Japan's Teachers Union Chief Slams History Textbook [View All]

[bobbieinok]

http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200503/200503150038.html

Minei Masaya, president of Japan Teachers¡¯ Union (JTU) Institute For Education and Culture, expressed concern Tuesday about a controversial Fusosha textbook which he said gives Japanese students a distorted view of history. He said the JTU¡¯s 400,000 members would use their influence to make sure as few schools as possible adopt the text.
Masaya, in Seoul to attend a symposium on major pending policy issues in Korean and Japanese education reform, jointly sponsored by the JTU and the Korean Federation of Teachers' Associations, said the Fusosha text attempted to justify Japanese invasions and lacked self-critical awareness of Japan¡¯s actions in Korea and China.

He said the background to the Fusosha text was renascent nationalism in Japan, including discussion over whether to amend Japan¡¯s basic law on education - all of which the JTU opposes. ...

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(from a background article linked at right)

The Alliance for Asian Peace and History Education on Friday singled out problematic accounts in the revised edition of a Japanese middle school history textbook published by Fusosha Publishing Inc with the support of a rightwing group calling itself the "Society for Composing a New Textbook on History." Some of them are summarized here:

....

¡Þ 7: Koreans were grateful for their annexation by Japan

Some Korean people favored the annexation by Japan. The Japanese government-general tried to modernize Korea.¡±

¡Þ 8: The textbook offers a whitewash of Japan¡¯s conscription of Koreans and other brutalities.

The text does this by avoiding words that carry any implication of coercion, saying for instance merely that under colonial rule Koreans were "encouraged" to change their family names to Japanese ones after the Chinese-Japanese War broke out, and that Japan carried out policies to japanize Koreans.

¡Þ 9: The text emphasizes Japanese suffering

On March 10 1945, the Allied Forces¡¯ attack on Tokyo claimed 100,000 lives overnight. U.S forces landed on the main island of Okinawa and occupied it after a two month-long battle in which a total of 188,000 Japanese soldiers and civilians were killed.

¡Þ 10: China is blamed for the Manchuria Incident

The anti-Japanese movement among the Chinese grew violent, and they frequently disturbed the operation of the railways and attacked Japanese people. Chinese communists infiltrated the Kuomintang and provoked Japan into declaring a war.

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