[KS] Egypt and Gwangju 1980

[Frank Hoffmann]

Hello All:

>Not to mention Indonesia 1966-67 ("Year of Living Dangerously"), 
>Philippines Jan-Feb 1986 ("People Power"), Tiananmen Square Beijing 
>1989, and, who would forget, Korea June 1987 (Democracy 
>constitution), to name a few I've seen and/or written about.


And those are all *related* in the sense of giving some sort of clear 
incentive to the next movements elsewhere, to be inflammatory in one 
way or the other? I would not believe that for a moment. Not that you 
need to care about my believes. But I just wonder if there is no 
convincing model out there for what was and is happening to late 
20ths and early 21st century countries, those countries that were not 
too long ago called "third world countries" or periphery countries. 
This can't simply be some sort of "action" chain that then, were what 
happens in one country, years later (!), is supposed to have 
"influenced" movements in another country. Maybe political science 
can do better than suggesting such kind of action chains, no? What's 
"influence" anyway, other than a "wrong-headed grammatical prejudice 
about who is the agent and who the patient," as a British art 
historian put it--isn't that also very true for politics and 
everything else under the sun?

Is anyone in political science or economics or history aware of a 
convincing model that explains this?

Furthermore, I am very suspicious when reading about such lines of 
action/influence, starting with the Kwangju Unrest in May 1980. Who 
is the source of such claims? Anyone in those OTHER mentioned 
countries that are listed as having been "influenced" (Philippines, 
Burma, China ...)?

ADD-ON question:
Hasn't Egypt money been the very source of pretty much every single 
business and educational project of the past few years in North Korea 
(also all important high tech projects)? Anyone has any knowledge or 
good idea what will now happen to those projects? And if that will 
possibly be like a second Fall of the Wall effect for the North 
Korean state? (This is really just a question, based on speculation. 
Please don't mistake it as information.)

Thanks!

Best
Frank



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Frank Hoffmann
http://koreaweb.ws