"If the minds of two thousand citizens become a strong and unflagging foundation of this constant battle, even more than one million cannons will not be able to destroy us."
- Ahn Jung-geun, speech to his village (Hwanghaedo, 1907)
Introduction
Ahn Jung-geun is a Korean independence fighter who killed Ito Hirobumi in hopes of achieving peace in East Asia. This shooting triggered a chain of other independent movements therefore freeing the Korean peninsula and China from Japanese imperialism.
The landmark shooting of the powerful Japanese governmental official Ito Hirobumi, orchestrated by Ahn Jung-geun, symbolizes not only the violation of basic rights to peace and freedom that Koreans were granted before the Japanese occupation, but also the responsibility that Japan holds for disrupting peace in the Asian sphere.