An Interlude

"These things happened. They were glorious and they changed the world... and then we fucked up the endgame."

This is a quote by Texas Congressman Charlie Wilson displayed at the end of the 2007 film Charlie Wilson's War. I definitely recommend this movie--outstanding performances by Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, and Philip Seymour Hoffman--but the purpose of this post is not a review.

The above quote was made in response to the incredible success of covert Operation Cyclone during the Soviet War in Afghanistan, and the successive reluctance by the United States to support the Afghani people after the Soviets withdrew from the region. In the film (I'm still looking for factual corroboration), Charlie asks for $1 million to rebuild schools for the overwhelming number of child refugees. Though this sum is marginal compared to the billions the US government ultimately used toward supplying weapons against the Soviets, the other government officials in the room laugh at Charlie and tell him that no one cares about schools in Afghanistan.

The Past Now is primarily about the education of history. Still, I wanted to share the thoughts that the final minutes of this movie provoked. Without schools there can be no education; without education it is hard to come by history education; without comprehensive history education it is difficult to grasp how past events have affected present culture, society, government, economics...and how these past events will continue to affect the future.

Over the years I have come to realize just how lucky I am for the economic and biological opportunity to receive the excellent education that I do, but I have also come to understand how people who do not have the same opportunities are no less deserving of them. I am not yet an expert on American conduct militarily versus humanitarily, but I do know that the Soviet War in Afghanistan was neither the first nor the last time we fought our own enemies in foreign lands, only to leave our allies to fend for themselves afterward. Arguably, this very pattern allows the Hitlers and Bin Ladens of the world the perfect springboard.

But I want to hold our government and our people to a higher standard. If we claim to offer aid because we believe in their cause and we want to help them, than that is exactly what we should do: help them. Not pull out when we no longer have anything to gain, and not help them become dependent on us so we gain more. I believe that these people want to help themselves, and I believe the best way to help them help themselves is with education.

Admittedly, I am an idealist.

--K

A Different Blog

Just ten minutes ago I stumbled upon this New York Times blog post from 2007 about the ulterior purposes of textbooks. I haven't had time to read all of the comments and explore all of the links yet, but it struck me as a potentially valuable resource because the author Patrick J. Lyons looks beyond sugar-coating history. He also examines how some nations like Israel use textbooks that are perhaps overly-graphic and how Taiwan began to use semantics in its history texts to assert independence from China. Further, there are 58 comments on this single post. When I read all of these responses later I'm hoping to find some new perspectives and maybe even some new current events to look at. Anyway, I'll post soon after I get a chance to look at this blog more in depth.

Keep reading!

--K

A Personal Story

My grandfather (through marriage, but he was the one I grew up with) was a four-star general in the US army. Though I had known this my entire life, I never made an effort to talk to him about his experiences in the many wars he was a part of. He passed away about two years ago, but after studying the Vietnam War in my history class, I was prompted to ask my grandmother about his army career. To my surprise, I discovered that not only had he served in North Africa during World War II and seen the liberation of Dachau, but that he had served four tours in Vietnam during the course of the conflict. Not only that, but following his extensive army service, he attended Oxford University and wrote a thousand-page thesis on the Vietnam War. I felt like an awful history student--and an even worse granddaughter--that I had not asked my grandfather about his life and experiences while he was alive. Still, I begged my grandmother to send me any of his papers that she could. While she couldn't copy the extremely long paper from Oxford, she did send me many articles and photographs about my grandfather's military career, particularly his service in Vietnam from the French occupation of Indochina to the end of the conflict.

The funny part: when I called to thank her profusely, she stopped me and said, "You know that we won the war." Now, my grandmother in her later life became a staunch Republican and a very opinionated old woman with a stubborn streak. (Don't even think about bringing up Clinton unless you have a few hours to listen to her talk.) I love her to death, but I wasn't sure how to respond. She said, "They'll try to tell you we didn't, but the North Vietnamese--you know we talk with them about it now--say we had them beat at the Tet Offensive, and if we had followed them across the border, we would have done it." And finally, "I don't know what they're teaching you in those schools, but you can tell your teacher to call me, and I'll give him a piece of my mind." And on and on for a few more minutes.

Although it is always amusing to listen to my grandmother speak her mind, this time it did make me stop and think--and it made me wish even more that my grandfather was still alive. Because it may very well be that America has not had enough distance from the Vietnam Conflict to teach it objectively. My current textbook takes a very anti-Cold War tone, and perhaps America should not have involved herself in Vietnam. Still, is it wrong to also look at the war from a military point of view? Is it possible that my grandmother is right, that we could have won? I find myself unsure. Perhaps the answer lies somewhere in the subjective realm of history, but if so, who gets to decide how events like these are taught? And how will the different hypothetical teachings of these topics affect future events?

I suppose these are just more unanswered questions to add to my list.

--K

A Source: An International Article

This article, compiled from the Associated Press in Kyodo, examines the demands by the Okinawa Prefectural Assembly that the Japanese government relax censorship of history textbooks. Specifically, the Assembly was protesting the removal of phrases in a new textbook that whitewash the responsibility of Japanese soldiers in the suicides of Okinawa civilians. The article focuses on the actions and opinions of the Assembly but also includes counterarguments of the Japanese government. The Associated Press is a reputable news agency, and accordingly avoids bias in this article. Additionally, the fact that the article was reproduced in The Japan Times (indicating a local intended audience) suggests to the researcher that Japanese nationalism and censorship does not extend into the news. As the article was written less than a year ago, it offers a pertinent current day connection to this research topic.

Okinawa Slams History Text Rewrite." The Japan Times 23 June 2007. 6 Jan. 2008. http://www.japantimes.co.jp.

You can find this article here, or in the sidebar.

A Source: A Firsthand Analysis

Professor Saburo Ienaga is an author of Japanese history textbooks and thus has frequently faced the Japanese government and their policies of textbook certification. Ienaga alternately explains the history behind textbook censoring and examines the effects of the censoring on the Japanese public, effectively walking a foreign reader through his thesis that teaching children that war is glorious is inaccurate and potentially dangerous. He offers his own encounters with the Ministry of Education as proof of the extreme changes authors must make in textbooks to get them approved for distribution. Ienaga looks not only at what the government ignores, but increasingly what they require be added: namely, biographies of Japanese war heroes that further promote nationalism and militarism. While Ienaga says he is not worried that militarism will reach its pre-World War II levels, he warns against the growing veneration for the emperor and the increase in authoritarianism. Ienaga’s essay offers a first-hand account of the censorship discussed in the New York Times and Japan Times articles discussed in previous posts.

Ienaga, Saburo. "The Glorification of War in Japanese Education." International Security 18.3 (1994): 113-133. Glenbrook North High School. 13 Jan. 2008. http://www.jstor.org.

Unfortunately this article is only available with a subscription to JSTOR; however, it is very valuable and worth reading if you can track it down.

A Source: An American Article

In this substantive article written seven years ago, French addresses the goals of the Japanese government to instill nationalism in their populace. He examines the use of pop culture, symbolism, and textbook censoring to demonstrate the vast control that the ultraconservatives are exercising to return patriotism and pride to the nation. Additionally, French quotes people from a variety of demographics expressing the opinion that the Japan of today need not regret the actions of the past. French also looks briefly at the opposition to the government censorship both domestically and in other East Asian nations, yet he avoids bias with a professionalism worthy of the reputable New York Times. While French focuses more on government control of history, the article from The Japan Times looks more at opposition to textbook censoring.

French, Howard W. "Japan's Resurgent Far Right Tinkers with History." The New York Times 25 Mar. 2001. 11 Jan. 2008. http://www.nytimes.com.

You can find a copy of this article by clicking on the link in the sidebar, or here.

A Source: A Lesson Plan

Gail Desler, a grade school teacher in California, has published her lesson plan concerning the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II on the Library of Congress website. This lesson plan is an example of many similar curricula on the site that share goals of historical understanding and empathy, and publication on the Library of Congress indicates government approval as well as provides other teachers nationwide with access to these plans. Desler’s curriculum involves a study of primary source documents (which are linked to the website) including a speech from President Roosevelt, interviews with internment survivors, and photographs of the camps by Dorothea Lange; and the students are asked to complete such activities as write a poem for two voices that looks at multiple perspectives of Japanese internment and write a newspaper article about one of Lange’s photographs. These activities are comparable to German teaching methods stating in the German Education Report on holocausttaskforce.org and in the Synopsis from History Lesson Plans.

Desler, Gail. "Nothing to Fear but Fear Itself." The Library of Congress. 16 Dec. 2002. Elk Grove Unified School District. 8 Jan. 2008. http://memory.loc.gov/learn.

You can find a copy of Desler's lesson plan with further links to her resources, primary sources, and worksheets here.

A Source: An Interview

Yehudad Bauer is a historian of the Holocaust and teaches Holocaust Studies at the Avraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is actively involved with the Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance, and Research, and he has given many speeches and lectures to members of this organization to promote effective education and remembrance of the Holocaust. In this interview, Bauer expresses the opinions that continued research into not the deaths, but rather the lives, of the persecuted Jews will yield greater understanding. He claims that the Holocaust was both an ideological and functionalist phenomenon, and he warns that radical Islamists may be on the same path Hitler traveled years ago. Finally he commends Germany and other nations for their dedication to Holocaust education, while cautioning that formal apologies are not a form of restitution. This source offers an intellectual insight into the world of the oppressed and confirms from an outside perspective Germany’s effective commitment to Holocaust education.

Bauer, Yehuda. Interview. Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. 1 Dec. 2002. 5 Jan. 2008. http://www.jcpa.org.

You can find the transcribed interview with Yehuda Bauer here.

A Source: A Textbook Translated

The New History Textbook (or Atarashii Rekishi Kyokasho in Japanese) is an English translation of a recently published Japanese history textbook. The English translation is provided by the Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform, a society dedicated to countermanding the censorship by the Japanese government of Japan’s acts of brutality during World War II and other historical eras. Conversely to educational goals stated in Desler’s American history lesson plan and on the website for the Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education to teach students to analyze and question history, the New History Textbook opens with an explanation that history connects students with their ancestors and its study is a means of gratitude to those who came before. In the chapter on World War II, the textbook glosses over Japanese brutality toward the Koreans and the Chinese while making room for biographies of famous war heroes. This source corroborates the claims of censorship in articles from The New York Times and The Japan Times.

Atarashii Rekishi Kyokasho (New History Textbook). Tokyo: Fusosha, 2005. Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform. 8 Jan. 2008. http://www.tsukurukai.com/.


You can find the New History Textbook online here .

A Summary

Back in January I amalgamated a variety of sources into a brief paper on the similarities and differences among American, German, and Japanese educational policies as they pertain to World War II (respectively Japanese internment and the atomic bomb, the Holocaust, and Japanese atrocities during the war). Though I look forward to more research, these words reflect my current understanding of the effectiveness of different methods of history education. Please feel free to comment, agree, disagree, or question. As I expand my research and exploration to more sources and situations, I will continue to post any changes or affirmations of these ideas.

A summary of my research thus far:

World War II, a war largely fueled by nationalism and patriotism, left nations around the globe with open wounds in 1946; initially most countries would not—or could not—immediately face the acts of inhumanity they had inflicted or that had been inflicted upon them. Now, after more than sixty years have separated these nations from the raw pain or shame of the past, it is possible to analyze their level of ability to learn from their histories and to apply that knowledge to the present. Ultimately only nations who placed their nationalism behind them were able to truly accept and analyze their pasts.

Germany, by far, has made the most strides with accepting its past. Though von Borries, in hisEast Germany made no progress until reunification and that even West Germany floundered with how to explain the blind faith in Hitler and his regime, historiographers largely agree that Germany is on the right track. In a questionnaire about German Holocaust education on the Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance, and Research, Germany’s answers emphasize a commitment to teaching students to question the ideology of National Socialism and the dangerous power it gave to Hitler’s regime. Also, in a chart that summarizes each federal states Holocaust education goals and methods compiled by the Learning from History program, it is clear that National Socialism is the antagonist of the Holocaust and thus the focus of the lesson plans. Furthermore Yehuda Bauer, a Holocaust education advocate, has lauded Germany examination of German history textbooks, points out that for its promotion of comprehension education of the World War II era, and he stresses that this is a large step in preventing a similar genocide.

Japan, on the other hand, has not yet let go of its World War II patriotism, and thus its government is criticized for censoring information about the war. Recent articles in both the Japan Times and the New York Times discuss civilian protests towards the government’s policy of textbook certification. French’s article in particular is rich with quotes from Japanese officials promoting nationalism and the non-obligation to apologize for—or even to remember—the inhumane acts of Japanese soldiers. Evidence of such historical whitewashing can be found in an English translation of a new Japanese history textbook in which details of the more horrific events are few and remorse is negligible. Ienaga speaks from his own experience that such disregard along with the actively promoted return of nationalism is cause for worry that Japan may once again slip towards aggressive militarism. (Ienaga also notes a brief relaxation in censorship immediately following Occupation before nationalist fires were rekindled.)

The United States, however, falls somewhere between these two extremes. Following the end of the war and the dropping of the atomic bombs, the United States entered into a Cold War with the Soviet Union in which nationalism appeared as vitally important as it had during World War II. Kyle Ward notices that American textbooks did not adopt tones of regret or reflection over the bombs or Japanese internment until the Cold War was over—yet another indication that nationalism may play a large role in historical blindness. However Gail Desler’s lesson plan for teaching Japanese internment is evidence that America has begun to accept and teach its past from a perspective of cultural empathy and with the goal of conscious analysis.

And so as history marches on, perhaps nationalism should be left behind. The American and especially the German governments have placed their support behind curricula that focus not just on a national concept of the past, but on a broader, multicultural understanding, while the Japanese government still strives for a reactionary vision of imperial power and revenge. These differing perspectives could very well be an indication of the future: humility and regret lead to amiable relations on the playground and in the meeting room, but too much pride always starts another fight.


In my next post, I will list my sources and link to as many of them as are accessible online.

Thanks for reading,

K