[KS] Egypt and Gwangju 1980

[Sayaka Chatani]

Hello.
I don't mean to intervene in the debate but I just want to point at an  
interesting article related to the comparison between Egypt and  
Korea.  http://www.froginawell.net/korea/2011/02/police-torture-in-egypt-and-1987-korea/
Sayaka

On Feb 15, 2011, at 2:32 AM, Ruediger Frank wrote:

> 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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