Picture of the Day: March 1st Uprising Event
People holding South Korea’s Taegeukgi flags form the letters of March 1 during an event in the southwestern city of Gwangju on Feb. 24, 2021, to celebrate the 102nd anniversary on March 1 of the 1919 popular movement that protested for independence from Japan’s colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula. (Yonhap)
It is good for people to feel proud of their accomplishments. But what did March 1st actually accomplish except dead Koreans?
Seriously, I don’t know.
It took another 14 years, 5 months, and 14 days before Japan surrendered after getting nuked before Korea was partitioned by Allied and Soviet forces. And let’s face it, it took until General Park kicked out the gangsters running the country down until South Korea became a tiger.
From an outsider’s perspective, it seems South Korea is headed back to the cronyism rampant under Rhee. I don’t have “evidence”, per se, just anecdotes and emotional responses; but it looks like less and less economic freedom is available as time goes by…
I hope I am wrong. I still have family in South Korea. And I want the ROK to be the Asian country everyone else wants to copy. I am just not seeing it right now.