h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Incidentally, I don't want people thinking the above is a crude anti-Japanese grump. The Japanese are certainly largely decent people. The problem is that their political elite have hidden their past from them and they have not had a proper period of reflection and 'moving on' as Germany has. The fact that the West imposed stupid restrictions on Japan (the pacifist constitution, the denigration of their armed forces to a 'defence force' of a few tens of thousands) coupled with the atomic bombings meant that they were pushed into feeling defensive.

There seem to be two issues that need separating here.

On the one hand, Japan's need to come to a proper reckoning with its past after the fashion of post-war Germany.

On the other hand, China's hypocritical position in view of its own refusal to allow its people genuinely free debate about any aspect of its own past ... or present, for that matter.

The "proper period of reflection and 'moving on'" which was so successful in Germany was so successful in West Germany, it should be said. In East Germany, the 'approved' (and incontestable) school textbooks told a rather different story, one in which heroic communists battled with fascists and the holocaust was largely ignored. If negotiations with history don't take place in a climate of free enquiry, their accuracy or otherwise is wholly besides the point.

Given that the Japanese PM has apologised it will be interesting to see how much the Chinese persue things and if anyone gives any support or stays well out of it...

China and Japan having a stormy relationship which occasionally flares is an unfortunate old standard in politics as are many others England France etc. Japan don't really have the right to cover over their past but neither do China really have anything to crow about either. Pot and kettle. I'd love to read how China talks about former Tibet in their history books, if at all. That however is a whole different thread....


Given that Japan is a freer place to be than China, its surprising that it is trying to cover over something that it really would be better off being more open about. I suspect they it might be quicker to climb to the top of their Mount Fuji of moral high ground than it would be for the Chinese. I think that openness for any government is difficult, for us all, but for the Japanese could be a tricky one indeed. The beauty of the place is down to its insularity. There is also a massive pride to be Japanese, and in a lot of cases, they should be proud. Stuff like what did happen is shameful and dents that pride but they should be honest about what has passed that was bad and move on i say.

Especially before i go on too much and start reminiscing about the food.....mmmmmmm.......

I live in Tokyo and have for 8 years and I have to say I'm generally appalled at the lack of knowledge of Japanese history most Japanese exhibit for the years 1915 to 1945. It is one thing not to dwell on the unsavory aspects of the nation's past, but to pretend, on in some cases insist, that they never happened is reprehensible.
Japan deserves to be held to a higher standard than China forthe simple reason that it claims to be a modern democracy. We all know China to be a repressive totalitarian state that carefully controls information and public speech. Japan claims to be free, but carefully controls public speech just as China does, though not through the same means.

Just as much? Strikes me that there's a big difference.

The Japanese government doesn't control the press and public speech in the same way or to the same degree as the Chinese government, but free speech and access to information is limited here in more subtle and insidious ways. And therein lies the dangerous bit. "Everyone Knows" (tm, pat. pending) that China is a repressive state and that speech and information there is regulated by the cental government and therefore much of what they say can be disregarded as nonsensical rhetoric (lovely revolutionary jargon-like epithets such as "imperialist running dog lickspittles") - The impression people have of Japan is quite different. It is thought of by most people as being a western style democracy with an uncensored free press and freedom of speech. And, on paper, it is. However, the reality is very different.

The same party has been in power since the war (with a brief year long hiccup in the late 80's or early 90's) a quarter to a third of the seats in Parliament are essentially hereditary. The degree of self censorship and editorial spin in the press as compared to Western countries is mindboggling (I work for a newspaper here and it does my head in on a regular basis). Add to that the Kisha (press club) system that keeps a tight rein on the flow of information and a bureaucracy that is expert at stonewalling and refusing to provide access to information even when ordered to by the courts, the purposeful misinforming of the population through the education system and mass media and the accepted practice of using the Yakuza and right-wing militants to intimidate media outlets.
It may not be North Korea or China, but it isn't Britian, Canada, Australia or the United States either.

Didn't some recent research highlight a similar lack of knowledge by British youth about modern British history?

Unfortunately, historical revisionism happens everywhere. There are people trying to do it in my country (the US). They blame liberals for making kids "hate America" (as they put it), so they want to change the textbooks. I guess the same thing could be happening in Japan. Their economy is a wreck, & people feel alienated. The Right-wingers are obviously trying to cash in on this in Japan. I think it's better to tell people the truth, even if it is bad. But some people want to whitewash everything.

Tammy

It is quite disturbing that these things are glossed over in history books, but what country doesn't tell history its own way? I have never seen the US internment camps for people of Japanese (or any Asian) descent during WWII mentioned in any American text book, I even went to one (American) school once where it was claimed that slavery in the US is a myth because "Americans would never stoop that low"... Maybe the demonstrations are just a safety valve for the Chinese population who can't safely complain about their own government... I have a Chinese friend who only dared tell me what she thought of Chinese politics when we were alone on a boat somewhere off the coast of Denmark where absolutely nobody could listen... Hate of the Japanese is apparently taught there systematically like it was here (Germany) during WWII... Quite disturbing, all in all...

from the grade 11 Social Studies curriculum (a mandatory subject) in Alberta, Canada (fairly typical of the country):

'What were the effects of the First and Second World Wars on individual and collective rights and freedoms? (i.e., internment of Canadians of a variety of ethnic backgrounds during world wars, growth of centralized government, status of women, War Measures Act, status of Aboriginal war veterans, conscientious objectors)'

and, concerning the internment of Ukrainian Canadians (taught in grade 10): http://www.ukrweekly.com/Archive/2000/470020.shtml There is also a moving monument in the heart of Banff National Park commemorating the Ukrainian internment.


As well, the novel Obasan which describes the internment of Japanese Canadians during WWII is part of the Language Arts curriculum.


Yes, every country tells history in its own way. Do people in other countries really feel so insecure in their national identity that they have lie about their country's past mistakes?

oops! I left out a link for that first quote. While looking for it I noticed that the Japanese internment is covered in the Grade 8 curriculum here, as well: http://www.education.gov.ab.ca/k_12/curriculum/bySubject/english/grade8.pdf

(page 33 of that pdf file)

Now I've got to find that other link.

Here we go: http://www.education.gov.ab.ca/surveys/socialstudies/ss20-2-pofs.pdf

Sorry, sorry, mea culpa, I of course meant US-American books... I know it must annoy all Canadians (and Mexicans, and anyone in South America) that everyone says America when they mean the US... The first (and only) mention I've seen of it there was not in a school book but in Cricket magazine...

I think it's a deeply human trait to put oneself in the best light possible and let someone take the blame for any mistakes... We're still a long way from coming to terms with our national history here, and I won't claim that our history books are 100% unbiased, as they are written by human beings, but everyone has realized that ignoring the atrocities won't make them go away, but that we should be rebuilding our credibility as a nation rather than still going around appointing the blame... Having the WWII generation diminishing might be dangerous in that we might forget, but it also allows us to make a clean break...
I always say that while Hitler lost the war, the Geramn people won it, or at least won their freedom back...

Sadly, the Japanese seem to be missing out on that option, as are the Chinese, one must be sorry and admit to one's mistakes before one can be forgiven and get on with things...

'I think it's a deeply human trait to put oneself in the best light possible and let someone take the blame for any mistakes'

Yes, you're probably right. It seems to me (and to those who put together the Alberta curriculum), however, that part of 'the best light' is honesty. As I've tried to explain countless times on various threads, acknowledging that we are the heirs of all of the rights and wrongs of the past does not mean that we are ourselves guilty of the wrongs or responsible for the rights. But those alive today benefit or lose as a result of those past rights and wrongs: if we don't acknowledge our inheritance we are pulling a shadow about us rather than shining a light.






(I didn't even notice the 'American' thing. When I say 'U.S.' I mean 'U.S.' When I say 'American' I mean someone or something from the 'U.S.' When I say 'America' -- no wait. I don't use that word much as it doesn't really seem to be too useful. I'll say 'North America', 'South America', 'Meso-America', 'Central America', 'Latin America', but rarely 'America'. If someone else uses 'America' I assume that 'U.S.' is meant if the person is from the U.S. If the person is from somewhere in the Eastern Hemisphere I'll just ask what the he11 they mean.)

Wise words, anhaga...Unfortunately, there are also many people willing to take advantage of weaknesses others admit to... In the great game of evolution, you don't willingly make yourself weaker than you are...
In the time I spent in the US, I was often told I had no say because "you lost the war, I won the war" even thoguh neither of us had been born then! I was getting a bit tired of the tendency to try to make me feel guilty about or responsible for my ancestors...

Malabarista said: "I even went to one (American) school once where it was claimed that slavery in the US is a myth because "Americans would never stoop that low"... "

Yikes! Who ran this school, David Irving? Ayran Nations? Michelle Malkin? Where was it? Obviously it could not have been a public school.

Malabarista said: <>

American textbooks are more commonly 'fessing up to the Japanese camps, like Manzinar, in California; but very few Americans even know about the German-American camps in Maine, New York and Texas, and the Italian-American one in Montana (there may be others I haven't heard of). The towns which "hosted" these camps know, but don't mention them much. The Japanese internment, however, has been debated in Congress over the issue of reparations, as has the topic of reparations for slavery. The others, not at all, that I know of, possibly because the numbers involved were smaller.

On the other hand, I have no idea what American school Malabarista went to, but slavery is very definitely mentioned, (even back when I went to school, sometime before the last ice age ). It may be shrugged off as a "they didn't know any better" or "everyone was doing it" but it was/is mentioned quite frequently. And there is no college in this country which doesn't have a humanities course on African-American history.

I think that there is such a thing as National embarrassment, to greater or lesser degrees; makes it much harder to own up to bad judgement in the long run.

SC

Okay, that was a very extreme example from a *very* conservative Baptist school I went to for about 2/3 of a year... The only black person in the history book was Nelson Mandela, and he was considered evil for rising against his natural rulers or something along those lines... The same school tried to use math class to discredit the theory of evolution, because, after all, earth is only 4000 years old

The point I'm trying to make though, is that ALL countries have selectively edited history boks, because the people writing them can enver be completely neutral. The Japanese are going to an extreme by omitting the facts, but every historian values things differently... It just goes to show, if you want to be informed, never get your information from only one source.

Here's a little something I came across that is vaguely related to this discussion:

'"I think we don't need to gloss over anything," said Bruce Poulin, of the Royal Canadian Legion. "It's important to portray the realities and the history that in fact made Canadians who they are today."'

http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2005/05/03/war-musuem050503.html

chicken fried rice anyone ok i guess not .