A New Front Opens in the Great Dokdo War

Robert from the Marmot’s Hole brings us the latest in the most pressing issue of our time, the Great Dokdo War:

Since May 21, Wikipedia has been running a poll on whether or not to continue referring to the islets as Dokdo, or whether to change it to the Liancourt Rocks. Currently, if you enter “Takeshima” or “Liancourt Rocks” into Wikipedia, it automatically connects to the “Dokdo” page.

As of Thursday, some 19 people agreed with “Dokdo,” while 22 supported a switch to “Liancourt Rocks.”

One one each, meanwhile, supported a switch to “Takeshima” or “Takeshima/Dokdo,” while four supported a switch to “Dokdo/Takeshima.”

The poll has been running for five days, and it’s unsure when it will end.

But if the poll were to end now, Wikipedia’s official name of “Dokdo” would switch to “Liancourt Rocks.” According to the Chosun, many Japanese—seeing how the name “Takeshima” is hardly being used internationally—are instead calling for the islets to be officially referred to as the “Liancourt Rocks” with the aim of weakening Korea’s soveriegnty over the rocks.

There has been something of a protracted struggle over Wikipedia’s official name for the Dokdo islets. The online encyclopedia originally referred to the rocks as Dokdo, but in May 2005, a netizen poll forced a switch to the Liancourt Rocks. In June 2006, another poll unanimously switched it back to Dokdo.

You would think by now, the general Korean public would be getting hit with war weariness from this protracted conflict.  Now they have a new Wikipedia front of this war to fight as well.  This front is being opened just weeks after the Korean public fought another protracted battle during the Rain Crisis. 

 I can still remember the hard days when those of us in Korea had to stock up on food and supplies to survive the initial declaration of war from President Roh.  Since then those of us in Korea have been through multiple cease fires, close calls, and even lived through the failure of the Daemado campaign.  Times had been so desperate that even talk about recruiting North Korea to fight off the evil Japs was announced.  Though the casualties on the Korean side have been heavy at times, through it all the brave defenders of Dokdo have continued thwart the massive Japanese armada descending on Dokdo.  I have no doubt more brave Korean patriots will respond to this new Wikipedia Front.    

Where would Korea be today without such patriots like flag eater man, Chung Dong-young, finger lady, the Dokdo Riders, and most importantly that great general of all things Dokdo, bee-man.