This House would allow biased versions of history to be taught in schools

The Japanese government is not forcing schools to teach Japanese history in a way that whitewashes the Japanese record in World War II. In Japan the Ministry of Education screens textbooks and when they are approved makes them available. Schools are then allowed to select their textbook from a list of seven or eight textbooks that have been approved both by the ministry.[1] By making this choice schools are exercising their freedom of speech in deciding what should be taught in their classrooms. In the case of the New History Textbook (Atarashii Rekishi Kyokasho) not a single state run junior high school adopted the textbook resulting in a mere 0.03% of junior high school students using the textbook.[2] By contrast China’s textbooks and their misrepresentations are mandatory. [3]This shows that when the Japanese people are given freedom of information on the issue they exercise this right responsibly.

[1] Masalski, Kathleen Woods, ‘Examining the Japanese history textbook controversies’, Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education, November 2001, http://spice.stanford.edu/docs/134

[2] ibid

[3] Sneider, Daniel, ‘Divided Memories: History Textbooks and the Wars in Asia’, Nippon.com, 29 April 2012, http://www.nippon.com/en/in-depth/a00703/

This is not and never can be a freedom of speech issue. In this case it is a teacher or school board deciding what others are to be taught so by its very nature even if that individual has freedom of speech the students do not. In a school freedom of speech is limited; students cannot say what they want when they want, and the same is true with freedom of information; they cannot learn what they want when they want. This is because school is to give them a basic grounding in everything they need to know rather than it being a place where the student can pick and choose.

To state the obvious there is an immense amount of history. There is much more history than could ever be taught in school. This means there needs to be some way to cut down everything in history into a sensible sized syllabus. There are some obvious ways to cut down history to a manageable length; such as concentrating on the history of the nation, focusing on certain key events, focusing on things of particular importance to today, or sometimes just on things that are considered fun and interesting. In the UK there have been accusations, including by the current education secretary Michael Gove, that British history is neglected in favour of Nazi Germany and the American west – something that then avoids Britain’s less than comfortable imperial past.[1]

It should therefore come as no surprise that Japan does not highlight World War II and in particular the bad parts of that conflict. Does China teach about its invasion of Tibet?

[1] Vasagar, Jeevan, ‘Michael Gove accuses exam system of neglecting British history’, guardian.co.uk, 24 November 2011, http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/nov/24/michael-gove-british-history-neglected

Yes history has to be edited as it could not all be taught but that does not mean that these are the bits that should be edited out. Rather as other nations consider these parts of Japanese history important it is all the more important for Japanese students to study them so as to learn why South Korea and China react in this way

History is not about learning all history, it is not about learning particular bits of history, it is not even necessarily about learning a nations’ story, rather it is about encouraging students to think critically. It has been regularly shown that stuffing children with facts turns them off a subject instead there should be interaction, discussion, analysing texts from the time and analysing bias.[1]

The space in the textbook devoted to the issues is very limited and therefore what they mention does not matter particularly much. What matters therefore is how the teachers teach the issues as they will have to supplement the textbooks with other works and there is a wide range to choose from.[2] What matters then is how the teachers expand on the issues within the textbook rather than the textbook itself – the textbook could even be useful at studying the subject by providing a source to study bias on WWII.

[1] Savich, Carl, ‘Improving Critical Thinking in History’, Networks, Vol.11, Issue 2, Fall 2009, p.2, http://journals.library.wisc.edu/index.php/networks/issue/view/32

[2] Inkerd, Wes, ‘The Japanese History Textbook issue’, Education in Japan community blog, http://educationinjapan.wordpress.com/education-system-in-japan-general/the-japanese-history-textbook-issue/ accessed 20 August 2012

Critical thinking must not be at the expense of objective history that imparts knowledge of what actually happened. We should not assume that teachers will supplement what is in the textbooks with other books or subject them to critical analysis. 

To some the idea of a national story may be an anachronism but history is one of the things that bind a country together. As Benedict Anderson argues nations are ‘imagined communities’ as members of that nation will never know most of the members of that community or even hear about them but despite this there is conceived to be a comradeship between its members.[1] The creation of a national story from the history of the nation that helps create that common unit. French historian Ernest Renan went so far as to argue that ‘Getting its history wrong is part of being a nation’.[2]

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak himself has argued “A textbook of modern history should be written in a way that does not hurt our national pride,” when criticising a South Korean textbook’s interpretation of the dividing of Korea.[3] If this is the case it is difficult to see how there can be any objection to Japan using the same principle.

[1] Anderson, Benedict, Imagined Communities, Verso, 17 November 2006, pp.6-7 http://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Imagined_Communities.html?id=nQ9jXXJV-vgC&redir_esc=y

[2] Renan, Ernest, quoted in ‘Eric Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism since 1780’, The Nationalism Project, http://www.nationalismproject.org/what/hobsbawm.htm

[3] Sang-Hun, Choe, ‘Textbooks on Past Offend South Korea’s Conservatives’, The New York Times, 17 November 2008, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/18/world/asia/18textbooks.html?pagewanted=all

While an official story or creation myth for a nation may be a useful way of binding a nation together and when this is ancient history it is unlikely to cause much harm. However this should not be brought forward into the modern era where much more objective history is necessary. 

The Japanese government is not forcing schools to teach Japanese history in a way that whitewashes the Japanese record in World War II. In Japan the Ministry of Education screens textbooks and when they are approved makes them available. Schools are then allowed to select their textbook from a list of seven or eight textbooks that have been approved both by the ministry.[1] By making this choice schools are exercising their freedom of speech in deciding what should be taught in their classrooms. In the case of the New History Textbook (Atarashii Rekishi Kyokasho) not a single state run junior high school adopted the textbook resulting in a mere 0.03% of junior high school students using the textbook.[2] By contrast China’s textbooks and their misrepresentations are mandatory. [3]This shows that when the Japanese people are given freedom of information on the issue they exercise this right responsibly.

[1] Masalski, Kathleen Woods, ‘Examining the Japanese history textbook controversies’, Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education, November 2001, http://spice.stanford.edu/docs/134

[2] ibid

[3] Sneider, Daniel, ‘Divided Memories: History Textbooks and the Wars in Asia’, Nippon.com, 29 April 2012, http://www.nippon.com/en/in-depth/a00703/

This is not and never can be a freedom of speech issue. In this case it is a teacher or school board deciding what others are to be taught so by its very nature even if that individual has freedom of speech the students do not. In a school freedom of speech is limited; students cannot say what they want when they want, and the same is true with freedom of information; they cannot learn what they want when they want. This is because school is to give them a basic grounding in everything they need to know rather than it being a place where the student can pick and choose.

To state the obvious there is an immense amount of history. There is much more history than could ever be taught in school. This means there needs to be some way to cut down everything in history into a sensible sized syllabus. There are some obvious ways to cut down history to a manageable length; such as concentrating on the history of the nation, focusing on certain key events, focusing on things of particular importance to today, or sometimes just on things that are considered fun and interesting. In the UK there have been accusations, including by the current education secretary Michael Gove, that British history is neglected in favour of Nazi Germany and the American west – something that then avoids Britain’s less than comfortable imperial past.[1]

It should therefore come as no surprise that Japan does not highlight World War II and in particular the bad parts of that conflict. Does China teach about its invasion of Tibet?

[1] Vasagar, Jeevan, ‘Michael Gove accuses exam system of neglecting British history’, guardian.co.uk, 24 November 2011, http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/nov/24/michael-gove-british-history-neglected

Yes history has to be edited as it could not all be taught but that does not mean that these are the bits that should be edited out. Rather as other nations consider these parts of Japanese history important it is all the more important for Japanese students to study them so as to learn why South Korea and China react in this way

History is not about learning all history, it is not about learning particular bits of history, it is not even necessarily about learning a nations’ story, rather it is about encouraging students to think critically. It has been regularly shown that stuffing children with facts turns them off a subject instead there should be interaction, discussion, analysing texts from the time and analysing bias.[1]

The space in the textbook devoted to the issues is very limited and therefore what they mention does not matter particularly much. What matters therefore is how the teachers teach the issues as they will have to supplement the textbooks with other works and there is a wide range to choose from.[2] What matters then is how the teachers expand on the issues within the textbook rather than the textbook itself – the textbook could even be useful at studying the subject by providing a source to study bias on WWII.

[1] Savich, Carl, ‘Improving Critical Thinking in History’, Networks, Vol.11, Issue 2, Fall 2009, p.2, http://journals.library.wisc.edu/index.php/networks/issue/view/32

[2] Inkerd, Wes, ‘The Japanese History Textbook issue’, Education in Japan community blog, http://educationinjapan.wordpress.com/education-system-in-japan-general/the-japanese-history-textbook-issue/ accessed 20 August 2012

Critical thinking must not be at the expense of objective history that imparts knowledge of what actually happened. We should not assume that teachers will supplement what is in the textbooks with other books or subject them to critical analysis. 

To some the idea of a national story may be an anachronism but history is one of the things that bind a country together. As Benedict Anderson argues nations are ‘imagined communities’ as members of that nation will never know most of the members of that community or even hear about them but despite this there is conceived to be a comradeship between its members.[1] The creation of a national story from the history of the nation that helps create that common unit. French historian Ernest Renan went so far as to argue that ‘Getting its history wrong is part of being a nation’.[2]

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak himself has argued “A textbook of modern history should be written in a way that does not hurt our national pride,” when criticising a South Korean textbook’s interpretation of the dividing of Korea.[3] If this is the case it is difficult to see how there can be any objection to Japan using the same principle.

[1] Anderson, Benedict, Imagined Communities, Verso, 17 November 2006, pp.6-7 http://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Imagined_Communities.html?id=nQ9jXXJV-vgC&redir_esc=y

[2] Renan, Ernest, quoted in ‘Eric Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism since 1780’, The Nationalism Project, http://www.nationalismproject.org/what/hobsbawm.htm

[3] Sang-Hun, Choe, ‘Textbooks on Past Offend South Korea’s Conservatives’, The New York Times, 17 November 2008, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/18/world/asia/18textbooks.html?pagewanted=all

While an official story or creation myth for a nation may be a useful way of binding a nation together and when this is ancient history it is unlikely to cause much harm. However this should not be brought forward into the modern era where much more objective history is necessary. 

Quite simply if a school in Japan is going to teach about World War II then it should include the darker side of the Japanese involvement in the conflict. Japans acts such as the Nanjing bombing and the occupation of Asian countries were horrific and must not be glossed over. Not covering such actions is quite simply misrepresenting the facts through omission.

No one would consider teaching about Nazi Germany without mentioning the horrors it committed.  Learning about, for example the road to war may be interesting, and potentially be useful in drawing lessons on how to prevent a war. Appeasement is still regularly used as an analogy in international relations discussion as meeting almost any aggression with negotiations is seen as appeasing the enemy with Munich as the analogy[1] for example in negotiations with North Korea.[2] It is however a pointless exercise if the person learning knows nothing of what happened in the resulting war. Why should they want to draw on the lessons of the failure of appeasement if they do not know about the millions killed and the suffering inflicted?

[1] Dallek, Robert, ‘The Tyranny of Metaphor’, Foreign Policy, November 2010, http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/10/11/the_tyranny_of_metaphor?page=full

[2] Rogin, Josh, ‘Senate Republicans accuse Obama of North Korea ‘appeasement’, The Cable Foreign Policy, 16 March 2012, http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/03/16/senate_republicans_accuse_obama_of_north_korea_appeasement

This dispute is obviously not just about teaching ‘facts’. China which complains about the misrepresentation of the Nanjing massacre does not teach about the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989.[1]

Of course the facts should be taught but what facts? The New History Textbook at the center of the dispute only has 12 pages on the whole of WWII, if the pictures are taken out there are only 7 pages left, of which three are devoted to the European theatre.[2] It should therefore not come as a surprise that some things are missed out.

It should be noted that a study by Stanford professors Daniel Sneider and Gi-Wook Shin found that the main Japanese history textbooks are the least biased on the Second World War out of textbooks used in China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and the United States.[3]

[1] Bruhn, Judith, ‘The vital presence of the past’, Free Speech Debate, 7 May 2012, http://freespeechdebate.com/en/2012/05/the-vital-presence-of-the-past/

[2] Inkerd, Wes, ‘The Japanese History Textbook issue’, Education in Japan community blog, http://educationinjapan.wordpress.com/education-system-in-japan-general/the-japanese-history-textbook-issue/ accessed 20 August 2012

[3] Sneider, Daniel, ‘Divided Memories: History Textbooks and the Wars in Asia’, Nippon.com, 29 April 2012, http://www.nippon.com/en/in-depth/a00703/

It is offensive to the comfort women and the victims of the Nanjing massacre to deny or omit that such horrific events ever happened. For these people it makes a full apology and closure a much more distant prospect. Duk-Sook Choi, a Korean woman conscripted by the Japanese said "My blood pressure shot up, and I couldn't sleep the night I heard the news about the textbooks” and argued "Not mentioning comfort women is tantamount to insulting the women the world over".[1] Similarly in response to what the New Textbook says on the Nanjing massacre survivors argued "Japanese rightists groups distort history and attempt to cover the truth of Nanjing Massacre. This makes me extremely angry".[2]

[1] Kang, K. Connie, ‘Protesters Decry Japan’s New History Textbooks’, Los Angeles Times, 18 April 2001, http://articles.latimes.com/2001/apr/18/local/me-52372

[2] ‘Nanjing Massacre Survivors Protest Japan’s Approval of Distorted History Textbook’, People’s Daily, 6 April 2001, http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200104/06/eng20010406_66955.html

The Japanese have no intention of offending South Korea or China with their textbooks and these countries should not be taking offense over such minor issues. While it is regrettable that a tiny minority of students may get a biased view of history from the New History Textbook the actual harm is miniscule. No individuals are directly insulted by a sin of omission, and no one comes to physical harm. Even those who were victims of the Japanese would probably be better off attempting to get formal apologies for the actual crime rather than attacking misrepresentations that will be seen by so few.

For the most part this is an issue whipped up by the two governments who wish to use Japan’s WWII past to try and force concessions today and to direct nationalist ire away from the government. In China according the Edward Friedman, an expert on Chinese nationalism, “anti-Japan nationalism became a great legitimating glue to hold the society together”.[1]

[1] Bajoria, Jayshree, ‘Nationalism in China’, Council on Foreign Relations, 23 April 2008, http://www.cfr.org/china/nationalism-china/p16079

History lessons in school are not just about providing children with some sanitised version of national history. Instead they are about teaching points that are controversial or relevant to the modern world. Both of which is the case with the issue of comfort women and Japanese imperialist aggression. They must teach why these actions were wrong and why they are now controversial.

If a non-controversial history is taught which glosses over bad actions this may lead to real political results. In Japan there have regularly been suggestions that the constitution should be changed, and in particular that Article 9, the provision that renounces war should be amended or abolished.[1] If the Japanese are not taught about the actions that lead to this provision or are given a distorted view of it then the resulting change in perception would make altering the constitution much more likely.[2] Ultimately this may well be a case of those who ignore [or misrepresent] history are bound to repeat it.

[1] Martin, Craig, ‘Why Japan should amend its war-renouncing Article 9’, The Japan Times, 4 August 2012, http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/eo20120804a1.html

[2] Cooley, Aaron., ‘The Textbook Controversies in Japan: What History is Taught?’, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2003, http://www.usca.edu/essays/vol82003/cooley.pdf

No one worries that Britain is going to attempt to recreate its empire because most school children are not taught about it; why should this be any different with Japan? Moreover in the case of the Japanese constitution while a majority of the Japanese public is for changing the constitution they are not for changing Article 9, only 30% of Japanese are in favour of changing it while 59% are against.[1] Such a change is therefore unlikely in the near future.

[1] Wallace, Corey, ‘The Japanese Constitution in 2011’, Japan Security Watch New Pacific Institute, 3 May 2011, http://jsw.newpacificinstitute.org/?p=5983

For millions of people around the world Britain is known for its Empire. In Britain itself this is sometimes given a positive spin, as indeed it was by the Victorian empire builders themselves, as opening up the world, bringing education, technology, and eventually democracy. Of course this did happen but those outside Britain are more likely to remember the British empire for its atrocities, for example the invention of concentration camps in the Boer wars; its destroying native cultures such as Australia’s aborigines; or its ruthless forcing of trade on others like in the aftermath of the Opium Wars. Denying one side of this history denies us the possibility of understanding what others think of us.[1] It is often touted that there should be a partnership between India and Britain on the basis of history.[2] But Britain remembers the ‘good’ Empire did while India remembers the ‘bad’.

So is the case with Japan. South Korea and Japan are natural allies; both confronted by a growing China, and aggressive, totalitarian North Korea, both are allies of the United states, and yet they won’t even share intelligence on the North with each other.[3]

[1] Monbiot, George, ‘How Britain Denies its Holocausts’, 27 December 2005, http://www.monbiot.com/2005/12/27/how-britain-denies-its-holocausts/

[2] Buncombe, Andrew, and Grice, Andrew, ‘Cameron hoping to forge new special relationship with visit to India’, The Independent, 26 July 2010, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/cameron-hoping-to-forge-new-special-relationship-with-visit-to-india-2035414.html

[3] Cossa, Ralph A., ‘S. Korea-Japan: Time for Outside Mediation?’, The Diplomat, 30 July 2012, http://thediplomat.com/new-leaders-forum/2012/07/30/s-korea-japan-time-for-outside-mediation/

It should be enough that students are taught that their countries did bad things as well as good. There is no need to go into every case where a country has done wrong throughout its history. While the use of comfort women was wrong and tragic there is no reason why this should be used as an example of the suffering caused by Japanese imperialism. Students could equally be taught that Japans actions were wrong through highlighting the treatment of Prisoners of War or by showing that it was Japanese aggression that lead to war after war.