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Dear Ruediger and all,<br><br>
Thank you very much for the expression of interest on this issue. In
fact, yesterday I have learned that a civil society group called
"Song Du Yul kyosu sOkpang kwa sasang yangsim Ui chayu rUl wihan
taech'aek wiwOnhoe" was formed in Seoul by Prof. Kim Segyun (SNU),
Rev. Ham Seung, and more than 80 other academic and religious figures
(<a href="http://www.hani.co.kr/section-005000000/2003/11/005000000200311131951356.html" eudora="autourl">http://www.hani.co.kr/section-005000000/2003/11/005000000200311131951356.html</a>).
As the group expressed willingness to work together with the
"overseas intellectuals", I guess that might be one possible
channel for the European colleagues wishing to register their concern of
Prof. Song's fate.<br>
The barrage of accusations against Prof. Song being as powerful and
ruthless as it is ("member of N.Korean Politburo" - if this
will be proven - which I doubt - it will possibly shake to the bottom our
conventional ideas on the principles along which N. Korean Politburo is
formed...) one thing I constantly bear in mind is that Prof. Song's
academic work, his "intrinsic" (naejaejOk -
"relativist") approach helped enormously to debunk the
"totalitarian" paradigm in the scholarship on N. Korea in the
South in the beginning of the 1990s. Before this, the dominant approach
seemingly was Friedrichian - Huntingtonian - "traditional
absolutism" reproduced itself in the "totalitarian" form
and that's all. But after him, the "condemned temporality" of
N. Korean history get somewhat charted on the map of Korean modernities.
I am not sure whether this is possible to make direct comparisons, but
Stephen Cohen's work on Soviet history seemingly had contributed in a
similar way in dissolving the Cold War "totalitarian"
myth.<br><br>
Again, thank you very much,<br><br>
Vladimir (Volodya) Tikhonov <br><br>
<br><br>
At 00:14 13.11.2003 +0100, you wrote:<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite>Dear Vladimir and all,<br><br>
I think it is indeed important that we do not remain silent about this
issue.<br><br>
I know Prof. Song a bit, since he spent some time as a visiting<br>
professor at Humboldt University, back in the good old days when
there<br>
was a Korea Institute there. What I know of him is that he is a
typical<br>
intellectual, thinking and wracking his brain a lot, constantly<br>
challenging and questioning himself, with a strong affection for
German<br>
and French philosophers I myself have a hard time to comprehend,
and<br>
with a strong love for his country. But we may not be in a position
to<br>
question the correctness of the allegations made against him, since
they<br>
might well be true in a technical sense. Who knows.<br><br>
However, and this is the issue here, something must have gone wrong,
again<br>
in a purely technical/legal sense. He was well aware of the
difficulties<br>
awaiting him upon return to South Korea, which is why he did not do
so<br>
right after Kim DJ took over in 1998, and why he stopped short of going
to<br>
Korea last year. That he went to Seoul now leads me and others to
believe<br>
that he was probably given assurances that are not kept. It also raises
the<br>
big issue of how to deal with people who have been close to the regime
in<br>
NK. The current procedure makes me shiver with regard to a unification.
I<br>
am sure many members of the North Korean elite are watching his case
with<br>
great interest; what has happened so far will not quite encourage them
to<br>
follow Prof. Song's example. The conservatives in SK must understand
that<br>
by being tough on Prof. Song, they in fact help stabilizing the regime
in<br>
the North.<br><br>
As a matter of fact, in a democracy, rules and laws have to be
obeyed.<br>
Backdoor deals to circumvent these rules are the wrong way, and hence
the<br>
harsh stand of SK government and prosecution has to be respected.
However,<br>
the president in SK has a lot of powers - among them the right to grant
an<br>
amnesty (just think of Chun DH and Roh TW). Trying and sentencing
Prof.<br>
Song first and granting amnesty later to me looks like a betrayal of
the<br>
public and will reduce trust in democratic legal institutions.<br><br>
Courage and transparency, i.e. a well defined and formulated
general<br>
amnesty to all those who have cooperated with NK or otherwise violated
the<br>
National Security Law NOW, based on a public debate and including
the<br>
considerations of all parties, seems to be a better way to deal with
this<br>
issue. I think this is what we should suggest to our friends and
colleagues<br>
in Korea, both in the name of justice, in the interest of Korea's<br>
reputation in the world, and for the sake of the future of
inner-Korean<br>
relations.<br><br>
Respectfully,<br><br>
Ruediger Frank<br><br>
***********<br>
Dr. Ruediger Frank<br>
Visiting Professor<br>
University of Vienna<br>
East Asian Institute, Japan/Korea<br>
Spitalgasse 2-4<br>
A-1090 Vienna, Austria<br>
phone:<x-tab> </x-tab>+43-1-4277 43822<br>
fax:<x-tab> </x-tab><x-tab> </x-tab>+43-1-4277
9438<br>
email:<x-tab> </x-tab>rfrank@koreanstudies.de<br>
************<br><br>
<br>
</blockquote>
<x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
Vladimir Tikhonov,<br>
Department of East European and Oriental Studies,<br>
Faculty of Arts,<br>
University of Oslo,<br>
P.b. 1030, Blindern, 0315, Oslo, Norway.<br>
Fax: 47-22854140; Tel: 47-22857118<br>
Personal web page:
<a href="http://folk.uio.no/vladimit/" eudora="autourl">http://folk.uio.no/vladimit/</a><br>
<a href="http://www.geocities.com/volodyatikhonov/volodyatikhonov.html" eudora="autourl">http://www.geocities.com/volodyatikhonov/volodyatikhonov.html</a><br>
Electronic classrooms: East Asian/Korean Society and Politics:<br>
<a href="http://folk.uio.no/vladimit/eastasianstudies.htm" eudora="autourl">http://folk.uio.no/vladimit/eastasianstudies.htm</a><br>
<a href="http://www.geocities.com/uioeastasia2002/main.html" eudora="autourl">http://www.geocities.com/uioeastasia2002/main.html</a><br>
East Asian/Korean Religion and Philosophy:<br>
<a href="http://www.geocities.com/uioeastasia2003/classroom.html" eudora="autourl">http://www.geocities.com/uioeastasia2003/classroom.html</a><br>
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