Historical education in Japan going awry
TOKYO - Japan's embattled education ministry may risk warping young minds for generations to come, if it continues to yield to the far-right forces that hold sway in and around the administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. In doing so, it may wittingly push Japan toward a "precipice" from which it may not return.
The very foundation of the ministry is at best shaky and perhaps more accurately is rapidly disintegrating.
Despite international condemnation, it continues to push the nationwide teaching of a whitewashed version of history. It has mandated the introduction of militaristic bayonet classes to its physical education programs, while currently embroiled in one of the biggest corruption scandals to have rocked the government in recent times.
The ministry's new issuance of curriculum guidelines along with factually inaccurate textbooks are an attempt not just to alter history, but to essentially brainwash the minds of children in their formative years.
The acts come amid Japan's increasing propensity to revise or ignore its acts of wartime barbarity, particularly regarding the Imperial Japanese Army's heinous treatment of its neighboring countrymen.
The ongoing attempts by Abe's administration to blatantly teach a distorted or highly-diluted version of historical events to children and bolster their sense of nationalistic pride have not been lost on experts informed on the matter.
Education specialists like Hidenori Fujita have stated unequivocally that historical and geographical education in Japan is rapidly going awry.
The Kyoei University professor previously said that textbooks in Japan lack balance and fail to represent the feelings of unjustness from countries like China and the Republic of Korea, and are lacking in detail about the specific claims from non-Japanese parties regarding issues of territory and history.
In one such example, the Manchurian Incident was barely mentioned on one page in a textbook, and the Nanjing Massacre, "comfort women" issue and even the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are barely footnotes in the textbooks.
Controversial guidelines
The education ministry also states in its legally binding guidelines that China's Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea and the Takeshima islands in the Sea of Japan, known in the ROK as Dokdo, are "inherent" parts of Japanese territory.
These statements alone threaten to severely warp children's understanding of historical facts and hence the minds of future generations, including those that will go on to be leaders in politics, industry and, ironically, education in Japan.
The controversial guidelines will be fully implemented for elementary schools from 2020 and for junior high schools in 2021, with one of the most prominent revisions being that Japan's official position on the Diaoyu Islands is that there is "no dispute" over their sovereignty.
Relations between Japan and its closest neighbors have been particularly strained of late, regarding Japan's unrelenting efforts to reinvent the past, not just in terms of its diplomatic and political stance on issues of history and territory, but also owing to its ardent push to institutionalize its wrongful agenda.
Abe has, on a number of occasions, stated that Japanese young people do not have to keep apologizing in the future for Japan's atrocities committed before and during World War II, exposing his absolute reluctance to face up to history, and his dedication to delivering misguided and unsound messages to the Japanese younger generations.
(China Daily 04/05/2017 page11)
