In a recent conference, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs argued that North Korean elections are” thorough” and” community-based.
At the meeting, Professor Haruki Eda criticized U.S. involvement in Korea, saying that” we discussed the candidates thus carefully before actually casting the vote.”
Eda presented at the” U. S. Out of Korea” conference organized by Nodutdol, a progressive Korean organization, on Oct. 26 in Aurora, Colorado. Nodutdol is frequently criticized for denying allegations of North Vietnamese human rights violations because of its reputation for sending ambassadors there.
Election activities are organized as” group groups,” according to Eda, and North Korea “invented activities to vote, such as practice voting and practice discussing the individuals in advance.”
According to Eda,” they use a pretty thorough discussion system to vette our leaders and make decisions about our leaders,” according to Eda.
During his lecture, which was posted on YouTube by a member journalist*, Eda showed a photograph he claimed was related to such society based elections in 1947 or 1948, but stated he “did not know the full perspective of the occasion”.
The College Fix repeatedly contacted Professor Eda and the University of Colorado Colorado Colorado Springs for remark.
” Central to the occasion was a ‘ Korea 101′ presentation by Haruki Eda, a native educator and longstanding member of Nodutdol, who stated,’ Several civilians were massacred across the peninsula by both the North Vietnamese and U. S. militaries,'” the communist news outlet FightBack News reported.
” During the Korean War, 18 of the 22 major cities in the North were more than 50 percent destroyed. This included bombing rivers and flooding full areas of land, cities, and settlements. That’s an action of genocide”, Eda said during the meeting, which linked the position in Korea to the Israeli-Palestinian issue.
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According to the Asia Pacific Foundation in Canada,” North Korea’s democratic process has been perceived more as a sophisticated form of state-controlled political theatrics than an authentic political system,” given the traditional pattern of higher voter turnout and near-unanimous approval of individual candidates.
Additionally, since the foundation of North Korea in 1948, the communist country “has used the black-and-white ballot box system, theoretically enabling voters to openly express approval or dissent. Real freedom of expression is undermined by this system’s practical application in a single-candidate setting, especially since the ballot boxes were conspicuously placed in public polling locations.
Human Rights Watch states that North Korea is “one of the most repressive countries in the world” and it” systematically denies basic liberties, including freedom of expression, association, assembly, and religion”.
Nodutdol, the organization that hosted the conference, states on its website that the group strives to “organize for a world free of imperialism, and for Korea’s re/unification and national liberation”.
The College Fix contacted Nodutdol for comment in response.
The organization has also recently supported pro-Palestinian protest movements on U. S. campuses.
In a recent statement on its website, Nodutdol states it “reject]s ] any attempts to describe the Palestinian resistance and the forces of the Axis of Resistance as ‘ terrorist organizations.'”
Eda, who according to his website biography took a trip to North Korea in 2011 as part of Nodutdol’s program, also gave a presentation at the conference about his interpretation of East Asia’s 20th century history.
The United States did not need to bomb Japan because they knew it would surrender, according to the professor,” but the United States did it just to show it off to the Soviet Union.”
People started setting up these mechanisms and organizations known as people’s committees right away, he said, and Korea was very much ready to govern itself right away after Japan’s liberation.
” Despite the occupation of the southern half of the Korean War, we finally have a socialist nation that is independent.” He claimed that we now have a full nation in which to run our socialist revolution.
According to Professor Eda, North Korea’s advance into South Korea was not an invasion even under international law, despite the Soviet Union’s training and equipment in 1950.
” North Korea decided to liberate the southern half,” said Eda.
Eda, who uses he/they pronouns, states on his website:” I belong to the third generation of Zainichi Koreans, who are stateless postcolonial exiles and quasi-refugees of Korean descent in/from Japan. Due to the division and conflict in Korea, my ancestors crossed the sea to go to imperial Japan and find themselves without a home.
Next week, Professor Eda will moderate a future Nodutdol discussion of Donald Trump and North Korea.
*Editor’s note: The College Fix paid StuStuStuStudio as an independent contractor, not for this article or video.
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