COMMENT Tokyo traduces history with
toxic textbooks By Tang Liejun
QINGDAO, China - Dictionaries define history,
among other things, as "the branch of knowledge that
deals systematically with the past, a recording,
analyzing or correlating of past events". Most people
consider history to be a series of past events,
considered established facts, or events that can be or
have been verified, especially concerning brief periods
for which when abundant and often fresh documentation is
available. The history of World War II, taking the long
run-up view of some 65 years, is one of those periods in
which facts are available and basic truth can be
determined. It is relatively recent and fresh in our
memories; historians have kept meticulous records and
solid evidence, both documents and photos, are readily
available. While there can be different interpretations
of history, the rudimentary facts are known.
Therefore, as a rule, people through their
actions can make or create history, but they cannot
really reshape it or try to recreate or revise it - this
does not mean they don't try. Yet, in Japan, historical,
transformative miracles have taken place, as that nation
[or at least its influential right-win] has recreated
its history in World War II according to its will,
watering down the facts of atrocities, even ennobling
the motives of its actors.
Japanese students in
some junior high schools are now using the new history
books, The New History Textbook and The New
Civics Textbook, which show Japan's "new history" in
World War II. Some parts of Japan's "new history" here
are quoted from the preface to The New History
Textbook - the one causing most of the controversy.
It says: "History is not science. Learning history is
not to know the facts but to learn the perspectives of
the past people on the past things."
In this
"new history", this new interpretation of events, the
occupation of China's three northeastern provinces at
the beginning of Japan's overall war against China was
"Japan's aspiration to build the first law-governed
modern country in mainland China ... Due to Japan's
efforts Manchuria developed very fast ... People's lives
had been improved."
According to the new
textbooks, the purposes of the "Great East Asia War"
launched by Japan were to guarantee and sustain Japan's
own existence, to exercise its own right of
self-defense, and to liberate Asian people from the rule
of the Europeans and Americans.
As for the
Nanjing Massacre - widely documented elsewhere in
excruciating detail - one of the textbooks says: "The
Tokyo Trial Law Court acknowledged that Japanese troops
had killed more 200,000 people in Nanjing in occupation.
Yet according to the local records there were only
200,000 residents in the city altogether, and one month
after Japanese occupation the number of people increased
from 200,000 to 250,000."
The Japanese were
not invaders, but liberators The New History
Textbook also says: "It seems that up to now Asian
people still mistakenly regard Japanese as invaders,
[but they] risked their lives and cooperated closely
with weak or strong peoples in Asia in fighting the
Western big powers in order to advance the worldwide
colonial liberation movement; Asian peoples' equating of
Japanese with the Western imperialists is totally
ungrateful and against morality, [since it was the
Japanese] who came to their help and inspired them to
get independence."
The list of Japanese good
deeds goes on.
Compared with their senior
schoolmates, some Japanese students now will be more
fortunate and happy because in their reading they will
no see the atrocities and brutalities recorded in the
old textbooks, crimes committed by their grandparents or
great-grandparents in Asia. They will be spared the pain
of knowing about the Nanjing Massacre and enslavement of
Asian "comfort women" (women seized by Japanese soldiers
from China, Korea and other Asian countries and forced
into prostitution in order to "comfort" Japanese
soldiers). Thus these young students will no longer feel
guilty for and ashamed of the notorious crimes their
country committed overseas.
They must be very
grateful to the beloved, respected, responsible, caring
and great statesmen and history scholars who have taken
the potential discomfort and embarrassment of youth into
consideration and who have therefore whitewashed Japan's
dirty history in World War II. They undertook this
effort in order to free today's youth from the troubles
of the past and spare them the problems of conscience,
to give them a better environment in which to develop.
The wisdom of Japanese leaders and scholars, as
manifested by the textbooks, is superior in the world,
in the following main aspects:
First, the re-creation of history shows the
great love of Japanese leaders and history scholars for
their children, because when children read the textbooks
they will have a happy feeling; they will be proud of
their country instead of suffering "a guilty feeling for
the past" from reading the old history textbooks.
According to the new history textbooks, Japan
ambitiously tried its best in World War II to build
peace and prosperity in Asia and did not commit inhumane
acts such as the Nanjing Massacre and enslavement of
Asian "comfort women". Undoubtedly, these textbooks will
help Japanese young people believe that the barbaric
deeds and massacres committed by Japan in World War II
were actually sheer fabrications by their "unfriendly"
Asian neighbors.
Second, since Japanese young people will
believe that Japan did nothing wrong in Asia in World
War II, they will have reason to refuse any claims for
compensation for Japan's wrongdoings in the war. They
might even believe that Asian people should be grateful
to the Japanese for what Japan accomplished. In that way
if Japan cannot reap any rewards of gratitude from Asian
people, it will at least have a chance to avoid huge
payments of compensation.
Third, Japan's new history will establish
Japan as a responsible, morally strong, passionate and
compassionate leader in the world community, and
therefore Japan should be regarded as the best candidate
for permanent seat in an enlarged United Nations
Security Council - if reform and enlargement ever
materialize.
Yet this wonderful re-creation of
history, and this very profitable grand project of
Japanese dominance - as described in the textbooks - may
not be accepted or welcomed by Japan's Asian neighbors,
such as China and Korea, who suffered profoundly in the
war.
Some Koreans chopped off fingers to show
humiliation China has already expressed its anger
against Japan concerning the new history textbooks and
South Korea also has expressed outrage and regret for
the same reasons; some South Koreans were so angry that
they even chopped off their little fingers to show that
they had been severely humiliated by Japan's new
textbooks. Still, no degree of anger, dissatisfaction,
regret or even chopped fingers appears to weaken Japan's
determination to adopt its new history textbooks.
Japan has already issued warnings that angry
reactions to its new history project would be
"counterproductive". Japan has already found a way to
push forward its grand historical-revision project and
has already found its way to force China and South Korea
to tolerate Japan's defiant actions, though they are
indignant and outraged. Why has Japan warned that the
publicly expressed anger of China, South Korea and other
Asian countries would be counterproductive, though their
anger is the authentic and justified feeling of the
Chinese and Korean and other Asian peoples toward
Japan's wartime crimes? The likely reasons:
Japan may believe that it has the right to create
its own history, in the past, present and in the future.
Japan probably believes that it is sufficiently
powerful militarily and economically in Asia and in the
world and is armed with the resources to do what it
wants in Asia, much like its US ally.
Japan has the world's most powerful country to
support it - the United States - no matter what the
situation, and it can depend on the US to support
Japan's will in Asia.
With such advantages and
feelings of superiority in mind, Japan naturally feels
that it is totally unnecessary to pay any attention to
the angry feelings of its neighbors. It can even punish
them economically by withholding assistance and economic
cooperation for their unseemly, ungrateful, public
reactions. Japan, which maintains strong ties with
Taiwan, might even play the Taiwan card and strongly
endorse Taiwan's bid for formal independence.
I
am a timid person, and my humble wisdom is that China
should realistically accept Japan's new history and laud
Japan's creativity in its transformative treatment of
history; China should praise Japan's ambitious, noble
and "kind-hearted" efforts in bringing Asia "desirable
peace and prosperity" in World War II, or China would
have suffered as much as Japan did when the Americans
finally dropped the bomb. If China does not show
appropriate appreciation, Japan might courageously and
systematically help Taiwan to assert itself and press
for formal independence. It could warmly welcome
Taiwanese leaders to Japan in case of a devastating
typhoon, meteorological or political.
Using
Japan textbooks to distract from China's problems
Moreover, Japan would blame China's anger at the new
history textbooks on Beijing's communist propaganda in
encouraging resentment against Tokyo in order to
distract people's attention from internal problems such
as corruption and unemployment. And China's communist
system could also become a potential target, assailed by
Japan as totalitarian. Obviously if China continues to
be angry and outspoken, it could pay a very high price
for its indignation.
South Koreans too could pay
a high price if they express public dissatisfaction with
Japan, for Tokyo could curtail trade with Seoul, bolster
North Korea and make Pyongyang a permanent enemy of of
the South. If Japan were determined to act, South Korea
would live forever in fear of the North, believe it or
not.
As a timid person, I don't know whether my
views on Japan's new history textbooks might be shared
by someone in South Korea or someone in China. But one
thing I know for sure is that miracles can happen in
"history": they already have been made - and remade - in
Japan.
Tang Liejun teaches English at
Qingdao University, Qingdao city, Shandong province,
China. He can be reached atcliftont@sohu.com.
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