[KS] Dr. Song Du Yul

[Vladimir Tikhonov]

Dear list members,

Yesterday, our German colleague, Prof. Song Du Yul from Munster, has been 
arrested at last in South Korea. As you have certainly heard, he was 
accused of the things (membership in the North Korean Workers' Party, 
activities as North Korean Politburo member - which he denies, and so on) 
that -while still criminalized by the South Korean National Security Law - 
are certainly not crimes in Germany he is a citizen of, nor in most other 
countries of the world. Moreover, he was arrested after coming to South 
Korea on his own and making clear that he no more feels the same sympathies 
to the North Korean system he had once felt. As some South Korean news 
sources state, his arrest may be interpreted as a "gesture of appeasement" 
by the Roh regime towards these political/juridical circles that long 
considered Prof. Song's "intrinsic" (relativist) approach to North Korean 
realities and his peculiar understanding of the tasks of Korean nationalism 
a major threat for their ideological/cultural domination. While there are 
all grounds to hope that Prof. Song will be set free soon any way - as it 
is absolutely clear that he poses no "security threat" today - I still 
wonder whether it is not a moral obligation on the part of all the European 
Koreanists to register our protest against the arrest of our German 
colleague. However controversial his views and actions might be, the arrest 
of a European Koreanists on the grounds of the Cold War-time law repeatedly 
criticized by many human right bodies, doesn't set a good precedent.

Best wishes,

Vladimir Tikhonov


At 12:39 23.10.2003 +0200, you wrote:
>Dear list members,
>
>a colleague here at the University of Vienna asked me to forward this 
>announcement to you. In case you are interested, please do not wait too 
>long, since they work under a somewhat tight schedule. Please do not reply 
>to the list or to me, but rather contact Dr. Manzenreiter directly. Thank you.
>
>Cheers,
>
>Ruediger
>
>
>*************
>We are looking for another two chapters of up to 6,500 words on football 
>(soccer)
>in Korea. We particularly welcome contributions on gender or any other
>aspect characterising the globalising world of the 21st century, i.e.
>the floating relationships between centres and peripheries; labour
>migration; international sport finance; the role of transnational media
>industries and multinational corporate sponsorship; regionalism and
>nationalism; commercialism etc.
>
>Football Goes East: The People's Game in China, Japan and Korea
>
>The edited volume consists of multi- and interdisciplinary studies on
>social, cultural, political and economic dimensions of the world sport
>football in contemporary China, Japan and Korea. The comparative
>collection is designed to contribute to the theoretical discourses on
>the sociology and globalisation of sport and to generate empirical
>knowledge about the multi-facetted phenomenon of football in distinctive
>local cultures. It will consider the impact of globalisation on sport as
>well as the role of sports in globalisation processes. As such, the book
>delivers a critical assessment of the tensions between the social,
>political and economic determinants of sport and leisure cultures in
>different non-western social formations.
>
>Please send submission proposals and inquiries directly to the editor.
>As time is short, we can only consider contributions close to
>completion.
>
>Wolfram Manzenreiter, Ph.D.
>--------------------------------------------
>Dept. of East Asian Studies / Japanese Studies Division
>University of Vienna
>Spitalgasse 2-4
>A-1090 Vienna, AUSTRIA
>
>T: +43-1-4277-43806
>F: +43-1-4277-9438
>***********************
>
>

Vladimir Tikhonov,
Department of East European and Oriental Studies,
Faculty of Arts,
University of Oslo,
P.b. 1030, Blindern, 0315, Oslo, Norway.
Fax: 47-22854140; Tel: 47-22857118
Personal web page: 
http://www.geocities.com/volodyatikhonov/volodyatikhonov.html
Electronic classrooms: East Asian/Korean Society and Politics:
                        http://www.geocities.com/uioeastasia2002/main.html
                        East Asian/Korean Religion and Philosophy:
                        http://www.geocities.com/uioeastasia2003/classroom.html

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