According to the lectures of Dokdo Academy, Dokdo and the East Sea are recorded as ‘Takesima’ and ‘Sea of Japan’ respectively in 97 percent of all maps in the world. What efforts does Korea make to correct this situation?
Many people would know the advertisement about Dokdo put in the New York Times newspaper on July 9, 2008. The advertisement which had ‘Do You Know?’ as the subject was made by Seo Kyung-duk. This advertisement informed the fact that Dokdo and the East Sea were Korean territory, and it was inserted with the support of the singer, Kim Jang-hoon. On August 25, an advertisement about Dokdo, ‘Stop Distorting History,’ was put in the Washington Post newspaper. The advertisement, which criticized the Japanese claims of domain of Dokdo, was issued because it was completed by contributions of internet users.
Voluntary Agency Network of Korea (VANK) also tries to inform about Dokdo and the East Sea. Many people participate in VANK and inform about Korea through pen-pals. Therefore, they find the wrong record like ‘Takesima’ and correct it. Furthermore, VANK educates about ways to inform it at the same time. They also have programs for knowing Dokdo and correctly informing about Dokdo for the students in elementary and middle school. All these activities are in order to foster intelligent students who argue with the Japanese students in the future.
There is another organization which has programs to inform about Dokdo like VANK. It is Dokdonetwork.or.kr. Dokdonetwork.or.kr opened the Dokdo Academy to teach the importance of Dokdo to the university students. They also give chances to visit Dokdo which we have to protect. Moreover, they recruited a group of teachers and tried to notify about Dokdo and East Sea. Dokdonetwork.or.kr even held the first election on Dokdo with the National Election Commission at December 2007.
Goodneighbors is a nonprofit organization which was given the General Consultative Status from the UN ECOSOC for the first time in Korea. This organization has an interest in the problems of global neighbors who are poor and isolated. It visited Dokdo and selected good active people to participate in Dokdo Peace Camp and to make the peace group, Peace Ambassador Network (PAN). During this period, PAN discussed the ways to protect Dokdo such as having performances that make Taegeukgi by collecting windsocks. Recently, the organization educated children about Dokdo with the Dokdonetwork.or.kr.
As the domain problem of Dokdo continues, various organizations are trying to inform about Dokdo in various ways. Keeping pace with this situation, Korea has to change Dokdo’s status from Liancourt Rocks, which has the meaning that Dokdo is a troubled area, to the status of an island.
People also have to try to correct the wrong public opinion and distorted history. Korea has to strengthen the effective control and prepare for the worst by analyzing other international precedents which is similar to the Dokdo problem. However, the most important thing is to have continuous interest in correcting the wrong recognition of history. People have to defend our pride by confronting positively.