Song Du-yul

Song Du - yul ( born October 12, 1944 in Tokyo, Japan ) is a German - Korean sociologist and adjunct professor at the University of Münster. He is committed to an understanding and rapprochement between North and South Korea.

Education and work

Song Du - yul was born to Korean parents in Tokyo. In 1967 he completed his studies in philosophy at the Seoul National University and came to study in Germany. In 1972 he received his doctorate in Frankfurt with Jürgen Habermas on the Asia - conception of Hegel and Max Weber. Later he attacked the on " systemic research approach " by Peter Christian Ludz. After his habilitation in 1982 he became professor of sociology at the University of Münster and taught in Berlin, Heidelberg and Stockholm.

Political activity

In the 60 - years song turned Du- yul against the military dictatorship of Park Chung -hee in South Korea. He began by North Korea of " systemic research approach " to analyze and traveled this country often.

Since 1993 song is Du- yul German citizen.

Since 1995 he has organized several conferences in Beijing, involving scientists from North and South Korea participated.

On 23 September 2003 he traveled to South Korea for the first time after 37 years, to give lectures and to receive the honorary doctorate from the Chonnam University in Gwangju. Upon entry song was immediately arrested. The government of Roh Moo -hyun has indeed written the reconciliation with the North on its flags, but the draconian laws from the time of the military dictatorship that prohibit any contact with North Korea and the demand for reunification North and South Korea, are still in force.

In the pre-trial detention he was held according to media reports in a single cell without chair and bed without heating and air conditioning and with light around the clock. The indictment was withheld from him up to the start of the trial and first song had no access to a lawyer.

The South Korean secret service accused him of being since the 1970s, a member of the Workers' Party of Korea and last member of the Politburo, for which no evidence was presented in court. In April 2004, he was convicted under the National Security Act of 1948, which goes back directly to the security laws of the former Japanese colonial rule, to seven years in prison.

The South Korean television showed footage of Songs attendance at the funeral of Kim Il-sung in 1994.

Jürgen Habermas, Günter Grass and other German intellectuals, as well as Amnesty International campaigned for his release.

On July 21, 2004 Song was released from prison after the Supreme Court in Seoul was suspended his sentence on probation. Beginning of August 2004 he returned to Germany.

Writings

  • The importance of the Asian world in Hegel, Marx and Max Weber. Dissertation, University of Frankfurt am Main, 1972 trade edition. Enlightenment and emancipation: the importance of the Asian world in Hegel, Marx and Max Weber. Express, Berlin 1988.
  • (Ed. ) Growth, dictatorship and ideology in Korea. Brockmeyer, Bochum 1980.
  • Soviet Union and China: equalization and differentiation in socialism. Campus, Frankfurt am Main 1984 ( Habilitation thesis, University of Münster, 1981).
  • Metamorphosis of Modernity: Reflections of a frontier worker between Asia and Europe. Litter, Münster 1990.
  • Korea Kaleidoscope: Current contexts for reunification. Secolo, Osnabrück 1995.
  • Shades of modernity: East-West dialogues in philosophy, sociology and politics. PapyRossa, Cologne 2002.
  • (Ed. with Hyondok Choe, Rainer Werning ) Where is North Korea? Social relationships, trends, perspectives. PapyRossa, Cologne 2004.
  • ( with Rainer Werning ) Korea: From Colony to the divided country. Promedia, Vienna 2012, ISBN 978-3-85371-340-2.
  • South Korea: on the trail of the Japanese? KOFO, Offenbach am Main in 1984.
  • Politics and Society in the Republic of Korea ( South Korea) KOFO, Offenbach am Main in 1984.
  • Is Japan a model for Germany? Schiller, Berlin 1985.
  • For Archaeology of postmodernism: encounter between Orient and Occident. East Asia Institute of FUB, Berlin 1988.
  • Capitalism, social movements and social formation in South Korea: A critical survey. Litter, Münster 1990.
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