Some authors in Japan have chosen what they want their young people to remember about their country's past.

The Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform (Tsukurukai) has filed a middle school history textbook for official approval by the Ministry of Education.

The Tsukurukai suggested a contentious history textbook in 2001, deleting and distorting historical facts about Japan's invasion of its Asian neighbours in the 1930s and 1940s. It went further this year, trying to paint a "beautiful" picture of Japan for the young minds.

This new book is far more blatant in its historical distortions. The textbook treatment of Japanese military actions during the World War II applies a fresh coat of whitewash to some of the country's darker moments.

The textbook reasserts the wartime militarist ideology that Japan's invasions of the Korean Peninsula, China and Southeast Asia were justified acts of self-defence that assisted Asia's liberation from European and American domination.

The stated aim of the textbook authors is to revive patriotism among young people by omitting from history lessons any references to Imperial Japan's colonial atrocities.

The new version deletes a number of incidents related to the annexation and conquest of Manchuria by the Japanese Government and the Kwangtung Army, the Japanese Army in China.

The new version argues that the Chinese communists sneaked in Kuomintang agents and encouraged activists to drag China into a war with Japan. It points the finger at Chinese communists for stirring up trouble and starting the war.

As to the Nanjing Massacre in 1937, the new textbook says that there are many disputes and questions surrounding the atrocities attributed to the Japanese army. The book even goes so far as to deny the ruling of the Tokyo Military Tribunal, which admitted the Japanese army butchered more than 200,000 Chinese in Nanjing (the actual figure is 300,000 by Chinese calculation).

The draft textbook was submitted for screening last year. The result is due by early next month.

One of the goals of history education is to teach the love of one's country and pride in being one of its citizens. But the Tsukurukai's new version of its history textbook tries to nurture young Japanese pupil's love for their country based on false historical facts.

The authors' historical amnesia is an insult to history itself and those countries that were brutalized by the Japanese invasion.

The Tsukurukai, a right-wing organization formed in 1997, claims to have 10,000 members, including hundreds of politicians and leading business figures. It criticized existing textbooks because of their limited and grudging references to some of the atrocities committed by Japanese troops.

The objective of the Tsukurukai, however, is not to expose the role of imperialism in Asia, but to replace one set of historical distortions with another. It sets out to "correct history" by emphasizing a "positive view" of Japan's past and removing from textbooks any reference to matters associated with its "dark history."

On these grounds, there is a definite logic in their efforts to legitimize and resurrect the history and symbols of Japanese militarism. It amounts to clearing the ideological decks for an aggressive reassertion of the interests of Japanese imperialism in Asia.

People fight over textbook content because education is so obviously significant for the future, because it reaches so deeply into society, and is directed by the state.

Japan's unwillingness to confront the dark side of its history may end up hurting its own people. It is the young, after all, who urgently need to learn about the falseness of promises offered by nationalism and its romanticization of national glory.

The truth is, the past never disappears. In fact, it often returns to haunt one.

It is an unforgivable sin to turn one's face away from past atrocities while many of the victims are still suffering from the abuse they endured.

(China Daily 03/28/2005 page6)