[Ubuntu Column] Beyond raising 1 trillion won… Korea, a path to a global ‘cognitive revolution’

[※ Editor's note = Yonhap News Global Cultural Exchange Group is publishing the 'Ubuntu Column' in cooperation with major domestic universities and African research institutes. The Ubuntu column features several professors and experts who have been studying Africa, the home of humanity and the ‘land of opportunity,’ for a long time. We expect a lot of interest from readers in the Ubuntu column, which looks at and analyzes Africa from various perspectives. Ubuntu is an African Bantu word meaning ‘I exist because you are,’ and represents community spirit and humanity.]

Even today, familiar scenes appear repeatedly on the main screens of major domestic portal sites and YouTube videos. An African child with bony bones exposed, eyes that don't even seem to have the power to shoo away flies, and red blinking text above them. “Monthly regular donations save Africa from starvation.” This is the so-called ‘poverty porn’ advertisement that is plastering the media. It may be effective in targeting sadness and pity and making people open their wallets. But every time I see that familiar scene, I can't help but ask. How long must we continue to treat Africa and the Global South as ‘helpless beneficiaries who cannot stand up for themselves’?

◇Achievements in the era of raising 1 trillion won and the limits of ‘gratitude’

The Republic of Korea is a country that overcame the ruins of war. It is the only success model in world history that went from being one of the poorest countries receiving aid from around the world to becoming a donor country. Official development assistance (ODA) at the government level as well as the power of the private sector are powerful. The amount of money raised by representative international relief and development organizations such as the Korean Committee for UNICEF, World Vision, Good Neighbors, Save the Children, and Green Umbrella through the sincerity of the people amounts to approximately 1 trillion won per year.

It is a proud record of civic power and sharing that can be presented anywhere in the world. The dedication and achievements of these organizations on the global front lines, filling hungry stomachs, building schools, and protecting precious lives should be respected. However, in this huge wave of sharing, there is a representative narrative that is repeated when collecting donations. “Korea became an advanced country with the aid of the international community during the Korean War, so now we must repay our debt.” It is a sincere appeal of gratitude. However, this narrative contains an unintended trap. In the past, we stand tall as protagonists who have been saved and stood up, but those who receive help remain the object of charity and the eternal weak. Fundraising methods that rely on sympathy and pity may increase donation accounts immediately, but they entrench prejudice against Africa and vertical hierarchy in the public's unconsciousness.

◇From someone who opens their wallet to ‘subject of the cognitive revolution’

I would like to ask. What is the higher-level mission that Korea's leading aid organizations, which raise 1 trillion won per year, should pursue? We should not stop at tying the charity to the 'object of fundraising' by appealing to the public to donate a certain amount every month. Now, it must become the most dynamic 'channel of action' that leads the Korean people to correct distorted perceptions of the global community and take the lead in leading structural changes. It is more than just a slogan of handing over a piece of bread, it is about breaking the structure of world historical prejudice that weighs them down. This is the perfection of 21st century sharing that aid organizations must undertake. And at the starting line of that cognitive revolution is the ‘world map’.

◇From a cultural powerhouse with ‘250 million Korean Wave fans’ to an educational leader for ‘8 billion global citizens’

For the past 25 years, the author, along with Korean teenagers and young digital AI diplomats at VANK, a cyber diplomatic mission, have dedicated themselves to correcting distortions about Korea's history and territory in textbooks, encyclopedias, and portal sites around the world and promoting Korea's long history and brilliant culture to 250 million Korean Wave fans around the world. There is one truth that we desperately realized in the process of correcting our distorted history and culture amidst the scars of Japanese colonial rule and division. It is true that ‘the restoration of cultural and historical sovereignty, where my full name and the history and cultural values ​​of the community I belong to are properly recognized, is the foundation of dignity that is more urgent than any material support.’

Knowing the sorrow and desperation we experienced, VANK has now signed a business agreement with Yonhap News, a national news agency, and has gone one step further in promoting Korea and jumping into the 'work of promoting Africa'. The Mercator projection map we see every day in classrooms and media was created for navigation in the 16th century. It is extremely reduced near the equator and exaggerated towards higher latitudes. In reality, the African continent (approximately 30.37 million ㎢) is 14 times larger than Greenland (approximately 2.16 million ㎢), but is depicted as similar or even smaller on the map. The distorted map erased not only the physical size of the continent but also the political and cultural presence of the people living there.

Fortunately, the door to change has been opened. A UN resolution recommending the 'Equal Earth projection', which fairly implements the actual area ratio of the continent, as a standard for the UN, UNESCO, and public education systems around the world has finally passed the General Assembly. This is a historic victory in which the international community officially abolished the geographical distortion that had been entrenched for 450 years. After the resolution was passed, the author decided that Korea should play a leading role in implementing this resolution in the world's most exemplary manner. This is why we went beyond a mere declaration and launched a large-scale map replacement movement by producing and distributing the Equal Earth world map to approximately 10,000 elementary, middle, and high schools across the country. It is a field revolution that changes the maps on classroom walls so that future generations face a complete world view without distortion from the first step of learning.

The actions of teenagers and young adults active in VANK did not stop at correcting area distortions on the world map. The first thing we did was to correct the distortions in the public education system where our children learn. We analyzed the biased narratives in domestic elementary school social studies textbooks that still depict Africa as 'a pitiful land suffering from famine, civil war, and drought' and requested continued corrections from the Ministry of Education and the publisher. Finally, a valuable change was brought about by completely correcting the description of Africa in elementary school textbooks as a 'partner of equal development and cooperation with a unique history and infinite potential' rather than a 'subject of beneficial aid'.

Furthermore, we stood up to provocative media that perpetuated Africa as a symbol of eternal poverty. We are engaging with the public by directly producing ‘poverty porn alternative content’ that highlights Africa’s brilliant history and dynamic today. Additionally, in order to break the practice of unfairly stigmatizing certain continents, a campaign has been launched urging the use of the alternative name 'ASF' instead of the discriminatory name 'African Swine Fever'. Furthermore, we are continuing an all-out response campaign to protect human dignity from indiscriminate digital speculative technologies such as 'AI Slop', a gambling algorithm that destroys youth and vulnerable groups.

◇Using 1 trillion won of citizen capacity as leverage... As a representative of the Global South

The potential shown by these steps in action, developed by youth and youth activists and private organizations famous for promoting Korea, unrelated to international relief organizations, is clear. If Korea's leading relief organizations, which have cultivated a network of millions of members and an enormous sharing asset of 1 trillion won over several decades, join forces in this bold awareness revolution, the impact will be beyond imagination. Now we must use this trillion won worth of citizen capacity as a powerful lever. We must be reborn as a country that most morally and confidently represents the positions of African and Global South countries that have not had a voice in the Western-centered international order.

First, we must come together to make a strong policy proposal urging the 17 city and provincial superintendents of education and the Ministry of Education to completely revamp the textbook standard map to Equal Earth. When equitable guidance is provided to 10,000 classrooms across the country and curriculum standards change, Korea's classrooms become the cradle of true global citizens. Second, an ‘Equal Earth Global Promotion Solidarity’ must be proposed to the governments and foreign ministries of 55 African countries. “We will be the first to stand together in informing the world of the size and dignity of the continent you have lost.” A country that goes beyond being an outsider who hands over relief goods, and becomes the most reliable partner in restoring their historical sovereignty. This kind of solidarity becomes an asset of trust and respect more powerful than any economic support. Third, Korea's leading international aid organizations, which raise 1 trillion won annually, should take the lead and lead international aid organizations around the world and take the lead in improving awareness of Africa and the Global South.

UNICEF Korean Committee, World Vision, and Good Neighbors are already key players with strong financial contributions and organizational voice within the global headquarters and international relief ecosystem. Based on this powerful influence, we must form a coalition of private aid organizations around the world and proactively lead the 'global awareness improvement guidelines' to correct the benevolent fundraising method and otherization that the international aid community has been following as a practice. When Korean organizations take the lead and lead fundraising organizations around the world to redefine Africa and developing countries as 'partners of equal dignity' rather than mere recipients of aid, Korea's sharing capacity will leap forward into true global leadership that changes the paradigm of global civil society.

◇Stop ‘digital data peasants’… Korea leads the AI ​​civilization order

Now, the ‘AI era of great transformation’ has arrived, in which artificial intelligence (AI) completely reorganizes human knowledge, norms, labor, and civilization. However, today's global AI ecosystem, led by giant big tech companies in the United States and China, is dangerously repeating the unequal exploitation structure of the past imperialist era.

In the past, in the process of Western imperialism accumulating wealth, the people of the Global South, including Africa, had to be reduced to peasants who were exploited for cheap raw materials and labor. But now, on the path to great AI transformation in the 21st century, the same tragedy is being repeated in digital space. Big tech companies in the U.S. and China indiscriminately collect countless data, language, and cultural assets from Global South countries and use them as raw materials to train their AI models, but do not recognize appropriate rights and sovereignty. If left as is, Africa and developing countries will once again be reduced to digital data tenants of technological hegemonies.

In the face of this civilization-historic crisis, the author predicts that the best runner to lead the new international order and the standards of an inclusive AI civilization is the Republic of Korea. We are the only country that has overcome the scars of colonial rule and war and blossomed in technology and culture. Because it does not have the original sin of invasion and exploitation like Western powers or hegemonies, it can truly empathize with the pain of the Global South, and at the same time, it possesses the world's best IT infrastructure and strong digital capabilities.

We must expand globally the momentum that African countries have achieved in implementing the Equal Earth resolution. Like a long-distance relay runner, we must take the baton and lead the way in establishing international norms to prevent new digital imperialism around the world. First, global standards must be established to establish official terminology that eradicates stigmatizing disease names on certain continents. Second, we must lead an international resolution to sanction media coverage of poverty pornography that commercially exploits human vulnerabilities and establish ethical fundraising guidelines. Third, the Republic of Korea must take the lead in strongly regulating digital speculative technologies such as 'AI slop' that pushes socially disadvantaged people into gambling algorithms, and establishing 'inclusive and just AI international governance' to prevent Global South countries from being reduced to data tenant farmers.

◇Towards a world where 200 countries are equal

“I exist because you exist.” ‘Ubuntu’, which contains African wisdom, is by no means a favor given by the superior to the inferior. It is an equal solidarity that is only completed when we recognize each other as complete persons. We appeal to international relief organizations. Let’s not be complacent with the statistics showing how much we Koreans have saved each year. Based on the enormous asset of sharing worth 1 trillion won, let us establish our people as bold leaders who will fix the global unequal system.

Koreans have gone beyond feeling proud of having gone from being a country that received help to a country that helps others. We are now citizens of a country that is correcting the distortion of the world map, joining hands with 55 African countries to represent the rights and interests of the Global South, and establishing a new civilizational order that protects the universal dignity of humanity in the era of great AI transition. A leap forward from being a citizen who opens his wallet to show sympathy, to becoming a proud global changer who changes the world. The real future of Korea that needs to be opened with a fund raising 1 trillion won lies right there.

※ Contributions by external writers may differ from Yonhap News’ editorial direction.

▲ Director Park Ki-tae

Currently serving as head of VANK, member of Gyeonggi-do Artificial Intelligence Committee, working as a public relations ambassador for Jikji, policy advisory member of the Office of Overseas Koreans, policy working member of the Overseas Koreans Policy, policy advisory member of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Supreme Prosecutors' Office, member of the Blue House Youth Committee, advisory member of the National Brand Committee, public relations specialist at KOICA, public diplomacy ambassador for the Korea International Exchange Foundation, and public relations ambassador for the Seoul Metropolitan Government. Book ‘AI Diplomat: VANK’s Diplomatic Revolution Leading the World’