For the Korean people, Dokdo symbolizes full independence and freedom. Dokdo was the first Korean territory taken by Imperial Japan in the early 20th century. It was returned to Korea in 1945, along with Korea’s independence from Japan. Dokdo became a symbol of our independence and freedom.
Did you know Korea led one of the largest nationwide independence movements after WWI?
On March 28, 2018, the New York Times homepage covered a story about Korean independence activist, Yu Gwan-sun. She was a 16-year-old girl when she participated in the movement. The newspaper unexpectedly published Yu’s obituary 98 years after her death. Then, what was the March 1st Independence Movement? About two million people, a tenth of the population, took to the streets on March 1, 1919 when there was no advanced means of communication. It resulted in 70,418 casualties, among which 7,509 were killed, 15,961 injured, and 46,948 were arrested and tortured.
Why did so many people participate in the movement? The Korean people lost their national sovereignty for the first time in its 5000 years of history. From 1910 to 1945, Japan colonized Korea, and exploited Korea’s human and material resources suppressing the Korean national identity and culture. Japan also spread a false claim that Koreans welcomed Japanese rule.
Throughout Japan’s occupation of Korea, Koreans tenaciously fought Japan’s colonial rule. On March 1, 1919, a man read out the Declaration of Independence at Tapgol Park and about 5,000 people cheered for independence. Despite a brutal suppression, many Koreans across the country participated in this nonviolent independence movement. Major international news media, including the New York Times (USA), Entente (France), and the Morning Post (UK)reported this news to the world. And Xin Chao, a Peking University magazine, described this movement as “a revolution without weapons”, “a challenge to achieve the impossible,” and “a pure student movement” that “opened a new era in the history of revolution.” The March 1st Independence Movement made Koreans’ voices heard and influenced the May Fourth Movement in China and other national movements around the world. It brought hope for people who were suffering from the same fate in colonies around the world.