Die Unabhängigkeitserklärung vom 1. März 1919  und das Jubiläum 2019
Die Bewegung des ersten März, Samil Undong, war eine Unabhängigkeitsbewegung in dem von Japan 1910 annektierten Korea. Die Bewegung richtete sich gegen die Besetzung Koreas durch Japan und dessen Kolonialpolitik und begann am 1. März 1919 mit der öffentlichen Verlesung der Unabhängigkeitserklärung in Seoul, gefolgt von über Monate andauernden Demonstrationen in fast allen Provinzen des Landes, bis sie durch die japanische Armee niedergeschlagen wurden. (Aus Wikipedia).

Lutz Drescher zum 1. März
27. Februar 2019

3.1. 운동 100 주연 축하드립니다. On March 1.

Our Korean friends will celebrate the 100 anniversary of the independence movement from Japanese colonialism. In Korea such memorial days are less devoted to the review of past historical events. The main focus is how a liberating event in the past can be reenacted in the present reality.

This can be "visualized" beautifully by the enclosed picture which I took only few days after I arrived in Korea as an ecumenical co-worker in 1987. Written is there an invitation to a service on March 1, 1987 in which Prof. AHN Byung Mu (doctorate in Heidelberg, Minjung Theologian, because of his resistance against dictatorship he was imprisoned together with KIM Dae Jung) will give the sermon.

Shortly before this date the famous 1987 democratic movement has started because of the torture and the death of a student. These demonstrations continued to grow fiercer until June 1987 when dictator CHUN Do Hwan was forced to agree to direct elections of the president, which then paved the way for KIM Dae Jung's election ten years later.

Anyone who had seen this poster in February 1987 knew that this is not only about a historic event which took place on March 1st 1919 but about the shackles imposed by the dictatorship to be blown up now. The same is true for other important memorial days, which recall experiences of suffering and liberation: May 18, 1980, Kwangju, or April 19, 1960 uprising against Syngman RHEE.
^{*Lutz Drescher is presently President of Deutsche Ostasienmission (DOAM).}

 
Dokument1: Proclamation of Krean Independence

Dokument2: Unabhängigkeitserklärung - Japanisch

Dokument3: Ceremonies at Tokyo and Seoul (2007)

Dokument4:  100 Jahre Unabhänigkeitserklärung (8.2.2019)

Dokument 5: Erklärung von 1976

Dokument 6: Erklärung von 1988