[KS] Egypt and Gwangju 1980

Mon Feb 14 12:32:50 EST 2011

Dear Don, Frank and all,
I must say I share the reservations against comparing one uprising with other. It makes sense at a certain level of abstraction, as all the cases mentioned refer to active opposition against political regimes that do not provide the usual democratic means to express dissatisfaction and enforce the exit of an unpopular leadership and so forth, but this is it. I can't see how Kwangju 1980 is otherwise related to Kairo 2011. The country, the political system, religion, the geopolitical environment - all much too different. The reason why I am writing this is that I have recently rediscovered a topic that I thought was long dead and buried - comparing German and Korean unification. So much has been written, but so little has been understood, it's amazing. Comparability is one of the reasons for this unsatisfactory situation. So I would join those who caution against drawing too strong parallels. Having said that, what I do believe matters to a certain degree is the example as such. As I could observe personally in Eastern Europe 20 odd years ago, reforms in other countries made new options available and created a sense of urgency (like: hey, look what the neighbor's doin' - let's do the same). Erich Honecker had it coming when he, referring to Gorbachov's idea of a European House, asked why he should paint his house just because the neighbor is busy renovating. Well, exactly because he is. 
Now, all this obviously depends on how closely connected one case is with the other; I can see the effect of Tunisia on Egypt, but have difficulties to see the effect of Egypt on North Korea. And there is no Facebook in North Korea. Not that this would be a great deficiency; but access to information is not developed to a degree that would allow for a wildfire to spread. 
Best,
Rudiger
PS: Frank, as far as I know Marx provided a model that you might find useful. He asserted that societies develop continuously; however, most of the time they do so quantitatively. Then, if a certain threshold (das Mass - not die Mass, by the way) is reached, society gets ready for a qualitative change (from one quality to another). All it takes is a spark that ignites the fuse, so to say. This is called a revolutionary situation. Such a situation can last for a rather long time without any change; but then suddenly - boom. It is hard to predict the exact time when that explosion happens, which can be frustrating for analysts like us. So if in country A there is a revolutionary situation, and country B has an actual revolution, the latter's example could indeed become the trigger for country A to finally act. I have speculated that KJI's death could fulfill such a function in case economic reforms keep sharpening the contradictions in NK's society, to remain with Marx' terminology. Note that I used the subjunctive.

on Montag, 14. Februar 2011 at 00:05 you wrote:

Who said "influence?" -- does that word appear in my post? The point is simply to note the Egyptian revolution calls to mind others over the past half century. 'Nuff said. As for "action" and "models," those are words for political scientists, but I never regarded politics as a science anyway. (Plain vanilla history was hard enough.) 
Re the question about the Egypt-Orascom-NKorea link, here are links to three pieces I did a week or so ago on that very topic. (We may be fairly certain the Orascom connection will survive -- as for military dealings, we'll have to wait and see. Sorry, no "models" to cite.)

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/MB09Dg01.html

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pacific/2011/0207/Why-Kim-Jong-il-wished-Egypt-s-Mubarak-a-Happy-New-Year

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/south-korea/110207/north-korea-egypt-kim-jong-il-naguib-sawaris

Don Kirk

From: Frank Hoffmann <hoffmann at koreaweb.ws>
To: Korean Studies Discussion List <koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws>
Sent: Sun, February 13, 2011 12:22:42 PM
Subject: Re: [KS] Egypt and Gwangju 1980

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

-- --------------------------------------
Frank Hoffmann
http://koreaweb.ws

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