If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

In response to Houjin`s great comment (quoted below) left on my earlier post about Yasukuni Shrine and more specifically a right-wing textbook approved for use in some schools :

“The Japanese military drove away the Western powers which had long controlled the Asian countries … Their actions awakened the long-dormant spirit of ‘making their homeland their own nation by their own hands’” The textbook Ch5 p13

I actually enjoyed (well … within reason) reading this alternative interpretation of Japanese action during the second world war … but I’m afraid they lost all credibility (for me) with that remark. I’m curious … do the Japanese actually believe that sort of rationale ?

I am genuinely curious - my Japanese friends have all been here in Korea for almost a year so, as I am sure you can appreciate, they have been (rather forcefully lol) exposed to an alternative interpretation to the one they were originally taught.

But for the average Japanese Joe, how prevalent is an alternative (genuine ?) reading of Japanese history in Japan ? It’s going to be a long road to forgiveness if they keep doing things like this I’m afraid.

This textbook I linked to is used in a real minority of schools. Very very few of the thousands of Junior high schools in Japan chose to adopt this specific nationalistic textbook written by a small minority of very vocal patriots.

Each country has their own view of history - China being a communist dictatorship uses propaganda against Japan to advance its own nationalistic end. Japan undoubtedly did some very bad things last century but in the years since then, they adopted an attitude of pacifism. The use of war is made illegal in Article 9 of their Constitution

Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes.

Whilst many Japanese seem to be very anti-Chinese - one reason (among many) being they gave (and continue to give) large loans to China which receive no thanks, few truly believe what the textbook above states. This is why so much controversy has erupted that it was approved and why so few schools are using it.

Technorati Tags: Japan, Osaka, Asia, Quaisi, Kansai, Expat, Yasukuni, Shrine, Koizumi, Textbook