South Korea started out with some serious shortcomings: it failed to purge the collaborators with Japanese colonial rule and was a divided country. Until the 1960s, the South lagged behind the North economically. But it had made the right choice plumbing for democracy and the market economy. Less than 60 years since its foundation, South Korea has become the 11th largest economy in the world. Few others among former colonies that gained their independence since World War II have succeeded so well in both industrialization and democratization. In the Gallup survey, 68.8 percent of respondents also said they were proud of the Republic’s history, an indication that the majority of the people are in favor of the choice we made.

But the anachronistic view of history that does not recognize these accomplishments has infected the minds of the younger generation over two decades. An influential revisionist history book used to raise college students’ ideological consciousness in the 1980s disparages the founding of the Republic as "hanging the mantle of independence on colonial submission." A modern and contemporary Korean history textbook for high schools published by Kumsung Publishing says, "The founding of the Republic of Korea signifies a failure to establish a unified nation state." Such biased historical opinions have been getting louder and louder since the current administration assumed power. It was President Roh Moo-hyun himself who said our recent history was one where “justice lost out and opportunism gained influence."

That is why a proposal from some organizations to rechristen Aug. 15 “Foundation Day” instead of “Independence Day” is worthy of study for the sake of educating the younger generation. Aug. 15, 1948 was the starting point of the Republic’s triumph over national division and war. Remembering that day properly is a way to foster a historical consciousness that seeks the truth in facts, free from the self-destructive ideologies that attempt to fit it into an outmoded worldview.