Hollywood’s angst over depicting the attack on Pearl Harbor for the Japanese is nothing compared with Tokyo’s. For decades the country has agonized over how–and how much–to teach students about Japan’s role in World War II. On one side of the debate are Japanese educators–and some veterans–who believe children should learn the truth about all of Japan’s wartime deeds, including the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, the use of Korean “comfort women” and the Nanjing massacre. On the other side are the government and right-wing groups, which believe Japan, like other nations, has the right to teach a nationalist version of history. “Each nation has its own perception of history,” says the 1996 declaration of the right-wing Society for History Textbook Reforms.
The message that filters down to classrooms is still ambivalent. Currently there are seven government-approved history texts used in Japanese classrooms, all of which describe Pearl Harbor as a surprise attack and detail Japanese aggression in Asia during the war (though some fail to mention the Korean women forced to provide sex to Japanese soldiers). But a book approved in April by Japan’s Ministry of Education omits the fact that Pearl Harbor was a sneak attack, and even goes so far as to give the event subtle praise. As the text describes it, “The Navy task force air-raided the U.S. Pacific Fleet based at Pearl Harbor. The ships went down one by one, and the planes went up in flames. They made brilliant military achievements. The incidents were reported into the night, whipping up the Japanese public’s fighting spirits…” The book’s authors make no apologies for their nationalist bent. “Past textbooks fawned on the historical views of China and South Korea excessively,” says Akinori Takamori, one of the new text’s 10 authors.
The government can rewrite the history books, but it can’t make teachers use them. In Japan the local school districts ultimately decide what is implemented in the classrooms. And few are expected to embrace the newest text. “Some might adopt the textbook, but it will be a small minority,” says Kiroku Hanai, a retired Shumei University professor who specializes in textbook issues. Fukuoka secondary-school teacher Shunsaku Nagai wouldn’t dream of using it. “This textbook is an embarrassment to Japan,” he says. “Following the education provided by [it] would only result in Japan repeating past mistakes.” Nagai, 49, is certainly doing his part to prevent that from happening: he has visited Nanjing and taken videos of the survivors of the massacre to show his class. He also dedicates Dec. 8 as Pearl Harbor Aggressive Strike Day, and talks readily about issues ranging from Japanese mistreatment of Okinawans to the lawsuits Korean comfort women have brought against Tokyo.
For veterans of the war, the teaching of Pearl Harbor is not so much a moral question as one of honoring the past. Zenji Abe, 85, flew in the second attack wave against Pearl Harbor as a dive-bomber pilot assigned to the carrier Akagi. Afterward, he learned that the ship he hit was probably the Arizona. “It is not a matter of good or bad,” he says. “I think youngsters should be taught what happened as a fact. Throughout the history of mankind, there was no period as turbulent and important as the latter part of the 20th century. There are so many people, even including Diet members, who are ignorant about that.”
The debate has reached the office of the prime minister. Two weeks ago the newly elected Junichiro Koizumi told China that he would not order revisions of the new history book to reflect biological experiments that the Japanese performed on prisoners of war in China. “But we will take the criticism in a serious manner and try to improve Japan-China relations,” Koizumi told reporters at his official residence. The prime minister’s subtle message: this is a domestic concern. The fear among teachers and other opponents of the new text is that Koizumi’s stand will make it even more difficult to teach Japan’s wartime aggression in the classroom. Perhaps a field trip to the movies is in order.
