Distorted history books

Japan's refusal to revise controversial history textbooks has created a furor among countries once the victims of atrocities by Japanese occupation troops during World War II. South and North Korea, and China have repeatedly condemned the new versions of the history books, which they allege are trying to cover up the brutality committed by Japanese soldiers then.

The new books do not use the terms "aggression" and "invasion" for Japan's military actions against other Asian countries. Neither do the books mention the use of more than 100,000 Asian women, mainly Koreans, as sex slaves for the wartime imperial troops.

Japan occupied the Korean peninsula for 35 years before it pulled out in 1945, while the killing of thousands of civilians in Nanjing, China, by Japanese troops in 1936 -- known worldwide as "The Nanjing Massacre" -- shocked people everywhere.

Understandably, the Korean people, both in the North and South of the peninsula, as well Chinese on the mainland and in Taiwan, are enraged by the new textbooks.

The Seoul government has ordered a number of sanctions against Tokyo to be implemented, including putting a hold on joint military exercises and student cultural exchanges, as well as canceling plans to open up its market to Japanese entertainment products, such as music cassettes and video games. A number of South Korean parliamentarians have even proposed that their government block Japan's effort to become a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council.

It is public knowledge that there are some groups among the younger generation of Japanese, including those in the Society for History Textbook Reform -- who penned the new history books -- who want to play down the grim events and ugly undertakings committed by wartime imperial troops.

For example, back in 1972, when Indonesia made a movie titled Romusha, the Tokyo government protested against the depiction of the sufferings of Indonesian forced laborers and comfort women (sex slaves) during the Japanese occupation period (1942-45). Indonesia suspended the release of the film, partly because the Jakarta government wanted to maintain good relations with Tokyo, and partly because Indonesian relied heavily on Japanese financial aid.

History is a study of mankind, recording both past glorious and inglorious events and therefore history-writing must not be distorted so that the younger and future generations can learn lessons about what must and must not be done to prevent great human tragedies from recurring.

Japan would do well to take a lesson from Germany, which has built museums in remembrance of the Holocaust victims under the Nazi's rule. In one museum in Bonn, for example, large photographs of heartrending scenes and the brutality of the Nazi troops, as well as relics from the concentration camps, are exhibited, aiming to give an insight to the younger generation of Germans about the heinous crimes committed by the Nazis.

This shows that Germany and the Germans are a great nation and people, unashamed as they are to admit the past mistakes made by Adolf Hitler and his Nazi followers. The world is also aware that is was not all Germans who were guilty of the Holocaust tragedy.

And just last week, Poland's President Aleksander Kwasniewski admitted that some groups of Poles were also guilty of the killing of Jewish people in a Polish village during the last war, a massacre blamed for decades on Nazi troops. He begged for forgiveness for that crime against humanity.

Kwasniewski's courage in admitting the grim truth is praiseworthy, because he did not distort history.

Japan and the Japanese are also a great nation and people with a long record of struggle and achievement, which now places Japan as one of the giants of Asia. What the world abhorred were the Japanese fascists and militarists who in the past committed crimes against humanity. Biased accounts of history can impair Japan's image in the international arena and its credibility as a peace-loving nation and people.

Against this backdrop, we believe, the Tokyo government will do its best to straighten out the dispute over the controversial history books with its neighbors. Because strained relations between Japan and South Korea and China will negatively affect not only the political and economic stability of the East Asia, but also of the entire Asia-Pacific region.