned the September 18, 2006 Break News article (here) titled, "At foreigner AIDS testing centers, 80% of users are native speaking instructors." Note above that five days before the document mentioned above was submitted to the National Assembly Legislation and Judiciary Committee, Lee Eun-ung wrote that "80% of the counseled at an AIDS counseling center in Itaewon in 2007 were foreign white collar workers and English teachers."
Lee made a mistake. The article was in 2006. In fact, I searched Naver and Daum for any mention of the 80% figure in 2007 and found nothing except posts referring to the 2006 article. Not only is the almost exact same wording found in the document footnote, but the same mistake is found. And as teachers know, you can always tell someone's been copying when they share someone else's mistakes.
This should make it clear that Anti-English Spectrum has an audience that extends far beyond their online Naver cafe.
But more importantly: Does anyone else find it disturbing that people discussing bills before the National Assembly Legislation and Judiciary Committee are using Break News (or "Inside Story" in it's tabloid paper edition) and a xenophobic online community of unapologetic stalkers as sources?
And if you're wondering what he means by "a community of unapologetic stalkers," I'll refer you back to the
Times piece from May 15, 2008:
``Sometimes we stay up at night tracking and watching foreign nationals. We have even found some foreign teachers that take drugs then teach students at hagwons the following day,'' Lee said. ``We will continue to help police deport these foreign teachers.''
The Anti-English Spectrum has also worked to make
the threat of AIDS-carrying foreign English teachers real.
Late last month, after a summer of especially hateful pieces against foreign teachers in the local media,
Korea Beat brought us a piece written by Lee Eun-ung for the
Chosun Ilbo, with some advice for Korean and foreign English teachers. It concludes:
It is true that Korean public opinion is not friendly toward native speaker teachers yet. However, we cannot keep “blaming others” regarding this problem. First and foremost, native speaker teachers themselves must take the initiative to change. The first thing that I would like to recommend to them would be to try to understand Korean culture and Korean society. Certain words or actions that may not mean much in their own country could create sadness or anger in Korea. Since they have made the effort to come to Korea, there is a need for them to try and make the effort to read between the lines.
Without knowing the history of Lee and the group, we might applaud the calm, reasoned response. But we remember, of course, that Lee and the Anti-English Spectrum are the ones most responsible for "Korean public opinion" not being "friendly toward native speaker teachers yet." Indeed, with the very next line he says that the problem is us, and that we need to stop "blaming others." Like him.
