Japan has squarely faced its past and deeds
Japan has squarely faced its past and deeds
Yutaka Iimura, Jakarta
The Jakarta Post editorial Courage to Face History (April 20,
2005) in which the newspaper mentioned "Japan is still not being
fully honest with facts of history," and "it seems Japan is
still incapable of facing up to itself" fails to present a
complete picture of what is at issue. Here are some of our
thoughts on the subject.
Japan has squarely faced its past and its deeds during the
World War II and has been making utmost efforts to build with the
neighboring countries a future oriented relationship based on
mutual trust. This is our outstanding policy approach, on the
basis of which Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, on April 22,
2005, at the Asian-African Summit here in Jakarta, referred to
"feelings of remorse and heartfelt apology always engraved in
mind" when he discussed issues arising from World War II.
The editorial piece also contains discussions on Japanese
textbooks. It seems that a brief but accurate explanation of the
concept and policy of Japan's textbook approval system might be
useful for better understanding and more constructive discourse.
The textbook approval guidelines suggest that in describing the
modern history of relations between Japan and the neighboring
Asian counties, textbooks should give due consideration to the
perspective of international understanding and cooperation.
In Japan, unlike some other countries, the government does not
sanction any particular view of history in the process of
approving a history textbook. The sole purpose of the textbooks
approval system is to check the error of textbooks according to
the academic standard of the day. Therefore, the government is
not in position to request the correction on the authors'
historical interpretation, and history textbooks thus approved
are not to be taken as in any way reflecting the government's
views on history.
Furthermore, each local education committee can choose the
textbook to be used from among several available books, written
by different scholars and published by competing publishers. For
example, a junior high school history textbook (one of the eight
books available to choose from) that was particularly criticized
in some countries had adoption rate (market share) of only 0.108
percent according to the latest statistics.
The Instruction Guidelines published by the Ministry of
Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology suggest that
students should be taught to understand the path that led to the
War and the calamity the War brought to all mankind, with
particular reference to Japan's relations with neighboring
countries of Asia.
Suggestion that Japan is not fully honest with facts of
history is an unfounded criticism which can only mislead.
The writer is Ambassador of Japan for Indonesia.