Award Winning Works of 5th Int'l Essay Contest on Dokdo Bronze Prize

Islets in hearts of Koreans

Bronze Prize Akli Hadid This writer is a student majoring in sociology at the Academy of Korean Studies in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province.

As an Algerian citizen who has lived in Korea for nine years I am very sympathetic to the struggles of the Koreans against the Japanese colonizers for 35 years from 1910 to 1945.

My country was colonized by the French from 1830 to 1962, and like in Korea, the colonization still has left scars in my country.

In Algeria, due to the evils of colonization, my country was deeply divided ideologically, and Algeria ended up succumbing to socialism, a diluted form of communism.

My people had to go through the hardships of socialism between 1962 and 1991, before a brutal civil war divided them from 1993 to 2001.

The war of independence, fought between 1954 and 1962 left 1 million dead, and a civil war in the 1990s caused 150,000 dead.

Such unnecessary deaths were caused by France's unwillingness to in-tegrate the native Algerian population in the spheres of education and government, which led to inexperienced government and uneducated population to take care of its destiny, leading to such tragedies.

Despite the hardships of colonialism and post-colonial tragedies, the French government had the indecency of voting a law in 2006, acknowledging the "positive effects" of French colonization.

When the law was voted, I was in Korea, and the law often reminded me the repeated refusal of Japan to recognize the tragedy of comfort women, the repeated trips by Japanese officials to the Yasukuni Shrine, a shrine honoring some of those who committed evil crimes during the Japanese colonization of Korea, and more importantly, Japan's repeated claims that Dokdo is not Koreas'.

Such aggression by former colonizers, despite all the crimes committed during colonization, should be condemned.

As my country suffered 1 million deaths during the war of independence, I cannot accept that French Parliament found anything "positive" about colonization.

Likewise, as a citizen of a country that suffered brutal colonization, I cannot accept that a former colony make territorial claims on Dokdo, which is Korean territory.

I think that Korea and Algeria should go hand-in-hand in a fight for memory against the evils of colonialization.

While there are repeated attempts by France and Japan of turning the page of colonialism and establishing relationships with its former colonies based on friendship and mutual trust, aggressions like claiming that Dokdo is not Korean territory can only delay the process of building a positive relation based on trust and fraternity.

Other than the historical disputes, Algeria has an excellent relation with France. There is a large population of Algerians living in France, economic relations are excellent, and so are cultural relations.

However, aggressions and distortions of historical facts can only hurt the relations between the two countries.

Likewise, there is a large population of Koreans in Japan, economic relations between Korea and Japan are excellent, and so are cultural relations.

But if Japan keeps distorting historical facts, it can only hurt the relationship between the two countries which would otherwise be excellent.

Though an Algerian, I should remain neutral regarding Japan's distortions of history, as the citizen of a country who suffered through the aggressions of colonialism, I cannot remain neutral.

I think all former colonizers should acknowledge the past without distorting it so that its relationship with its former colonies can grow.