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Topic: Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform

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	Issues: History Textbooks (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-03)
		Textbook publishing companies first submit draft manuscripts to the Ministry, where they are reviewed by committees appointed by the Ministry in accordance with specific criteria.
		The textbook's authors and defenders argue that it restores 'common sense' to the teaching of history and is intended to provide a better balance and context for understanding Japanese history-for example, by emphasizing the international context in which the colonization of Korea occurred and by eliminating the prevailing leftist bias in history textbooks.
		The textbook's approval caused the governments of South Korea and China to raise their concerns with the Japanese government and triggered popular protests in these countries and the threat of boycotts against Japanese goods.
	www.gwu.edu /~memory/yang/new/issues/textbooks/index.html (786 words)

	Japanese history textbook controversies - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		The Japanese history textbook controversies is a series of controversies over government-approved history textbooks used in the secondary education (junior high schools and high schools) of Japan.
		The textbooks of all subjects for elementary and lower and upper secondary schools in Japan are written and published by several major private companies.
		According to the Society, there are currently eight private junior-high schools, one public school for the disabled in Tokyo, three public secondary schools and four public schools for the disabled in Ehime that use their textbook (Mainichi, September 27, 2004).
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Japanese_history_textbook_controversies (1507 words)

	Asia Times: Constitution at the heart of textbook controversy : Rental Car Reservations
		The root of this textbook controversy is the ambiguity concerning Japan's war responsibility and guilt.
		Article Nine declares that "the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as a means of settling international disputes".
		Japanese civilian leaders were generally willing to proceed with demilitarization to lessen the possibility of a social revolution and to establish their own positions.
	www.atimes.com /japan-econ/CD01Dh01.html (888 words)

	History Textbooks: For Whom and for What Purpose? (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-03)
		Both Fujioka and Nishio denounced Japanese history texts in the 1990s as "masochistic" and urged the nation to recover the national identity that, in their eyes, Japanese had lost because of the defeat.
		The leaders of the Society maintain that this textbook places a strong and healthy emphasis on "Japaneseness," a concept that includes respect for one’s ethnic ancestors, love of country, and a sense of Japan’s place in a cooperative international community.
		Nevertheless, in my view, for Japanese youth to have an accurate and balanced sense of the past, textbooks that deal frankly with World War II are essential to producing a common point of reference and understanding.
	www.aasianst.org /Viewpoints/yoshida.htm (974 words)

	ABS-CBN Interactive
		Japanese school textbooks are approved every four years by the Education Ministry following a screening process, and local school boards then decide during the summer which textbooks to adopt in their districts.
		A previous version of the history textbook, approved in 2001, was adopted by less than 1 percent of school districts, but Tsukurukai and their supporters are hoping to increase the share to 10 percent this time.
		While school boards pick the textbooks, board members are appointed by governors or mayors, which critics say leaves room for the views of the politicians to be reflected in the selection process.
	www.abs-cbnnews.com /storypage.aspx?StoryID=10337 (788 words)

	washingtonpost.com: Japanese Schoolbooks Anger S. Korea, China
		Japanese officials said they made changes to parts of the new textbooks to clarify points about Japan's colonial occupation of the Korean Peninsula from 1910 to 1945.
		The Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform, which drafted the most controversial of the new books, hailed the approvals as in step with current thinking in Japan.
		Japanese opponents said on Tuesday that they would fight adoption of the texts by local school boards.
	www.washingtonpost.com /ac2/wp-dyn/A27855-2005Apr5?language=printer (640 words)

	INSIDE JoongAng Daily (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-03)
		Manuscripts for history and social life middle-school textbooks that were submitted to the Education Ministry by Fusosha have created controversy for depicting relations between Korea and Japan in ways that depart from the facts.
		The textbook's omission of the fact that Japan forced Koreans into hard labor and sex slavery, while stating that its rule contributed to Korean modernization, amounts to an erasure of history that goes beyond distortion.
		Japanese and Korean historians and civic groups are demanding that the government correct the errors and the arrogance, in the textbooks and restore a balanced historical view.
	joongangdaily.joins.com /200503/11/200503112155007839900090109011.html (406 words)

	[No title]
		The new history textbook compiled by the Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform distorts history, publicizes "Japanese Empire History Viewpoint" and beautifies the aggressive war.
		It is the Society's textbook, THE NEW HISTORY TEXTBOOK (one of eight junior high school history textbooks authorized by the Ministry of Education in April 2001), that has caused much debate in Japan over the past year.
		Nishio insisted that "history stop being treated like a court in which the figures and actions of the past are called to judgment" (Nishio 2001, 33).
	www.lycos.com /info/history-textbook--history-textbook-reform.html (323 words)

	Textbook with amendments on colonization, Nanjing massacre approved Japan Policy & Politics - Find Articles (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-03)
		The education ministry on Tuesday approved a controversial history textbook after its authors complied with all 124 of the ministry's requests to correct misleading descriptions, toning down its apparently nationalistic content, but it is still likely to anger China and South Korea.
		Among the amendments made by the Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform were entries regarding Japan's annexation of the Korean Peninsula in 1910, the Nanjing Massacre in China and the reason Japan expanded its war to the south in the 1940s, according to the ministry.
		Japanese reactions to Tuesday's approval of the textbook varied, with some critics condemning the book for simplifying descriptions of Japan's invasion while others hailed it as moderate and appropriate.
	www.findarticles.com /p/articles/mi_m0XPQ/is_2005_April_11/ai_n13601652 (702 words)

	[No title]
		An understanding of history based on the legitimization of past war aggressions in the history textbooks, leads to the affirmation of war in the civic textbooks.
		The Japanese Government's decision on the history textbook issue is a denial and beautification of its past history of aggression and such a decision is " unacceptable," said a spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of Education Monday.
		In the history textbook prepared under the auspices of the Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform and published by Fuso-sha-the focus of most of the criticism from South Korea and China-independent historians say that many expressions, while not totally wrong, may not be totally correct, either.
	guywong.home.netcom.com /html/textbook.htm (10415 words)

	Examining the Japanese History Textbook Controversies \| Japan Digest (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-03)
		Textbooks with individuality are multi-dimensional; they are pluralistic; a pluralism must permeate them that allows teachers in the classroom to select what is most suitable for their own use.
		Because textbooks are carried into neighborhood schools and homes, and because, directly or indirectly, they carry the imprimatur of the state, they have enormous authority."(2) Richard H. Minear, Japanese historian, answers the question this way: "As a practicing historian, I encounter at every turn the power textbooks exercise over my students' minds.
		It is the Society's textbook, The New History Textbook (one of eight junior high school history textbooks authorized by the Ministry of Education in April 2001), that has caused such debate in Japan over the past year.
	www.indiana.edu /~japan/Digests/textbook.html (1790 words)

	[No title] (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-03)
		Surrounding this history textbook controversy, some of the goals I attempted to accomplish were to explore the way the Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform passes information onto students and also to investigate the relationship between information and Japanese identity/nationality.
		Those copies of the textbooks were important for the core part of this project in terms of how the reform society passes information to students as contrasted with other textbooks, and of doing discourse analysis on the subject of the Nanjing Massacre and how it is presented differently among those textbooks.
		It is still possible to examine the New History Textbook by itself for the purpose of revealing what the reform society attempts to establish through presenting their version of history; however, it is difficult to compare and contrast the textbooks in order to observe the reform society’s distinct perspective when lacking other textbooks.
	www.smu.ca /academic/arts/anthropology/Yuka_Doihara_Progress_Report.doc (1152 words)

	IMADR/Contemporary Forms of Japanese Nationalism and Racism/The Issue of Revision of Japanese History Textbook 3 (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-03)
		While the textbooks to be used at municipal schools are decided by their respective ward, town and city authorities, the metropolitan board of education is responsible for choosing textbooks for 45 schools for physically and mentally impaired children.
		The textbook, which was printed by the Fuso publishing group and edited by a group of nationalist academics omits any account of one of the sorest points among Koreans about Japan's colonial takeover: the sexual enslavement of tens of thousands of women.
		Japanese history textbooks, periodically updated under a screening system by the Education Ministry, have aroused fierce debate at home and in Asian countries invaded by Japan in the first half of the 20th century.
	www.imadr.org /attention/news2001.1-3.html (4623 words)

	History Textbook Controversies in Japan. ERIC Digest.
		The Ministry had rejected Ienaga's history textbook because it contained "too many illustrations of the 'dark side' of the war, such as an air raid, a city left in ruins by the atomic bomb, and disabled veterans" (Nozaki and Inokuchi 2000, 108).
		A conservative movement toward reform in the Japanese history curriculum was initiated in the early 1990s by Nobukatsu Fujioka and his Liberal View of History Study Group.
		With their students, American teachers might examine American textbook narratives while imagining that Mexican, Japanese, and Vietnamese scholars and students are reading over their shoulders as they teach and learn about American interpretations of the war with Mexico, the war in the Pacific, or the war in Vietnam.
	www.ericdigests.org /2003-1/japan.htm (1436 words)

	Re-writing history books: An appeal from 12 bishops of Japan
		We are deeply concerned with the official approval of new Japanese History textbooks which,by presenting Japan as a nation centered on the emperor, and using ancient myths and legends as real history, can plant jingoistic nationalism in the hearts of the young.
		Pressure must be brought on the Japanese government to stop this kind of text from being as an officially accepted junior high school history textbook.
		On 3rd of April the junior high school history textbook edited by the Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform (Chairman: Mr.Kanji Nishio) was approved by the Education Ministry screening panel.
	www.hartford-hwp.com /archives/55a/580.html (947 words)

	Ties Talk Archive > Current (At The Time) Events > Japanese Textbook Controversy
		Japan's Asian neighbours, Korea and China in particular, are upset with the (lack of particular) contents of a history textbook approved for use in Japanese junior high schools.
		So it appears the textbook was written by a small group of right-wing academics who have managed to monopolize the media in their efforts to fan the flames of nationalism.
		Not a single municipal government-run or state-run junior high school in the country adopted the textbook, compiled by the Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform and published by Fuso Publishing Inc., for use from next April, the beginning of the school year, the survey said.
	members.tripod.com /runker_room/tiestalk/textbook.htm (619 words)

	USATODAY.com - Textbook furor hits Japan (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-03)
		All schools in Japan choose their history texts from a list of seven or eight that are approved by the Japanese Ministry of Education.
		One of the authors in question recently was appointed to the Board of Education in the populous prefecture of Saitama at the governor's recommendation.
		Japanese are not particularly interested in foreign issues because of the nation's political isolation since 1945, he adds.
	www.usatoday.com /news/world/2005-04-13-china-books_x.htm?csp=34 (988 words)

	AsianWeek.com: National News: Japan Approves Controversial Textbook (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-03)
		The Japanese government said on April 3 the book — titled New History and Civics Textbook, written by nationalist scholars who defend Japan’s role in World War II — would be introduced in classrooms beginning in April 2002.
		Protesters said that the school textbook written by Japanese nationalist scholars and approved by the Japanese government justifies its invasion of South Korea and other Asian nations in the early part of the 20th century.
		Japanese officials defended the ministry decision, saying the textbook was approved because no obvious mistake or bias was found after authors agreed to revise it at inspectors’ request.
	www.asianweek.com /2001_04_13/news14_japantextbkapprovd.html (728 words)

	AsiaSource: AsiaTODAY - A resource of the Asia Society
		Though critics of the textbook are often using descriptions such as "extreme nationalism," "right-wing," and "reactionary," Japanese officials stress the fact that their government did not produce these textbooks and that the screening process was carried out fairly.
		The Distortion and the Revision of History in Postwar Japanese Textbooks, 1945-1998
		The other is to analyze the transformation of history education in terms of the rise and fall of postwar Japanese nationalism.
	www.asiasource.org /news/at_mp_02.cfm?newsid=48253 (2064 words)

	Asia Times Online :: Japan News and Japanese Business and Economy
		Fomenting nationalism among the Japanese population is a necessary development to increase support for a stronger military.
		The organization that authored the controversial textbooks, the Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform, consists of nationalist academics who are "deeply concerned by the very serious state of history education in Japan." Nobukatsu Fujioka, the vice chairman of the organization, explains that Japan is currently "educating our children using unsubstantiated, wartime, enemy propaganda.
		In light of how sensitive Japan's neighbors are to the country's history, Tokyo's endorsement of the preceding statements are bound to spark anti-Japanese nationalism in those countries that were affected by Japan's early 20th century expansion, a development we now see today.
	www.atimes.com /atimes/Japan/GD14Dh05.html (1255 words)

	Japan sanitizes its wartime history in controversial new textbook
		In April this year, the Japanese education ministry approved a controversial new textbook that critics say glosses over atrocities by the imperial army in the first half of the last century.
		According to a report to the executive committee from the Alliance's department of cooperation and witness, the right-wing attributes the growing violence in Japanese society - particularly among the young - to a lack of national pride.
		During the same period, a Japanese court ruled in favour of allowing comfort women to seek compensation from the government, some cinemas showed a Chinese film on the Nanking massacre, and school textbooks started to mention sex slaves and other uncomfortable subjects.
	www.warc.ch /update/up113/06.html (547 words)

	Conservative Japanese Textbook Authors Reject Asian Criticism
		The group responsible for writing a pair of new Japanese textbooks, which were one catalyst for an outbreak of protests in China, says its goal is to portray Japan with dignity and balance.
		Declaring that they present "facts as facts," the leaders of a group that produced two controversial Japanese textbooks are defending their works.
		Yagi says Marxism still has a tremendous influence over teachers' unions in Japan and thus history textbooks tend to depict a class struggle where the government is always bad and the people are always right.
	www.voanews.com /english/2005-05-10-voa21.cfm (447 words)

	Critical Asian Studies
		New History Textbook advances a perspective on history that is dubious, distorting, and manipulative.
		The result is to slight historical research, including the findings of Japanese researchers, and to reify, for example, Japan's aggression in Asia during the Asia-Pacific War as if official views of that era constitute the correct way for Japanese today to assess it.
		In discussing the annexation of Korea, the text states that "the Japanese government thought the annexation of Korea was needed for Japan's security and to defend its interests in Manchuria" (p.
	www.bcasnet.org /campaigns/campaign1_b1.htm (665 words)

	Appeal_001205
		Beginning in the mid-1990s, the Society initiated a campaign to criticize current history textbooks as "masochistic." The Society announced that its members would develop "history textbooks of conscience that will restore the true history of the nation." In April 2000, a draft textbook it developed was submitted to the Ministry of Education for certification.
		The aim of history education was to produce "imperial subjects" who would be utterly loyal to the emperor, and textbooks molded schoolchildren into "imperial subjects." Facts not consistent with these aims were excluded, and sheer fictions constituted the basis of Japan's history education.
		This is because Japanese historians and history educators of all ideological persuasions are united in believing that myths must not be represented as historical facts.
	wwwsoc.nii.ac.jp /rekiken/english/appeals/appeal_001205.html (999 words)

	Todd Crowell: China vs Japan
		Textbooks were more honest and frank in discussing the atrocities and abuses of the Imperial Japanese Army.
		For example, all seven junior high school history textbooks authorized in 1996 used the term “military comfort women,” referring to women, mostly Korean but also women from other occupied countries, who were pressed into serving Japanese troops.
		Not one of the eight textbooks approved this month even mentions the term “comfort women.” Moreover, some of the new civics texts that originally had referred to such contested islands as the Senkaku as being “disputed” now describe them as indisputable Japanese territory.
	www.bu.edu /globalbeat/syndicate/crowell042505.html (790 words)

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