MATERIAL: Speech at Ad Hoc Asian Meeting on Textbook by DPRK Delegation

MATERIAL

Speech at Ad Hoc Asian Meeting on Textbook

By DPRK Delegation, June 10, Tokyo

Follow the excerpts from a prepared speech read for the head of a DPRK delegation at the “Asian Urgent Solidarity Conference on Textbook Issues in Japan” which was held on June 10 and 11 in Tokyo (See the previous issue). The Japanese government did not allow the three-member DPRK delegation to enter Japan to take part in the meeting.

I think this conference, which was held before the adoption of textbooks in Japan, will be of much significance in repulsing the distortion of history textbooks by the Japanese right-wing forces who scheme to reverse the stream of history and in conveying to the Japanese people the voices of the peoples of victimized Asian countries, thus enabling the Japanese not to forget the lessons of history.

I also think this conference will contribute to further strengthening the mutual solidarity and unity among the many civilian organizations which are waging righteous drives to realize the common aim of building a peaceful Asia free from war through the settlement of Japan’s crime-stricken past.

1. Our Evaluation of the Distorted History Textbooks

As is well known, on April 3 the Japanese authority endorsed the history textbooks which were authored and compiled by the “Society for New History Textbook (Tsukurukai),” an ultra-rightist organization, despite strong opposition at home and abroad.

The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports and Technology (MECST) pointed to some expressions in the textbook to be corrected, in deference to the strong protest and pressure mounting within and without Japan. After the textbook screening, however, the textbook remained unchanged in its essence. It still distorts stark historical facts, glorifies and embellishes Japan’s past aggression, and contains contempt for other nations and particularly foreign women.

The main problems with the revised textbook are as follows:

First, the textbook is a reactionary one based on the Emperor centered view of history, which advocates “an unbroken line of Emperors reign.” This is a mixture of myths and facts, explaining the history of Japan with a deified imperial genealogy as its center, starting with a figure in the nation-building myths. Such a discourse on history justifies Japan’s domestic autocratic rules and overseas aggression. The controversial textbook prepared by “Tsukurukai” intentionally mentions the “foundation day” of Japan based on the myths, and a legendary tale of “Emperor Jinmu’s Eastern Expedition” as the first real emperor remains unchanged as it was. It is apparent that the distortion of history is intended to force on Japanese citizens an absolute allegiance to the Emperors based on ultra-nationalism and chauvinism — a reminder of old history textbooks which were compiled by the Imperial Japanese government.

Second, the textbook distorts Korean history outrageously from a colonialistic point of view which is intended to denigrate its neighbor’s long history.

Let me adduce some examples. The new history textbook fabricates history, saying that Japan had possessed its colony in the southern part of the Korean Peninsula as early as the period of the Three Kingdoms in Korea — Koguryo, Shilla, and Paekje — and that these kingdoms had paid tributes to the Yamato dynasty. Describing Korea as a nation destined to remain backward and to be determined by external factors in historical development, it justifies, or omits, historical facts about Japanese aggression against Korea, from the Middle Ages down to the present age — including Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s invasion of Korea in the 1590s and the historical processes of Japanese occupation and colonial rule of Korea.

In particular, these textbooks justify the Japanese annexation of Korea and the enslavement of the Korean people based on a ruler’s logic.

On the other hand, the history textbook ignores Korea’s cultural influences on Japan and omits or makes little account of even peacetime friendly exchanges of people and culture between the two nations which had continued long in between conflicts and wars.

Third, the textbook not only enables Japan to evade its State responsibility for war crimes but also aims to educate children on militaristic ideas by glorifying its past aggressive wars.

To say nothing of the references to the old and the Middle Ages, those to modern and present eras found in the textbook emphasize that Japan has been a great power historically and should perform its due roles, describing all aggressive wars Japan had waged against Asia as the wars to “liberate” the region from domination by Western imperialism. The stark facts about the atrocities and indescribable damage and losses that had been inflicted upon the Asians by the Imperial Japan are ignored or underestimated. No mention is made at all of the “comfort women” issue and other crimes against humanity. And, the “Military Tribunal for the Far East” itself is regarded as “illegal” in a bid to evade the Japanese State responsibility for all the war crimes it had perpetrated during the Pacific War.

Fourth, the new textbook spreads anti-DPRK sentiments.

It stresses the “threat of North Korea” as well as the alleged “suspicion of abduction of Japanese by North Korea.” This is a preposterous argument with an aim of presenting the victimized nation as a crime perpetrator.

2. Danger and True Intention of Distortions of History

As a matter of fact, the distortion of history on the part of Japan had started a long time ago. During the Japanese colonial occupation of Korea, the Japanese militarists used to censor and screen the textbooks for elementary and junior high school pupils on a regular basis, as part of the Imperial Japan’s policy to obliterate the Korean nation, by omitting whatsoever phrases which they understood seemed to cultivate anti-Japanese emotions or patriotism among the Korean people.

In the 1930s alone, Japanese imperialism mobilized pro-government historians to author and publish a “Korean History” which entirely distorted the history of Korea in an attempt to “assimilate” Koreans into Japanese and make them “subjects of the Emperor” of Japan. In the meantime, tens of thousands of books and publications which Koreans had deemed as “patriotic and progressive” were confiscated and burnt by Japan on the pretext that they would “threaten public peace and order.”

Even after its defeat in war, too, Japan did not give up its distortion of history. The right-wing groups gradually gathered their forces and began advocating that “Japan is not an aggressor”; “Japan ‘advanced’ to Asia to ‘liberate’ it from colonial rules by Europe and America”; and “There had been no ‘comfort women’ who were forcibly taken, but they were ‘public prostitutes’ who worked of their own accord for money,” and the like.

Moreover, a number of local governments of Japan adopted resolutions calling for a removal of the term “comfort women” from history textbooks, while statements justifying the wrongdoings of the past and glorifying the history of Japan came out one after another among Japanese politicians. The maneuvers to revive militarism in Japan on the part of the ultra-rightists are graphically illustrated by the case of distortion of history by the “Tsukurukai.” With no excuse can the Japanese government evade its responsibility for having given a go-ahead signal to such textbooks. This indicates that the Japanese government shares such views of history. It is a hard fact that the government of Japan has helped right-wing historians alter and falsify history, while putting pressures on those historians who have been trying to reflect the truth and facts in the textbook. It is not a coincidence that the “Fuso-sha” that published the textbook prepared by the “Tsukurukai” was allowed by the government from May 22 to sell as the first history textbook to be offered on the consumer market.

We understand that the adoption of such a textbook by junior high schools would only help to encourage the ultra-rightists and nationalists and challenge peace in Asia and in the rest of the world. It would also be a mockery of an international standard of history education as well as a serious menace to sound international relations among nations. Then, Japan would face a growing global denunciation as challenging justice and humanity.

3. Our Demand

In parallel with the emergence of such distorted history textbooks, many other dangerous moves are going on in Japan. They include the formulation of the “New Guidelines for Japan-U.S. Security Cooperation” and its relevant regulations; an explicit advocation of the “right to collective self-defense” and amendments to the peace-oriented Constitution; the recognition of official visits to the Yasukuni Shrine of Cabinet members; and so on.

We cannot construe these facts otherwise than an expression of the Japanese State’s lust for its old dream of a “Greater East Co-Prosperity Sphere.”

We, on behalf of the “Korean Committee for Compensation to the Victims During the Pacific War” and all the Korean victims of forced labor and their families, denounce Japanese rightists and nationalists including the “Tsukurukai” members as well as the Japanese government for their distortions of history, and demand:

That the Japanese government cancel immediately its approval of such history textbooks and, instead, take decisive measures to encourage the use of those textbooks which reflect objective historical facts;

That the Japanese government recognize its political and moral responsibility for having defamed the dignity of our country and the rest of Asia and caused another breach in the basis of international relations, and apologize;

That those who have debased the dignity of women as “comfort women” and other victims of forced labor during the Pacific War be punished in an appropriate way.

It is a common task not only of all the Asian victims of Japanese aggression and criminal acts but also of the international community to frustrate such schemes to distort history on the part of the Japanese government and reactionary forces, and have them recognize the gravity of their crimes.

We will be always with those people in the global village who honor and love justice, truth, international law, and humanity, and keep contributing to building an Asia free from the threat of war and in peace.

Thank you very much.

Back Home