How is WWII presented in Japanese schools; particularly, the events surrounding Pearl Harbor and the bombing of Hiroshima?
I’ll admit I haven’t read the original Japanese textbooks, but based on things I’ve heard, the Japanese education system presents a different viewpoint on WWII than the American education system does.
Japanese schools teach that WWII was not an “immoral” war - it was an ordinary war fought for legitimate reasons which Japan lost because its enemies had greater resources. The Japanese plans to acquire overseas territories was no different than the European or American plans to do the same. The Nazis were evil but Japan had to ally with them for practical reasons; just as the United States allied with Stalin. The declaration of war against the United States and its allies was a legitimate response to American economic sanctions which were intended to harm Japan. Pearl Harbor was a legitimate attack on a military target. No mention is made of atrocities performed by Japanese soldiers. The atom bomb was a terrible attack against unarmed civilians. And the emperor wisely decided to end the war in order to protect his people from further attacks.
Plus, prime minister Tojo and the other Japanese leaders who were executed for war crimes by the Americans are still referred to as “martyrs”.
And the massive rape of women, testing of biological and chemical weapons on civilians, beheadings of prisoners for sport, and other incredibly numerous atrocities were all part of the sacred and honorable Bushido code and really just good clean fun.
Oddly a fascinating an (seemingly) fair book on the subject is ‘Flyboys,’ a central figure in the book is George Bush (the real one, not the one we have now).
After about fifteen years of war, the Japanese released all the Chinese prisoners it had. They had less than fifty. Pretty well sums it up.
My Chinese buddy tells me that if you talk to the WWII generation of Chinese, like his mother, you can still find people who pretty much think the Japanese are the devil, which isn’t so suprising, considering all the things mentioned above.
I’ve heard the same thngs about the presentation of the war from in Japanese schools. Even Dave Barry touches on it in “Dave Barry Does Japan”, in which he gets serious for a moment and bemoans the lack of introspection that even the Hiroshima rememberances cause. According to him, there’s an attitude that one day the Americans appeared from the sky and for some reason almost unknown decided to commit a bit of genocide.
This all ties into the insulated attitude he found and that I’ve heard about from other sources. What other country has very prominent politicians thinking maybe they can get away with blatantly racist statements? (I don’t mean that many of them do it, but some of the quotes reported are of the kind no American or European would think would fly in public even a little.)
I don’t remember this. Is this on a mainstream textbook? There was at least one revisionist textbook that was certified by the government (causing much controvarsy and protest from other governments), but last I checked, this book wasn’t adopted by any public school.
I went to Japanese public schools through junior high school, and I don’t remember learning much about the motives and causes of WWII. 20ch century history is not a major part of their history textbooks, and the section on WWII focused on the pain and suffering caused by the firebombing of Tokyo and the atomic bombs. A big deal is made of the post-war constitution, creating the impression that Japan, having experienced war, realized war is evil and vowed never to let it happen again. At least that’s the overall impression I took away. I admit history wasn’t exactly my best or favorite subject and I probably missed a lot they tried to teach me.
I suppose you have a cite for this? :rolleyes:
This suggests schoolchildren are taught some level of contempt for their own constitution, which forbids war as a foreign policy option.
Does anyone know how respected the current Japanese constitution is by the population? Is it still pretty much the post-war document imposed by MacArthur & Co., or has it undergone sufficient revision to be conisidered of Japanes origin?
The level of respect seems high to me, including in the mass media. Article 9 is the part that forbids war, and a lot of people stand up for this. For example, there is usually a fuss any time that Japan sends soliders for whatever reason (as in Iraq), since some (rightly, I think) see this as a violation of Article 9.
Scr4 and Nemo have made excellent points. I would also agree that Japan was not the devil in WWII, at least not in terms of its intentions and goals. It was a country with an arrogant attitude and was by no means altruistic to its enemies, but it was no Third Reich. We tend to lump them together as equally evil simply because we were fighting them at the same time.
Japan treated its POWs poorly but was overall not too horrible to civilians. Keep in mind that the Rape of Nanking (which was genuinely a great evil but still atypical for the Japanese army), occurred in 1937, four years before Japan entered WWII. Now, I’m not going to excuse the use of comfort women and the use of slave Chinese and Korean labor on the mainland, but its nothing close to what Germany was up to.
My impression is that the Japanese teach their kids as little about WWII as possible and avoid it in school curricula. In general, Japanese are extremely ignorant of history and have an extremely meager understanding even of the general dates things happened (this is partially due to their having used their own dating system for so long). Yeah, trying to find introspection Japan is a toughie.
Just to throw in an anecdote: I asked a Japanese student at my school if his school portrayed the WWII Japanese in a positive light. He simply responded: They had no morals. How could the school make that positive? FTR, he had 3 years of American education in him at this point, so it is plausible that the issue was avoided in Japan and he formed his opinion from what he learned in America. He did, however, object to the portrayal of the Japanese in movie Pearl Harbor.
I’m aware of those war crimes. I’m questioning your claim that these are portrayed in Japanese texbook as “all part of the sacred and honorable Bushido code and really just good clean fun.” I don’t remember any textbook trying to defend or justify such actions. They do try to ignore those issues, yes, but that’s a far cry from what you implied.
I would concede that Kamikaze attacks are sometimes portrayed as honorable. But that’s not a war crime, is it?
But if you accept the contention that the American oil embargo was an attack against Japan than it’s possible to argue that Japan was acting in self-defense. After all, back in the 1970’s when OPEC declared an oil embargo against the US, there were people saying we should invade them.
Whahahaha! Another pseudoacademic imbecile attempting to play the “cite” game. I love you guys. Too stupid to know what a citation is actually used for in an actual academic setting, you simply throw it out there whenever you are embarassed, confused, or stammeringly conquered, hoping to create a rhetorical smokescreen to hide behind. I’m switching your cite request up top, so that I can have some fun. I’ll give you a “cite,” as soon as you give me good cites for the following . . .
Oh, and since we are requesting “cites” for non-factual analysis and data, as you misued the form, please give me cites for why the textbook was “revisionist,” and how a nation-state, such as Japan, being a non-individual entity, can “realize war” is anything.
Cool down, Sly Frog. scr4 explained the request for evidence of your claim 25 minutes before you posted–and it was a legitimate request. Do you actually have evidence that the Japanese schools teach what you posted?
This is a separate issue from the historical situation surrounding the rise of the Bushido code and its application in WWII (or China). Even granting a certain correspondence between your flip post and the factual reality, you have not actually demonstrated that the schools really teach what you claimed (which is the question posted in OP).
(And getting into some sort of prescriptivist harangue over the use of “cite” wins you no points. Cite has a very clear meaning as it has been used on internet message boards and usenet groups prior to the web that has clearly branched off from the original academic meaning. Since it is now in common use by several million speakers (typists, posters) around the world, the word now has an additional meaning that was used correctly by scr4.)
By “revisionist textbook” I was referring to the one published by the Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform. If you Google with that name you will find many news stories describint the controversy (example). Actually I see the final, approved version removed some of the more extreme claims so it may be technically incorrect to call it “revisionist,” but it’s still a ridiculously nationalistic book.
Did I ever fucking actually say that Japanese schools teach what I posted? For the sake of your own stupid argument, if I had said that, do you think it is actually possible to state as certain fact, as a datapoint, that a school teaches as hazy a concept as that stated?
No, that’s exactly the problem. It does have a clear meaning in academia. It does not have a clear meaning when used by the morons on bulletin boards that try to get away with it because they have a liberal arts degree from Wacatomy Tech and saw the term used but never grasped its use.
Instead, it’s a bullshit response used by idiots when they want to attack a post but don’t have much to say. Only a moron would need help understanding why asking someone to “cite” to opinion, analysis or extrapolation from data, for example, is pointless.
I think it comes from the numerous hack historians using message boards who believe that reading someone else’s analysis and opinion in a secondary source is how one does research, and that one “cites” to such secondary sources in making arguments.
Newsflash, opinion is opinion. Unless I want to make the specific point that a secondary source author came up with a specific line of analysis or opinion, I don’t cite to a secondary source. For god’s sake, it’s just painful.
SlyFrog, the OP asked how WWII is presented in Japanese schools. In response you made a very specific claim:
If you know of a specific textbook or teacher that tried to justify war crimes by referring the Bushido code, that would be a valid cite. Without such a cite I find this claim very difficult to believe in, because it goes against what I know about Japanese culture and Japanese schools. If it was a joke or hyperbole I found it highly offensive, especially since it wasn’t clearly indicated as such.
Actually, yes, you effectively did. The OP specifically asked what was taught in schools. Little Nemo provided one view of what was taught in schools. Lumpy added an additional societal viewpoint that, it could be legitimately inferred, carried over into what is taught in the schools. You then chipped in with your own “contribution” that made no distinction between the attempts at factual answers and what you now claim was an opinion. Therfore, a citation that the schools actually teach that various atrocities are just good clean fun (or even that Bushido is taught as an “sacred and honorable” code) is an appropriate request.
You also might want to tone down your overall hostility. This is *General Questions (where we deal with factual answers) not IMHO where you might be encouraged to simply pop off on any topic that enters your head. There is no rule against expressing opinions, here, but couching those opinions in abusive language does nothing to promote the exchange of facts.
I will say I didn’t read all the threads on the question, but I will add in my two cents. To understand the Great Empire of Japan (As it was known) in WWII you have to take in several different factors.
- Since the humiliation of the Japanese when the western world (Namely America) forced the island out of isolation, the Japanese came to the conclusion that since the western powers were too advance they must learn from them then attack.
- After advancing from their Feudal age and becoming a strong global economic power(Only after 40 years). The focus was shifted to the military. During this period the youth of japan was rightly brainwashed and put through basic military training from kindergarden to the army. Also much of the military strategists studied German manuvers believing they were the best. (Obviosuly creating lots of built up tension. Forced to study and walk in lines and play kill.) Also the Japanese ideology that they are nothing compared to the emporer and all others are evenless then themselves.
- This lead to many horrors met at the hands of the Japanese army. The Rape of Nanjing (The southern capitol of China) where over 300,000 people were murdered raped beaten and tourchered in the most greusome of fashions. The thousands of ‘relief homes’ for soilders made up of kidnapped korean, chinese, vietnamese and phillipino women. Not to mention the occupation of Korea, Pearl Harbor, etc etc etc.
- But most info on these things are hard to find and not discussed in most american schools since we became bestest friends with Japan. Japan didn’t even pay reperations for the war crimes it commited, America bailed them out. But Japan is required by law to teach its students about ww2 and such horrors as the rape of nanjing etc… Thats summed up pretty well…I think…