ISMA: the K in K-Pop stands for “Kristian”

Photo: South Korean band B1A4. Is K-Pop the new nasyid?

Since the issue of hijab-wearing Muslim girls being hugged and kissed by K-Pop artists is now inescapably a thing, controversy-courting Malay-Muslim NGO Ikatan Muslimin Malaysia (ISMA) has entered the public debate – by declaring the K in K-Pop actually stands for “Kristian”.

In a post on the organisation’s official website, ISMA takes the stand that K-Pop music and artists are in fact proselytisers in the employ of evangelist Christian groups out to corrupt and convert impressionable Muslims in Malaysia. 

The ISMA post cites secretary-general of the Malaysian Organisation for Prosperity Consensus (Muafakat) A Karim Omar’s “revelation” that K-Pop artists are spreading the gospel of Christianity. 

The evidence offered by the piece are as follows:

1. South Korea is a Christian-majority country
2. After the United States, South Korea is the largest exporter of Evangelical Christians
3. A majority of K-Pop artists are Christians
4. Many K-Pop artists are members of evangelical Christian churches

The blurb says “Were Malay Women Molested by K-Pop Artists, or Did They Want to be Molested?”

Karim also states that the K-Pop genre is an offshoot of Korean Contemporary Christian Music (KCCM) which began in the 1970s, before it evolved and became more popular in the mainstream.

The ISMA post also claims that besides the 80% of K-Pop artists who profess to be Christian, the remaining artists are either atheists, Buddhists or animists. 

As further evidence of South Korea’s Christianisation agenda, the article notes that in 1905, only 0.5% of Koreans were Christians, and that a coordinated and concentrated programme of proselytisation had resulted in the country becoming a Christian-majority one by 2006, the only nation in East Asia with that distinction.

In his conclusion, the post points to Karim’s question of whether the incident of K-Pop artists hugging and kissing Muslim girls in Malaysia was a calculated insult to the Muslim community, or even more sinisterly a move to cause Muslim women in Malaysia to “fall from Islam” by way of idol worship. 

… whatever the case may be, we’re pretty sure South Koreans don’t spell “Christian” with a K, so there might be a slight problem in the crux of this argument. Just saying.