Reunification Arch, Pyongyang, DPRK

Sunday, November 21 — 11:00 am-1:00 pm ET
To register, click here.
Organized by: International Manifesto Group; Co-sponsored by: Nodutdol, Qiao Collective, Friends of Socialist China, International Action Center

Organizers write that “north Korea seems only to hit Western headlines when it conducts weapons tests and that was so again this fall. As usual, media reports were stripped of context and north Korea presented as a threat to peace.” They state that the webinar will take “a timely look beneath and behind western stereotypes of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea […] to probe the realities, old and new, by addressing key questions including the ongoing Korean War; the nature and motivations of the Workers’ Party of Korea governments; the reasons for its nuclear arsenal; the need to end sanctions; the history and present of the U.S. nuclear threat in East Asia; and the path to national reunification, to which the Korean people, whether in the north, south or diaspora, remain committed.”

Speakers

Dr. Kiyul Chung is a lifelong fighter for Korean reunification and anti-imperialist causes generally. He is the Editor-in-Chief at The 21st Century and a visiting professor at a number of universities, including Beijing’s Tsinghua University, Tokyo’s Korea University and Pyongyang’s Kim Il Sung University.

Zhong Xiangyu is a Marxist-Leninist political commentator and a Chinese hip hop artist based in Taiwan Province. Anti-imperialism and class struggle are common themes in his music.

K.J. Noh is a peace activist, independent scholar, teacher and expert in the geopolitics of Asia. He is a frequent contributor to CounterPunch and Dissident Voice and a member of Veterans For Peace.

Dr. Hugh Goodacre is a lecturer in the Department of Economics, University College London and Director of the Institute for Independence Studies (IIS). The IIS promotes the study and application of ideologies of national and social emancipation, particularly those created by oppressed peoples through their own struggles, locating them in a non-Eurocentric conception of scientific socialism. He founded the Korea Friendship Committee in the UK in 1982 and served as its Joint Secretary for many years.

Sara Flounders is a longstanding political activist and author based in New York City. She is a leader of the United National Antiwar Coalition and the International Action Center, and is the author of numerous books.

Keith Bennett is an active member of the International Manifesto Group and a consultant specialising in Chinese and Korean affairs. He is the Deputy Chair of the Kim Il Sung Kim Jong Il Foundation (KKF) and the Deputy Secretary General of the European Regional Society for the Study of the Juche Idea.

Derek R. Ford is assistant professor of education studies at DePauw University, Indiana, USA. He led the last U.S. delegation to the DPRK before the travel ban in 2017, organized the only U.S. university exchange program with Korea University in Japan, and served on the program committee of the Global Peace Forum on Korea.

Moderator, Radhika Desai is a Professor at the Department of Political Studies, and Director, Geopolitical Economy Research Group, University of Manitoba.