뉴스레터

The backbone of the new history textbooks by Jiyusha and Ikuhosha is built based on Fusosha's social studies and civics textbook, a rightwing textbook published in 2006. In particular, The Ikuhosha textbook is almost like a new edition of the Fusosha textbook, whose contents it has mostly borrowed, edited and palliated a little. The Jiyusha textbook also shares more than 80% of its contents with the Fusosha, but it is more blatant in its history distortion about the Japanese aggression, persecution, and colonial rule. In this regard, these new textbooks can be said "twins" of Fusosha's 2006 social studies and civics textbook.

Problems of Jiyusha and Ikuhosha's New History Textbooks

The Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MECSCT) announced that they hadn't applied the Clause on "Neighboring Countries (4)" of its textbook authorization criteria for the new textbooks. Nevertheless, for the parts too severe to be included, the MECSCT ordered to modify them. Therefore, the descriptions of modern history of those textbooks before modification reveal their 'true intention' well. Here I would like to elaborate a few important characteristics and problems of the new Jiyusha and Ikuhosha history books.

First, both history books state Jinmu Tenno to be Japan's first emperor and concludes the history of Japan with a column on Showa Tenno, which shows their tenno- and ruler-centered historical narrative. The books describe Japan as a great country that has encountered 'threats' from foreign powers but has overcome those crises under the leadership of their emperors. The denouement of the historical narrative of the both books is a column praising Showa Tenno. Emphasis on the tenno's role in each period and praises on tennos are the major characteristics of these two history books that the others do not share. Since the history of Japan is narrated in terms of tennos and rulers, description about actions and thoughts of ordinary people such as livelihood of ordinary people in each period, peasants uprisings, civil rights movement, anti-war movement during the Russo-Japanese War, damages that war brought on people is ignored or reduced.

Second, rather than acknowledging that the Qing-Japanese War and the Russo-Japanese War were waged in order to strengthen the control over Joseon, the books emphasize that Russia's seizure of Joseon would have threatened the security and independence of Japan and state that the Russo-Japanese War was a self-defense war. Moreover, they blatantly distort history by claiming that the Russo-Japanese War accelerated the liberation of Asia. This claim, by the way, contradicts the fact that Japan annexed Korea after the Russo-Japanese War. In addition, the books do not have any description of the damages that the two wars in the Korean peninsula brought to the Koreans and of Koreans' resistance against Japan.

Third, the description about Korea in the new textbooks has regressed and worsened. It is stated that after Japan annexed Korea, it opened schools and educated Koreans of Hangeul (indigenous Korean characters) and the Japanese language. It is in a way a statement insinuating that the colonial rule of Japan did a favor to the Koreans by educating them the Korean characters. But in reality, more Japanese language classes were allotted than Korean language classes, and Korean language classes were even banned at school later days, which facts cannot be found in the books. The aspects that discredit the benefits of Japan's colonial rule such as Joseon's modernization projects, annexation of Korea and March 1^st Independent Movement, which are all included in the main body of current Fusosha and Jiyusha textbooks, are relegated/demoted to the side notes in the new textbooks.

Fourth, the narrative on the Sino-Japanese War is also problematic. Both textbooks attribute the cause of the Manchurian Incident and the Sino-Japanese War to anti-Japanese campaign and murder of Japanese by Chinese, and claim that the war was inevitable for the protection of Japanese. That is, they imply that the Sino-Japanese War is China's fault. Although Jiyusha was ordered to correct this part, their new textbook describes the war as follows: "The war in the Chinese continent stretched on and its end was not in sight… [snip]…Therefore Japan waged a war, dragging even the depth of China into the mire of war."

Fifth, they claim that the Nanjing Massacre (or Nanjing Incident) is not a historical fact but a fabrication used by China for propaganda purposes. This claim in the textbooks, however, is not approved by the MECSCT.

Sixth, the Asia-Pacific War is called "Great East Asia War" instead, and described as a self-defense war waged to liberate Asia. The new books also emphasize the cooperation that the Japanese people gave during the war. Ikuhosha's textbook, for example, states: "Japan's victory in the early years of the war gave hope of liberation to the Southeast Asians and Indians." It then goes on to discuss the alliance with Thailand and cooperation with the Indian National Army and Indonesian volunteer troops, hinting that the "Great East Asia War" was indeed a war to liberate Asia. In the original version of its new history textbook submitted for the government inspection, Jiyusha states: "It was a difficult period that suffered two world wars. Japan always acted passively and never started a war on its own." The MECSCT deleted this statement for the authorized version, but without acknowledging its distortion of history. As the last sentence above indicates, they do not acknowledge that the Japanese wars were imperial aggression.

Seventh, the description of the Battle of Okinawa in those new history books is problematic as well, differing drastically from those in other textbooks. Basically, they excuse the Japanese army's responsibility of the wartime mass suicide in Okinawa (forced mass death) by indicating that the Okinawans themselves chose to commit suicide because "in the massive attack of the US troops, they did not have any place to run" (Ikuhosha) or because "the landing of the US troops forced the islanders to a corner" (Jiyusha). There is not a word that describes how the Japanese army killed Okinawa civilians by accusing them of spying, by forcing them out of shelters, and by robbing them of food.

Efforts of Japanese Civil Groups to Boycott the Adoption of the New History Textbooks

The most crucial to prevent schools from choosing these new history textbooks is raising the public opinion of "NO to both Ikuhosha and Jiyusha history books!" nationwide. For this purpose, it is necessary to make haste to hold study meetings to promote the boycott of the new history textbooks in each regional unit and to request their education committee not to choose those books.

The Children and Textbooks Japan Network 21 has published a 10-yen pamphlet entitled Jiyusha and Ikuhosha Textbooks that We Cannot Give to Children to make more people know the "dangerous ideas" included in those new history textbooks and raise the public opinion against the adoption of those books. The organization has been promoting the use of this pamphlet throughout the nation, and so far 112,000 copies have been distributed by the end of this June.