How the Japanese Textbooks Are Distorting History

Editorial from the Asahi Shimbum, Tokyo reprinted by the Toronto Star (4-11-05):

Japan's education ministry has finished screening textbooks to be used by junior high school students beginning with the next scholastic year. Among those approved are revised history and civics textbooks written under the supervision of the Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform.

This is the second time in four years that the ministry has approved the society's textbooks.

The history textbook of four years ago devoted two pages to the myth of Yamatotakeru-no-Mikoto, the son of the legendary emperor in ancient Japan. This myth has been deleted from the just-approved textbook. Also gone is a note written by a kamikaze pilot before he flew his suicide attack during World War II.

But there is still unmistakable emphasis on the emperor system. An entire page is devoted to the conquest of the eastern provinces by Emperor Jinmu, probably a mythical figure.

The most disturbing thing about this textbook, however, is its consistent attempt to portray Japan's modern history, which has bright and dark sides, in the most self-serving light.

New sidebars have been added, saying that Japanese action inspired people in Asia and that Indonesians welcomed Japanese soldiers as liberators. The textbook also explains in great detail a conference held in Tokyo in 1943 and attended by the leaders of regions under Japanese occupation.

In contrast, the textbook's coverage of other issues, such as the invasion of China and the colonization of the Korean Peninsula, is cursory at best. No mention whatsoever is made of the tragedies of Okinawan schoolgirls who served as field hospital nurses and other Okinawan civilians who were driven to mass suicide.

Before a revision was made in the screening process, the textbook initially stated that the establishment of Manchukuo (in northeastern China) was not the doing of the Japanese Imperial Army alone, but that "local politicians" were also involved. The pre-revision textbook also said that some Koreans had welcomed Japan's annexation of their land....