The EconomistMarch 14th 2020 Asia 492
Banyan Apocalypse, but no deliverance
C
ults andcoronavirus to do not
mix—or perhaps mix only too well.
Take South Korea which, until recently
overtaken by Italy, had the highest num-
ber of covid-19 infections outside China.
Of 7,869 diagnosed cases, three-fifths
trace back to a sect called the Shincheonji
Church of Jesus.
Shincheonji’s 88-year-old founder,
Lee Man-hee, is said to descend from
ancient Korean kings. As the “Promised
Pastor”, he is uniquely able to interpret
the Book of Revelation and to foresee the
apocalypse it describes. He will take
144,000 followers with him to Heaven on
the Day of Judgment, apparently.
Other Christian leaders call Shin-
cheonji a cult. Many of its 245,000 adher-
ents hide their membership from family
and workmates. At church they worship
sitting on the ground in serried ranks,
are not allowed to wear glasses—or, at
least until recently, face masks—and are
encouraged to attend even when ill. In
February one congregant with undiag-
nosed covid-19 infected dozens of wor-
shippers in Daegu, a southern city.
Mr Lee, who has a taste for videos of
white chargers and for mass games
performed by his followers in stadiums,
has become the butt of nationwide in-
vective. He has therefore had to abase
himself. Not long ago he blamed the
epidemic on evil types jealous of Shin-
cheonji’s success. But at a press confer-
ence last week he was on his knees apol-
ogising for his church’s role in spreading
the virus. Shincheonji, he said, would do
everything to help the authorities check
its spread. Meanwhile, politicians are
grandstanding. The mayor of Seoul
wants prosecutors to investigate Mr Lee
for murder through negligence. A pro-
vincial governor and presidential hope-
ful showed up with 40 officials at Shin-cheonji’s headquarters demanding a full
list of members.
What of that other cult leader, North
Korea’s Kim Jong Un? He also goes in for
white chargers, mass games and dodgy
family mythology, but is far swifter at
spotting threats. In January, soon after
reports surfaced of a growing epidemic in
China, North Korea slammed its borders
shut. The country responded similarly to
China’s outbreak of sarsin 2003 and even
to the outbreak of Ebola in West Africa in- The measures were much more
comprehensive this time. All travel in and
out of the country was stopped. Foreigners
already in the country, notably diplomats
and aid workers, were put in quarantine.
Trade across the border with China, three
times higher than in 2003, has ground to a
halt, including (to judge by rising domes-
tic prices for staples) the huge, officially
sanctioned smuggling rackets that get
around unsanctions. North Korea has
even refused to take back defectors round-
ed up by Chinese authorities.
A nasty virus is yet another foreign
threat—like Japanese or American imperi-
alism—against which a loving leader
must guard his pure, vulnerable people.
The response includes the mobilisation
of tens of thousands of “disease-control
workers” and the production of “our-
style” disinfectants. Vagrants are being
rounded up to stop them bringing illness
into the capital, Pyongyang. In official
pictures Mr Kim, who this week fired off
another round of missiles, is the only
North Korean not wearing a mask.
The question is whether the “super-
special” quarantine measures are work-
ing. North Korea supposedly has not a
single infection. Perhaps its extreme
quarantine has worked. As Andrei Lan-
kov of Kookmin University puts it, the
regime is readier to see tens of thousands
of already malnourished citizens starve
to death, as the price of staple foods rises
sharply, than it is to let the virus take
hold. Mr Lankov predicts pockets of
hunger in remoter rural areas and among
groups deemed to be disloyal.
But with so much cross-border activi-
ty before the clampdown, it seems im-
plausible that the virus has been kept
wholly at bay. It is impossible to know for
sure. One report claims that 200 North
Korean soldiers have died from covid-19.
If that is true, and anything like the
typical ratio of infections to deaths holds
true, then tens of thousands of North
Koreans have the virus—and the chances
of keeping it away from the well-fed
elites in Pyongyang are close to zero.
If the new coronavirus does take hold,
it will ravage the malnourished (in-
cluding many army conscripts) before
anyone else. To Mr Kim, these people are
expendable. Nonetheless, the ferocity of
his response suggests he is terrified of
the virus. A big epidemic would make
him look ineffective—something no
all-powerful god-king can afford.How two Korean cults measure up against covid-19ate wounded people to hospital that the
city’s 80,000-person police force began to
intervene, after 48 hours of arson and mur-
der. The same bench also demanded that
the police register cases against members
of the bjpfor hate speech, which they had
refused to do despite copious footage of
politicians calling for protesters to be shot.
Hours later the Supreme Court transferred
one of the troublesome judges out of Delhi.
The next day the high court postponed all
hearings about hate speech to April.
As the bodies were fished out of Delhi’s
fetid canals, it became clear that somethree-quarters of the victims had Muslim
names. Most of the homes and businesses
damaged in the riots belonged to Muslims.
Yet the police seem to think that Muslims
orchestrated it all. Hundreds have been
rounded up for questioning on flimsy pre-
texts, say locals. In one example, a Muslim
local councillor who owns a tall building
near the scene of some of the worst vio-
lence repeatedly called the police to plead
for help, warning that his building was be-
ing invaded by a mob. He has since been
charged with the murder of an undercover
policeman whose body was found nearby.On the night of February 24th, witness-
es say, a mob surged into a neighbourhood
called Shiv Vihar, systematically targeting
Muslim property. Wasiq Khan, a lawyer try-
ing to help victims claim compensation,
says the police have made no effort to in-
vestigate, not even to note the telltale serial
numbers of cooking gas canisters used to
firebomb shops and homes. He suspects
they are “hoping that renovations overtake
the evidence”. Once residents clear away
the ashes or haul away the carcasses of
torched vehicles, there will be nothing to
show what happened. 7