Japan needs a revival in history lessons

Hideo Kobayashi, The Asahi Shimbun, Tokyo

Studies show that students in recent years have rapidly lost interest in history. Although world history and Japanese history used to be compulsory subjects in senior high school, they have now become optional, and the number of students taking those courses has fallen dramatically.

I teach at a graduate school of a private university in Tokyo, where there has been a sudden drop in the number of graduate students taking history as their main area of study. On the other hand, there are more students hoping to obtain the necessary qualifications to become diplomats or work in an international organization. They take almost no history courses.

This is because the examinations for entry into the foreign service or international organizations do not necessarily require a knowledge of the past.

Granted, it is understandable why the exams of international organizations do not require knowledge of Japanese history. But it is unclear why the Foreign Ministry exam does not question applicants about the country's history.

In the foreign service exam, the main subject is law. So applicants concentrate their studies on legal matters and have very little opportunity to read history books. So even if they pass the foreign service exam, they still have scant knowledge of history.

Previously, the foreign service exam required applicants to take a test in history of diplomacy, but this is no longer the case. As a result, there are many Japanese diplomats well versed in law, but they lack knowledge of history.

Those diplomats who only studied international law and legal techniques for conflict resolution could prove poor at their jobs because they are unable, in a real sense, to resolve international conflicts.

For example, whenever problems of wartime compensation arise, the only response the Foreign Ministry gives is that the issue was settled under the San Francisco Peace Treaty.

In theory, a solution under international law should be satisfactory. But in reality, this has not been enough, and the Foreign Ministry's attitude has paved the way for many lawsuits against the Japanese government. It has also created a political agenda on the international level that cannot be resolved by law alone. A knowledge of history is required.

Moreover, these history-ignorant diplomats are unable to interact on an equal level with their Western and Asian counterparts, who are well-versed in both law and history.

The situation is serious. Such ignorance is not confined to diplomats but permeates the entire country, from politicians to people on the streets.

Most Japanese tourists traveling in other Asian nations mainly want to try out the local cuisine and visit tourist sites. They will eat the food, view the historical monuments, and feel that they understand the country. But most of the historical sites are pre-modern-before the mid-19th century. Very few Japanese tourists will visit the post-modern sites that are evidence of Japan's colonial rule and the subsequent war.

Japanese tourists are not interested in post-modern sites because they have not learned about them at school. For example, northeastern China contains what used to be called Manchuria, an area in which Japan created a puppet state called Manchukuo.

Tourists from Japan will visit buildings and sites left by the Japanese from those times, satisfy their palate with local specialties like dumplings, and thus complete their nostalgic tour.

But very few people will venture to sites like the bizarre architecture left by the real rulers of Manchukuo, Japan's Kwantung Army. Few Japanese also go to Harbin to see the relics of Japan's Unit 731, notorious for its poison gas activities, or the Fushun War Criminal Prison, where the postwar tribunals were held.

A very limited minority take the opportunity to study Japan's modern history by seeing these wounds of World War II.

Even if Japanese tourists visit these sites, they are unable to fully comprehend their meaning without a basic knowledge of their history.

Appropriate historical knowledge is necessary to rationally contemplate why such events took place, what were the originating conditions of the situation and what is necessary to prevent a recurrence.

Without such knowledge, tourists might just end up with a very unpleasant feeling. If they are simply eager to leave those sites, they will have a difficult time coming up with ideas to prevent similar tragedies. These memorials of past wounds are often preserved by the people of the victim country so that everyone can learn from their history.

When a person from the aggressor country visits these monuments, it is necessary to place what they see in context, based on an understanding of one's own national history and an understanding of why such a thing occurred.

It is especially necessary to view these monuments not on a personal level, but on the type of system that existed to allow such a thing to happen.

Yet this is not something easily done without constant and proper studies of history. Therefore, true dialog, in the real sense of the word, with the other Asian countries will not take place without increasing the quantity of history education curricula as well as enhancing the scientific quality of history education.

It has been 60 years since the end of the war. It is about time, even if very belatedly, to start these education activities.

The writer is professor in economic history at Waseda University Graduate School of Asia-Pacific Studies.