What Japanese History Lessons Leave Out

BBC Magazine ^ | 2013 | Mariko Oi

[GoldenState_Rose]

Japanese people often fail to understand why neighbouring countries harbour a grudge over events that happened in the 1930s and 40s. The reason, in many cases, is that they barely learned any 20th Century history. I myself only got a full picture when I left Japan and went to school in Australia.

Former history teacher and scholar Tamaki Matsuoka holds Japan's education system responsible for a number of the country's foreign relations difficulties. "Our system has been creating young people who get annoyed by all the complaints that China and South Korea make about war atrocities because they are not taught what they are complaining about," she said.

"It is very dangerous because some of them may resort to the internet to get more information and then they start believing the nationalists' views that Japan did nothing wrong."

Meanwhile, Japan's new Prime Minister Shinzo Abe criticises China's school curriculum for being too "anti-Japanese".

My first ever essay in English was on the Rape of Nanjing. There is controversy over what happened. The Chinese say 300,000 were killed and many women were gang-raped by the Japanese soldiers, but as I spent six months researching all sides of the argument, I learned that some in Japan deny the incident altogether. Nobukatsu Fujioka is one of them and the author of one of the books that I read as part of my research.

"The Chinese government hired actors and actresses, pretending to be the victims when they invited some Japanese journalists to write about them. "All of the photographs that China uses as evidence of the massacre are fabricated..."

Equally, Japanese people often find it hard to grasp why politicians' visits to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine - which honours war criminals among other Japanese soldiers - cause quite so much anger.

[otness_e]

As much as I want to agree with you that the Japanese should at the very least acknowledge the rape of Nanking, the problem is that we’ve already got a few Japanese who want the dark sides of their culture to be exposed specifically to promote a radical left-wing, globalist view to be imposed on Japan and are pretty much anti-American in their outlook.

Case in point: Hideo Kojima, the guy who created the Metal Gear series. Part of the reason why he created Metal Gear Solid 2 was supposedly because of the Japanese textbook controversies, with his taking the view that the darker aspects of Japan’s war time record be exposed for future generations to judge. And in his games, he promoted anti-Americanism since MGS2, and has also since at least MGS4 promoted total anarchy, Che Guevara (and this is despite the fact that had Che Guevara had his way back during the Cuban Missile Crisis, let’s just say Japan would probably have to suffer through Hiroshima and Nagasaki AGAIN) and May 1968 in France, LGBT politics, and a whole slew of left-wing revolutionaries in his games, denouncing the concept of national borders and also denouncing nukes or having a standing army, oh and also denouncing Guantanamo Bay. He’s actually given love to the FSLN and MPLA in his games as well. Heck, in various interviews, he makes clear he adheres fully to hard left-wing politics, at one point actually giving the hand sign of that Red Commando group in Brazil.

I’ve also seen similar stuff in Resident Evil, where in RE5 they had Chris Redfield, the hero, pretty much denounce America and Capitalism when meeting Sheva Alomar (though I’m not entirely sure whether they make any pot shots against Japan).

Now, if they have people wanting to expose the darker aspects of Japan WITHOUT the intention of basically turning Japan into yet another American education complex teaching hatred of their own country and advocating for left-wing politics, I’ll support it. Until then, them still having some pride in their country is the best I can get for now, even if they DO hide their darker elements. At least it beats Germany deciding because they’re guilty of Nazism in the past that they must allow free access to Syrian invaders despite it being very obvious that they have no intention of actually assimilating.