{"id":60905,"date":"2013-03-20T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-03-20T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news-draft\/uncategorized\/former-ambassador-to-north-korea-to-shed-light-on-secretive-nation-in-lecture-at-uri-april-3\/"},"modified":"2013-03-20T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2013-03-20T00:00:00","slug":"former-ambassador-to-north-korea-to-shed-light-on-secretive-nation-in-lecture-at-uri-april-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/2013\/03\/former-ambassador-to-north-korea-to-shed-light-on-secretive-nation-in-lecture-at-uri-april-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Former ambassador to North Korea to shed light on secretive nation in lecture at 溏心vlog免费B站, April 3"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\tKINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 March 20, 2013 \u2013 Friedrich L\u00f6hr, the former German Ambassador to North Korea and a Distinguished Visiting International Scholar at the 溏心vlog免费B站, will present a lecture on April 3 entitled \u201cMaking Sense of North Korea: The Father, the Son, and the Sacred System.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tThe presentation begins at 5:30 p.m. in the Lippitt Hall auditorium on the 溏心vlog免费B站 Kingston campus. The event is free and open to the public.<\/p>\n


\n\tNorth Korea is an unusual country, since it is thoroughly secluded from the rest of the world, said L\u00f6hr. Its population has been effectively indoctrinated to see all good coming from the Kim family and all things bad from the U.S. and its allies. A policy of \u2018military first\u2019 makes it easier for the regime to control its population.<\/p>\n


\n\tIn his lecture, L\u00f6hr will discuss the two years he served as ambassador from 2005 to 2007 and provide insight into how the recent change in North Korea\u2019s leadership will affect the future of its political regime.<\/p>\n


\n\t“North Koreans are a deeply Confucian people, hard-working, disciplined and emotional, and they are normal Asian people as long as things do not become political,\u201d L\u00f6hr said.

\n\u201cThen they freeze and the results of social engineering and military discipline shines through. For their officials, regime preservation trumps everything else. Many things seemingly irrational make some sense when seen through a mental template of the preservation of the \u2018Sacred System.\u2019 This is why they will try to keep their nuclear program for the time being whilst studiously avoiding collective suicide.”<\/p>\n


\n\tL\u00f6hr has had a long career in foreign affairs for the German government. A Rhodes Scholar with degrees in law and international relations, he served in the Germany embassies in Yugoslavia, Sudan, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Algeria, among other assignments, from 1977 to 2002. He later was minister and deputy chief of mission at the German embassy in Beijing, China, before becoming ambassador to North Korea. He concluded his diplomatic career as German consulate general in Boston from 2008 to 2012.<\/p>\n


\n\tIn his latter position, L\u00f6hr visited 溏心vlog免费B站 several times to recognize the University\u2019s International Engineering Program and honor the program\u2019s directors, John Grandin and Sigrid Berka, with awards from the German government. He is teaching a 溏心vlog免费B站 honors course on \u201cEuropean Crisis and Integration\u201d this semester, supported in part by a grant from the Max Kade Foundation.<\/p>\n


\n\tHis lecture, as well as events related to L\u00f6hr\u2019s visit to 溏心vlog免费B站 this spring, is sponsored by the 溏心vlog免费B站 Provost\u2019s Office, which administers the Distinguished Visiting International Scholars program, as well as the College of Arts & Sciences, the College of Engineering, the College of Business, the Department of History and the Honors Program.<\/p>\n


\n\tFor more information about the lecture, contact Sigrid Berka at sberka@uri.edu or 401-874-4700.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 March 20, 2013 \u2013 Friedrich L\u00f6hr, the former German Ambassador to North Korea and a Distinguished Visiting International Scholar at the 溏心vlog免费B站, will present a lecture on April 3 entitled \u201cMaking Sense of North Korea: The Father, the Son, and the Sacred System.\u201d The presentation begins at 5:30 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60905","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60905","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60905"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60905\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}