The world, particularly South Korea, was shaken by the kidnapping of several Korean missionaries in Afghanistan for the past few days. The government of South Korea has gone to the extent of negotiating with the Taliban in order to solve the crisis, which ended with the death of a few among the group and the release of the rest.

In my opinion, they got off easy.

I am not trying to insult anyone, or take anyone’s side by any means. The complete humane feelings I have towards the families of the deceased and the ones who have gone through such a traumatic event parallel my moderate sympathy to the mindset of the people who have abducted the victims in the first place.

In a realist point of view, it is a perfect case of “wrong time, wrong place“. No matter what the intention of such a group was, the kidnappers have interpreted it as a move with political roots towards destabilizing the society with religious divisions and pulling the already exhausted people of Afghanistan further away from the Taliban than the majority already are.

I can’t completely comment on whether the South Korean missionaries had a political agenda of such or not. With the fuel lines crossing through the land, anything can be expected from any type of operation in Afghanistan, whether it be military or missionary work.

A missionary is, simply put, an individual on a “mission” (L. mittere or missio, literally meaning “to send” or “to dispatch”). The interpretation of the term “mission” can vary from person to person. Any task with an objective is a mission, but not any person with a mission, or in a mission (as in diplomatic missions), is a missionary. Although it’s primarily used in a religious context, a propogandist can also be technically referred to as a missionary in its own political context. The term that connects both meanings would be “emissary”, in my opinion, including any individual dedicated to spread his/her cause among populations to which the cause has not yet been introduced.

I am not sure how aware of history the kidnappers are, but I, without a doubt, believe that their past experiences of relations with Western societies could have easily make it seem as a political plot to undermine the Muslim Afghan society by the kidnappers, as I mentioned before. Mind that I’m categorizing the Korean missionaries as Western for this particular case, as xenophobia rarely discriminates among the shunned and anything Christian for many such individuals is almost synonymous to the West.

Besides, there are countless examples of politically driven missionary work in the world.

Historicaly, missionary activities almost always had a political agenda, especially with Western societies. The crusades aimed to pull the Eastern Orthodox societies closer to the Vatican and, preferrably, to the Holy Roman Empire, which ended mostly in failure. Post-Cortes Americas witnessed religious competition among the Catholics and the Protestants with the arrival of the English colonists. Central Africa and the Sub-Saharan region still, to this day, witnesses a competition among Islamic and European missionaries, which has become more of a one-sided competition towards the end of the 19th century in the favor of the Christian missions.

Besides the bigger picture, what small-time missionaries don’t understand is the fact that everyone has their own “truths”. The small-time missionaries at hand, such as a volunteer college student, are driven by the lack of such a sense; Mormons, Jehova’s Witnesses, Evangelists, they all claim to be following the true way and try spreading their beliefs, to the degree that it becomes an insult to the one being preached at.

Let me tell you what I think these South Korean missionaries had in mind: “Afghanistan’s current technologicaly backward state and war-torn people are the result of Islam, and if we bring Christianity to these lands, they will thrive”.

How insulting is that? Not just to the average Afghani Taliban militant, but also any Muslim in the world. It is outrageously arrogant.

In the wake of a decade-long Taliban rule, Afghanistan is slowly recovering from the wounds of the Soviet war, which had never been patched to begin with, and is still battling the renegade Taliban who constantly hit the peace forces, even after the Taliban government has been disbanded.

A predominantly Muslim country with such a recent past, and a history of religious extremists ruling over it with a burning hatred towards Western civilization is not ready for such acts of self-proclaimed kindness, and will probably not be ready for another century. This just makes the claim of one of the survivors on how unexpected it was for them to be kidnapped ridiculous.

It is a self-proclaimed act of kindness, almost crossing into stupidity.

There is a saying in Turkish that goes like “selling snails in a Muslim neighborhood”. Now, don’t ask me why snails cannot be sold in a Muslim neighborhood, as I’ve never heard of anything related to snails in general Islamic practices, but the saying is usually used in such contexts where it is just inappropriate for an individual to do certain things in a given context, or even be present at certain locations due to the inappropriateness of the individual.

I won’t even go into how some missionaries pay the poor to convert, who happily accept the cash and whatever else they get and go back to their homes to resume practicing their old religions.

I have been trying to keep myself calm throughout this entry of mine, and I know that I have dwelved into quite a range of topics on missionary practices in general, but I have to mention one last point. These people should be awarded the Darwin Awards for their performance in trying to get themselves killed in the most ridiculous ways one can imagine.