HISTORICAL RECONCILIATION IN EUROPE AND IN THE ASIA-PACIFIC
July 13, 2004
UNESCO Conference Hall (10Fl.)
Organizers: UNESCO APCEIU, The Asia Foundation, Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung
8:30-9:00
Registration
9:00-9:15
Welcoming Remarks:
Samuel Lee, UNESCO
Scott Snyder, The Asia Foundation
Peter Gey, Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung
9:15-12:00
Session I
Process of Historical Reconciliation in Europe: Implications for Asia
9:15-10:15
Moderator: Andrew Horvat, The Asia Foundation
Presentation I
Introduction to the Historical Reconciliation Project: Findings and Progress
Gebhard Hielscher, Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung
Presentation II
Reconciliation and “Coming to terms with the past”: From a “German
Obligation” to Universal Principle
Wolfgang Hoepken, Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook
Research
10:15-10:25
Break
10:25-11:25
Discussion: Daqing Yang, The George Washington University; Motohiro Kondo,
Nihon University; Lee Seung-Hwan, Korean National Commission for
UNESCO; Lee Jung-Ok, Catholic University.
11:25-12:00
Q&A/General Discussion
12:00-1:30
Luncheon Speaker: Orhan Silier, History Foundation of Turkey
“The Role of Civil Society in Improving Textbooks in Turkey: History
Teaching, Democratization, and Accession to the European Union”
1:40-5:30
Session II
Historical Reconciliation in the Asia-Pacific Context
1:40-3:10
Moderator: Han Kyung-Koo, Kookmin University, Educational Development
Committee, APCEIU
1
Presentation I
Historical Reconciliation Between Japan and China
Daqing Yang, The George Washington University
Presentation II
Historical Reconciliation Between Japan and Neighboring Countries
Motohiro Kondo, Nihon University
Presentation III
Historical Reconciliation between Korea and Japan; The Efforts between
Korea and Japan for Shared Historical Text.
Chung Jae-Jeong, City University of Seoul
3:10-3:30
Break
3:30-4:15
Discussion: Gebhard Hielscher, FES; Wolfgang Hoepken, GEI; Chu Chin-Oh,
Sangmyung University
4:15-5:00
Q&A/General Discussion
5:00-5:30
Wrap-up Session: Challenges and Recommendations
Andrew Horvat, Han Kyung-Koo, Kwak Jai-Seok, Korean Educational
Development Institute
2
Opening Remark
Samuel Lee (UNESCO):
I would like to welcome everyone here this morning. This is a significant conference on
historical reconciliation in Europe and the Asia-Pacific. Reconciliation is a tremendous task
but is needed to develop history and solve present problems. UNESCO has been actively
involved in such activities of looking at the understanding of history and overcoming
distortions of history. This process involves the important task of overcoming colonialization
and the difficulties of those people who have been under foreign rule. This is important to
cultural peace, especially in Northeast Asia. This is not the first conference of this kind, it is
a continuation of efforts started seven years ago by UNESCO. Other organizations have been
involved with this theme such as organizations in Japan The Asia Foundation and the Korean
Education Development Institute (KEDI). During the past seven years we have seen many
initiatives and developments for changing and rewriting textbooks. The purpose of this
conference is to set up dialogue and discourse on historical issues and textbooks and to share
experience, perceptions and knowledge. I hope this meeting is fruitful for promoting a culture
of peace.
Scott Snyder (The Asia Foundation):
On behalf of the Asia Foundation I want to welcome everyone here. Dr. Lee has well
summarized the developments that have gotten us this far. Andrew Horvat of The Asia
Foundation, Japan has been instrumental in this area through, particularly, the study of history
reconciliation in Europe and how that can be applied to the situation here in Asia. The Asia
Foundation is always happy to be involved in promoting peace, prosperity and mutual
understanding. This is my last program here in Korea but nevertheless it is a valuable and
fitting program for me to participate in as my last. I would like to thank everyone that I have
had an opportunity to work with while I have been here with the Asia Foundation. Thank you.
Peter Gey (Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung):
After the nineteenth and twentieth century conflicts on European soil, “reconciliation”
between the European peoples was of utmost importance for paving the way for peace and
integration on the continent. Without reconciliation between the European “arch enemies”,
France and Germany, the European Union would definitely not become a reality. And without
reconciliation between Poland and Germany, the recent enlargement of the European Union
towards Central Europe would not have come true either.
3
During the post-World War II period, Europe has made strides to reconcile history. One
country, however, did not join these efforts towards “mental rapprochement”. In former
Yugoslavia, communist leaders kept historical animosities between the manifold nationalities
hidden for more than three and a half decades. When communist regimes collapsed all over
Central and Eastern Europe, in Yugoslavia former communist leaders gave rise to nationalism
again. This resulted not only in the break-up of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
but also into the bloodiest massacres in Europe since World War II.
In Asia, reconciliation is still a pending issue, and the political and intellectual elites should
take into account that this issue is narrowly tied to almost every integration effort between the
peoples that is targeted at in the region. However, it is also true what the famous French
diplomat, Charles Maurice Tallerand, stated almost two hundred years ago: “When it is urgent,
it is already too late.”
Reconciliation is important in Asia. Reconciliation, however, is also essential to former
Yugoslavia, in Europe. I hope for a great conference.
4
Session 1
Introduction to Historical Reconciliation Project: Findings and Progress
Gebhard Hielscher, Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Japan
In November 2001 and February 2002, the Japan offices of the German FriedrichEbert-Stiftung (FES) and The Asia Foundation (TAF), headquartered in the United States,
jointly sponsored two international conferences in Tokyo that dealt with important aspects of
the postwar settlement of wartime issues. Both conferences were held at the National Press
Club of Japan (NKC) in order to attract maximum coverage by the mass media of that
country.1 And the proceedings of the two conferences were later compiled in a tri-lingual2
publication the English title of which is [Sharing the Burden of the Past: Legacies of War in
Europe, America, and Asia]. The book was co-edited by Andrew Horvat of the Asia
Foundation’s Japan office and by myself, and jointly published by our two foundations in
2003.
The first of the two conferences, a symposium on “Textbooks, History, and War
Memory in Europe, America, and Asia”, provided a direct exposure to how school textbook
reconciliation has progressed in Europe after the end of World War II. Leading experts from
Germany, France, Poland, the Netherlands and Italy had been invited to report on efforts to
reconcile national differences in the treatment of the prewar period and the wartime in history
textbooks used as teaching material in secondary schools of these countries. Also textbook
controversies in the United States, related to World War II as well as the Korean War, were
frankly discussed by American experts. And scholars from Japan and South Korea actually
involved in bilateral textbook reconciliation efforts demonstrated how good will and
appropriate self-reflection can produce impressive results, even friendship.
World War II began in Europe when Germany invaded Poland in September 1939.
But after the war France was the first country to begin – already in 1950 – a dialogue with
(West) Germany on reconciling the contents of history textbooks for schools. There was a
reason for this: As the French historian Jean-Claude Allain pointed out at our symposium in
Tokyo3, already after the first World War (1914-1918) French and German historians and
teachers had met between 1925/28 and 1935 and held discussions about revising history
textbooks “in order to eliminate the glorification of war and the animosity between the two
nations”.4 In the 1930s even “a German-French Textbook Commission was founded which
5
convened in November 1935 … A list of 39 proposals regarding German-French relations
since 1789 was formulated, but on many of these proposals no consensus could be reached.
The European political situation no longer permitted the continuation of the dialogue.”5 Adolf
Hitler and his Nazi Party had come to power in Germany, they were not interested in this kind
of reconciliation.
Shortly after the end of World War II, Germany disappeared as a sovereign nation:
On May 23, 1945 the Allied Powers deposed the last government of the Third Reich,
dissolved the German state and divided its territory into four occupation zones ruled directly
by the four Allies, the United States, Great Britain, France, and the Soviet Union. Exactly four
years later, on May 23, 1949, the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) was
established on the territories of the three western occupation zones as a liberal democracy
with Bonn as its provisional capital. This “new Germany”, in the words of Professor Allain,
“once again made dialogue possible”.6 Already in the following year, the French side reopened the reconciliation dialogue with a meeting of French and German historians in the city
of Freiburg, which had been part of the French occupation zone. A total of fifteen meetings
were held between 1950 and 1967. A signicifant move occurred at the 1951 meeting: Once
again the 39 proposals, that had been formulated at the last of the prewar meetings in 1935
were taken up, and this time they were approved unanimously. And at a 1965 meeting held in
the French city of Dijon they were still dealing with the war goals of France and Germany
during World War I (!). According to Allain “it was the first exchange on this topic held in
complete freedom for all participants”.7
Eventually the French-German Textbook Commission would have to deal with the
more recent history leading to and including World War II. This was done during a second
series of seven meetings between 1981 and 1989 culminating in a collection of
recommendations concerning the textbook presentations of German and French history and
the relations between the two countries in the 20th century. These recommendations were
published both in German (November 1989 in Bonn) and in French (May 1990 in Paris).8
Thus the Textbook Commission completed its main task, reconciling the widely differing
views regarding the two great wars of the 20th century, and went on to deal with less
controversial issues such as the effects of industrialization and de-industrialization or the
presentation of the process of European integration since 1945.
The Polish-German textbook dialogue was initiated only in 1972, or two years after
the Federal Republic of (West) Germany and the People’s Republic of Poland had finally
concluded a Normalization Treaty recognizing the postwar borders of Poland – which implied
giving up claims for a return of formerly German territories – and establishing diplomatic
relations between Bonn and Warsaw. The German-Polish Textbook Commission met in
several workshops between 1972 and 1975. The discussions – “always behind closed doors,
6
which is also important … – were at times tough and emotional, now and then – also in the
last phase – even a breakdown of the negotiations seemed likely”, reported Polish historian
Wlodzimierz Borodziej9 at our Tokyo symposium. “Compromises became possible only after
some time. But in 1976 the commission presented the so-called Recommendations for History
and Geography Textbooks in the Federal Republic of Germany and the People’s Republic of
Poland, which offered teachers and textbook authors a largely new view of German-Polish
relations from the Middle Ages to the present, based on the principle of dialogue”.10
According to Professor Borodjiez these textbook discussions were “an important part” of the
process of “normalizing relations between Germans and Poles … : since 1989, as Poland once
again attained its sovereignty and Germany was unified, history does not play a large role in
our relations. It is certainly still in our heads … , however it can no longer be exploited for
political reasons.”11 In conclusion he remarked: “In 2000, 24 years after the
Recommendations, we have moved forward two paces and presented to the public in both
countries Guidelines for the Teaching of History – this time without controversial discussions
within the commission, because we know each other well and trust one another … 12
The French-German and Polish-German dialogue on history textbooks may serve as
examples of successful textbook reconciliation efforts in Europe that were reported at our
textbook symposium in Tokyo. Before touching on one of the American presentations at that
symposium, I would like to state that, aside from a brief comment, I shall refrain from
discussing the Korean-Japanese efforts at textbook reconciliation mentioned earlier because
the Korean presenter at the Tokyo symposium and one of the Japanese commentators from
that conference will be giving their views here. From observing Japan-South Korea relations
for almost four decades I know that there are many well-meaning people on both sides. What
is lacking is the political will at the center – and that includes the ruling political class as well
as much of the media – to really come to terms with the past. Most of the blame for this, in
my view, must go to the Japanese side. Japan, after all, was the main perpetrator of
colonization and aggression in this part of the world and therefore should take the initiative;
instead Tokyo has continued to make legalistic excuses and deliberately tried to avoid
accepting any responsibility. That won’t do. And the Japanese leadership should recognize
that the problem will not go away by ignoring it. So much for comment. Now let me return to
the textbook symposium.
An American scholar, Mark Selden, critically examined the treatment in US history
textbooks of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and of the internment of
Japanese-Americans.13 This not only showed a refreshing openness on the side of a victor
nation. It also effectively countered the opinion often heard from Japanese rightwingers that
Japan need not engage in reconciliation in Asia because only nations that lose wars are
7
obligated to do so. This self-serving argument frequently comes with the corollary that Japan,
like the Allies in World War II, carried out merely a “normal war” and therefore should not be
asked to atone for its past since, unlike Germany, Japan did not commit a Holocaust.
It is true, Japan did not commit an equivalent of the Holocaust. But that is only one
aspect of a very complex picture. World War II had two main perpetrators, Germany in
Europe and Japan in Asia. It seems natural that both countries are often compared, also in
regard to how they handled the aftermath of that war. Some of these comparisons are quite
convincing, others not so. On balance, Japan usually comes off quite unfavorably. Starting
from the premise that only comparable things should be compared, elements where Japan and
Germany differ significantly have to be identified and eliminated before proceeding to
compare the two countries and point out differences in their postwar behavior.
1. To begin with the obvious and uncontroversial: Japan is an island nation, Germany
is situated in the middle of a continent. If Germany wanted to be accepted again by its
European neighbors, it had to come to terms with its past behavior in a way acceptable to
these neighbors. In contrast, Japan felt it could disregard its neighbors and run away from its
past because America protected it anyway.
2. Japan has plenty to account for, even if it did not commit anything comparable to
the Holocaust – the systematic, state-organized, and immensely cruel mass murder of millions
of Jews in Germany and German-occupied parts of Europe. Therefore it would be unfair and
inappropriate to compare German efforts, to at least symbolically and financially express
remorse for what Germans did to the Jews, with anything Japan did or did not do with regard
to victims of Japanese misdeeds.
3. The A-bomb was originally developed to be used against Germany, but when it
was ready for use in July 1945, Adolf Hitler’s so-called Third Reich had already collapsed.
Besides, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill had reservations about using these bombs
against Germany for fear that their then still-unknown impact may reach as far as the British
Isles.
The shocking damage caused by the two bombs dropped on Hiroshima and
Nagasaki was so terrifying that many Japanese began to think of themselves as victims of a
crime against humanity, conveniently forgetting the crimes committed by their countrymen
against fellow Asians and others. To put the first use of nuclear weapons against human
beings into perspective, let me quote former U.S. ambassador to Japan and Harvard professor
Edwin O. Reischauer: “An argument could be made for having used the first atom bomb on
Hiroshima in order to shock the Japanese leaders into surrender, because the decision even
then hung precariously in the balance, but there was certainly no justification for using the
second bomb.”14
8
4. Germany capitulated in May 1945, three months before Japan. And for four years
thereafter Germany ceased to exist as a state. Its territory was reduced by about one fourth and
divided into four occupation zones to be ruled directly by the victorious Allies. After four
years of such discontinuity, Germany reappeared as two rival states: first the Federal Republic
of Germany established on the territories of the three western zones, to be followed a week
later by the founding of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) on the territory of
the Soviet occupation zone, with East Berlin as its capital. These two states were reunited into
one Germany 41 years later in October 1990.
In contrast, Japan, which had capitulated in a two-stage process, on August 15 (the
day of the radio speech of the emperor) and on September 2, 1945 (the signing of the
surrender documents), continued as a state, with Emperor Hirohito still on the throne and
government officials still at their desks. Unlike Germany, Japan was not divided into separate
occupation zones but was ruled indirectly through the Japanese bureaucracy as one unit by a
single U.S.-led occupying authority until regaining sovereignty in 1952. The keyword to
describe Japan’s early postwar period, in comparison to Germany, would be continuity.
After identifying these major differences and accounting for them appropriately, there
remain large areas open to comparison: the wars of aggression by the armed forces of
Germany and Japan against other countries, policies and actions in occupied or colonized
territories, war crimes in the narrow legal sense—meaning crimes that go beyond what are
considered “normal” war activities under the respective Geneva Conventions—and finally
how Japan and Germany dealt with these war legacies since 1945.15
1. The Allied Powers conducted war crimes trials against Germans (in Nuremberg)
and Japanese (in Tokyo). But in the very same year (1958) that the Japanese government
ordered the release from Sugamo prison of the last remaining inmates who had been
convicted a decade earlier at the Tokyo War Crimes Trials, Germany set up in the town of
Ludwigsburg the Center for Investigating National Socialist Crimes. This Ludwigsburg
Center is still operating to this day. It has initiated criminal proceedings against more than
100,000 suspects of whom about 6,500 have been found guilty of war-related crimes. In other
words, German courts have continued to pass sentences on German nationals who had
committed crimes against humanity.
In contrast, Japanese prosecutors and criminal courts have not pursued any cases
against Japanese suspects. Even the commander of the notorious Unit 731, which operated
camps in northeastern China where approximately 3,000 victims died cruel deaths, many as
part of inhumane “medical experiments” not unlike those conducted in German concentration
camps, could live out his life, even reopen a medical practice under his real name,
unperturbed by any challenge from Japan’s legal system.
9
2. As our textbook symposium in Tokyo has illustrated, Germany and Japan, at least
in their officially sanctioned policy, went in completely different directions with regard to the
treatment of the prewar period and the wartime in their history textbooks for schools. As a
result, the textbook reconciliation efforts between Japanese and South Korean scholars
referred to earlier must be characterized as private goodwill activities even though the two
institutions at the center of these efforts – the Tokyo Gakugei University and the Seoul City
University – are public schools, because these efforts have not been endorsed by their
governments.
3. Regarding compensation and reparation policies, Tokyo and Bonn/Berlin again
differ greatly. This is most evident in the case of individual compensation claims: Japan to this
day refuses to compensate any individual victims on principle with the legalistic excuse, that
all claims against Japan had been “settled” by the Peace Treaty signed in San Francisco in
1951and valid since April 1952. But neither mainland nor Nationalist China, neither South
nor North Korea were represented at the peace conference in San Francisco, and the Soviet
delegation left early because of political disagreements related to the East-West Conflict.
West-Germany, however, since the early 1950s enacted laws giving compensation claims
against the West-German government to individuals who had suffered damage due to acts of
violence by the German Nazi regime.16 While it is true that most of the beneficiaries of these
laws were Jewish and therefore should be excluded from any comparison, the individual
claims created by these laws were also given to victims who had been persecuted for other
than racial reasons, for instance for political or ideological reasons etc.17 Indeed, a significant
number of non-Jewish victims of Nazi violence have received or are still receiving – for
instance in the form of pensions – individual compensation on the basis of these laws.
Limits of time and space prevent me from trying to define the legal differences
between so-called reparation as opposed to compensation. But I would like to set the record
straight on at least one aspect of the reparation argument, the widely held belief that Japan did
not conclude any reparation agreements with other countries. In fact, Japan did conclude
formal Reparation Treaties with six Asian and one European country based on Article 14 of
the San Francisco Peace Treaty.18
One aspect of this broad topic, compensation for forced labor, was the subject of the
second conference jointly sponsored by FES and TAF, a forum on compensation for wartime
forced labor titled “Paying Wages 60 Years Overdue: Differences and Parallels between Japan
and Germany”. The two main speakers reported, from a German and an American point of
view, on the difficult negotiations leading to the conclusion of a multilateral agreement that
provided for German payments of compensation to people, mostly from Eastern Europe, who
had been forced to work in wartime Germany. The German compensation payments are based
not on established legal claims, but on a new law passed almost unanimously by the German
10
parliament in July 2000 to set up a foundation financed jointly by government and industry. In
other words, it is not a matter of legalistic arguments but of the political will to come to terms
with the past and pay at least something for it. It is the lack of a comparable political will at
the center that has prevented Japan from facing up to its own past – not treaties or statutes of
limitation. As Japan is trying to expand and intensify the ties with its Asian neighbors with a
view towards forming regional organizations in the future, I am convinced, that Tokyo will
eventually come to realize that there are definite limits for any progress in this direction so
long as it continues to avoid dealing honestly and sincerely with its past history in the region.
In other words, Japan will have to “Face the Past to Win the Future”.
Notes
1
The first conference, symposium on history textbooks, drew some 200 participants (academics, journalists,
diplomats, officials of political parties and trade unions, etc.) and attracted exceptional media coverage with
more than a dozen major press reports, including coverage by three of Japan’s mass-circulation national dailies.
The symposium also merited the attention of Japan’s two news agencies, Kyodo and Jiji. NHK, Japan’s public
television network, aired a 15-minute interview with the symposium’s keynote speaker.
The second conference, the forum on compensation for wartime forced labor, drew about 100
participants of a similar quality as the symposium, but with a larger share of diplomats from Japan,
Germany, the United States and several East European countries, as well as Israel. Again, there was
remarkable media coverage. Japan’s third-largest national daily, Mainichi Shimbun, with a circulation of
almost 4 million, devoted nearly half a page to the topic, including an interview with one of the two main
speakers and a commentary critical of Japan’s refusal to compensate forced labor.
2 English, Japanese (complete), and German (only reports actually presented in German)
3
The following remarks regarding the French-German textbook dialogue are mainly based on
Professor Allain’s report to the symposium as reprinted in: Andrew Horvat and Gebhard
Hielscher, ed., Sharing the Burden of the Past: Legacies of War in Europe, America and Asia
(Tokyo: The Asia Foundation and Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, 2003), pp. 21-26 (in English),
27-32 (in German).
4
Idem, p. 22.
Idem.
6 Idem, p. 23.
7 Idem.
8 Idem, pp. 21, 25.
9 Idem, p. 37; the following remarks on the Polish-German dialogue are mainly based on
Professor Borodziej’s report to the symposium as reprinted in: idem, pp. 35-38 (in English),
pp. 39-42 (in German).
10 Idem, p. 37.
11 Idem.
12 Idem, p. 38.
13 Idem, pp. 60-68.
14 Edwin O. Reischauer: Japan: The Story of a Nation (Tokyo: Tuttle, 1971), p. 216. By the way, the author
was born in Tokyo, spent his youth in Japan, and dedicated this book “To My Brother Bob, the first
5
11
American casualty in World War II, Shanghai, August 14, 1937.”
15 For a more detailed comparison see Gebhard Hielscher “Wie Japan und Deutschland mit
dem Zweiten Weltkrieg umgehen” in: Manfred Pohl, Iris Wieczorek, Hg., Japan 2000/2001 –
Politik und Wirtschaft (Hamburg, Institut fuer Asienkunde, 2001), pp. 327-344 (in German);
same “Senso to kokka – Nihon to Doitsu no sengo shori” in: Kanagawa Daigaku Hyoron (The
Kanagawa University Review), 36/2000, pp. 58-71 (in Japanese).
16 For instance, the Federal Compensation Law (BEG or Bundesentschaedigungsgesetz) of
1953, revised in 1956.
17 See, for instance, the definition in Paragraph 1 BEG.
18 The Asian countries are Burma (Myanmar), the Philippines, Indonesia, (South) Vietnam as
well as Singapore and Malaysia; the European country is the Netherlands (with regard to its
former status as colonial power in Indonesia). For reference see “Reparations for Southeast
Asia” in Kodansha Encyclopedia of Japan (Tokyo, Kodansha, 1983), vol. 6, p. 302; “Malaysia
and Japan” in: idem, vol. 5, p. 88; “Singapore and Japan” in: idem, vol. 7, p. 196.
12
Wolfgang Höpken
Reconciliation and “Coming to terms with the past” : From a “German
obligation” to a universal principle
Reconciliation seems to be a sucess story in Germany´s post-war development. Despite of the
unprecedented crimes commited by Germans during
World War II, most of all the
Holocaust, it is a wide spread perception, both in and outside the country, that the post-war
German society was able to overcome the legacy of the past in its relations with those, who
had been a victim of German politics during the Nazi period. Besides symbolic acts of
material restitution, which in favour of jewish victims of German policy started already
relatively early in the 1950s and during the last years finally have been extended to other
groups of victims such as forced labor conscrips, and besides legal proceedings, which
much more reluctant and inconsistent–
-
were taken against persons responsible for war
crimes, it was most of all the way the German public, at least over the last decades, addressed
the past, which is seen as the most benefitial contribution to this reconciliation. It is a widely
shared assumption, even among the non-German public, that the German post-war society
over the last five decades has made substantial efforts to deal with its history. Germans even
invented a specific word for it, „Vergangenheitsbewältigung“, which is hardly translatable
into any other foreign language, and which also in its English translation as „coming to terms
with the past“ is rendered only unprecisely.
The positive results of German Vergangenheitsbewältigung
hardly can be disputed. A
wide ranged and sophisticated culture of memory on the Holocaust and the Nazi period has
been established within the German society by museums, memorials and other symbolic
forms of remembrance. History education is largely circling around these topics, sometimes
even beeing perceived as “too much” by the students. Attempts to question the unconditional
consensus, that German historical identity has to be rooted first and foremost in the memory
of the Holocaust and the Nazi period, mostly have met with strong public resistance.
13
All in all, however, it would probably be more appropriate to describe the German process of
confronting the past more in terms of ambivalences and ambiguities than to describe it simply
as a success story. It was a process,
- as a German colleague recently has put iti -
“vacillating between remembrance and denial, between taboo and scandal”. Quite obvious:
the issue of dealing with the past, is far from beeing settled ones and forever. Time and again
the call gets loud to get rid of this intensive confrontation with the legacy of the nazism, now
that Gemany after its unification and after being firmly integrated into the West apparently
has become a “normal” state again. Most recently there are symptoms, that many Germans
begin to see themselves again more as a nation which have been victims of the war as well
than the perpetrators. Books, features and debates on the allied bombing of German cities, on
the expulsion of Germas from the East or on crimes committed against Germans tilll the end
of the war, most of all by the Soviet Army, have gained a substantial interest among the
German public, indicating that at least in parts of the society a kind of shift of identities may
be on the way, distancing itself from the formerly unconditional acceptance of Germany´s
past as a past of war crimes to a perception, stressing more the role of ones own victimization.
All this illustrates, that a historcal identity, based on the self-perception of Germans as
perpetrators even today is far from being stable and unchallenged.
For the future at least two things probably will make it even more difficult to keep such an
identity
upright.
First
“Erlebnisgeneration”
of
all,
the
biological
disappearance
of
the
so-called
- the generation who has experienced the War and the Holocaust -
tends to qualify the extraordinary importance of this period. It turns the history of Nazi-period
into “just another period of history”, neutralizing its character as a unique reference for the
German´s historical consciousness. Secondly, the inreasing character of Germany as a
migrant society with people coming from different historical and cultural backgrounds makes
it more and more difficult to communicate the particular role of the Holocaust and the Nazi
period as something being crucial for the identity of the entire German societyi. (Already
today it´s becoming increasingly difficult for teachers to deal with the Holocaust in classes,
where the majority of students come from an islamic or another cultural background. Turkish
kids for example, even if they are born in Germany, do not necessarily consider the legacy of
the Holocaust as part of “their” history and their historical identity, but as “a german
problem”.
I. “Confronting the Past” in the age of “global memory”
14
„Coming to terms with the past“ for four decades basically was considered to be a German
(and to some extent a Japanese) problem. Due to its particular history and most of all to its
undeniable responsibility for the Holocaust, it were the Germans, who were confronted with
the need for a critical evaluation of their past.
Since the end of the cold war, however, the
call for „coming to terms with the past“ has developed into a global phenomenon and a kind
of universal principle, going pretty much beyond the German (or the Japanese) case.
Confronting the past has become a global cultural phenomenon, being
part of the overall
trend towards “memory”, todays societies seem to be occupied with, a trend, which some
scholars have described as a kind of post-modern “ hypermnesia” or
- in the words of a
german scholar - as an addiction to history (Geschichtsversessenheit) i.
“Confronting the past”, more than that, today has been enhanced to a universal
political
nececessity, at least for democratic societies. It is seen as an essential element of a society´s
“healthy” political culture, but also of its proper institutional functioning. Transfering the
Freudian idea of healing by remembering to collective groups, in particular societies, which
have gone through an internal conflict, through a war or dictatorship, are called into a kind of
“cathartic processs” in order to re-establish their community and to gain a sustainable peacei.
“Revealing is healing” was the motto of the South African Truth and Reconciliation
commission, illustrating that dealing with the past today has gotten almost the quality of an
unavoidable collective therapy. Discussions about the past,
- as Martha Minow, a Harvard
law scholar, who has worked a lot on legal forms of confronting the past,
has observed –
today have gained “a striking ...therapeutic language” compared to comparative debates fifty
years agoi. Coming to terms with the past today also is seen as a precondition to stabilize
democratic institutions and values by giving them legitimacy and credibilityi. In particular in
societies which have gone through a dictatorship, like in Eastern Europe, “coming to terms
with the past” It thus becomes a precondition for the success of democratic transition just as
much as a plural party system, a functioning parliament or a pluralist media. Some even have
made it a part of what they call an “international civil society”i.
“Confronting the past”, finally and most of all, however more and more has become a global
moral obligation i . It has moved from simple knowledge about the past towards its
15
acknowledgement in the sense of accepting responsibility and “guilt”, again indicating the
strong moral rhetoric, todays discourses on the past are characterised by. Accepting
responsibility by remembering, which originally developed out of the specific German
context of the legacy of the Holocaust and the Nazi-past, today has become a universal
principle.
Since about tow decades we are witnessing a growing awareness of the dark sides of ones
own past, even in countries, where the present is not burdened by a past of crimes and guilt as
in the German case and where a democratic order and a pluralistic historical discourse has
been established since long. Questions of collaboration during World War II have been put
on the agenda in many countries, sometimes causing stormy discussions or even eruptions
within the society. In France the discussion on the collaborate regime of Vichy, already in the
early 1980s eroded the longtime consensus within the french society of a french population
which overwhelming was united in its “resistance” against the Nazi rule. In Austria, where
the public memory of World War II for long had been occupied by the myth of having been
„Hitler´s first victim“, the discussion of the involvement and the responsibility of ordinary
Austrians for Nazi-War-Crimes and the Holocaust, has questioned the society´s conventional
historical self-perceptioni, while in Sweden the stereotype of „Swedish neutrality“ during the
war was shaken when the public became aware of the significant economic and administrative
co-operation with Nazi-Germany during the War. Even in a country like Poland, where
collective identity for very good reasons had been based on the remembrance of the country´s
role as one of the most affected a victim by Nazi politics, the book of the american-polish
historian Jan Gross on the participation of Poles in the annihilation of Jews in the small polish
town of Jedwabne during the Second World War, initiated the most intensive and the most
controversial debate on the polish past since long, deeply affecting the society´s historical
consciousness and identityi.
Other dark sides of history have come up in many other countries as well, such as the legacy
of colonialism. Again in France, after the controversial public debates on the Vichy-regime
more recently the war in Algeria of the 1950s and 1960s has produced what the newspaper Le
Monde has called a sudden change from “amnesia to hypermnesia” i . No less in the
Netherlands the debate on the Dutch colonial policy in South East Asia, for a long time a
largely slienced historical topic, has sent shock-waves to the publici.
To acknowledge ones own historical responsibility, to accept “guilt” today seems to be on the
way, as some authors have suspected, to become a kind of a common basic consensus and
16
the “founding myth” of the new post-cond war Europe, a precondition everybody has to
accept, who wants to become a member in the european club. The current age of memory in
fact
more and more has turned into
an age of excuse. To show repentance, as the German
philosopher Hermann Lübbe has put it, has become a “new and universal civic religion”i.
Australians have invented a “sorry day”, on which citizens can sign in public “sorry books” to
remember and to apologize for their policy against the aboriginees, american presidents are
excusing themselves for slavery when visiting Africa (at once however rejecting any form of
reparation)i.
All this demonstrates, that `reckogning with past wrongs” (David Crocker)i
today has
turned into a kind of collective “Gesinnungsethik”, into a universal convention of ethical
rulesi, which less and less can be ignored without running into the danger of moral (or
sometimes even political) sanctions. Discourses of denial - “Leugnungsdiskurse” as the
historian Mihran Dabag has called iti
- as for example in the case of the Turkish denial of
the Armenian genocide or the denial of an event like the Nanking massacre in parts of the
Japanese public - therefore interrnationally are becoming less and less acceptable. Even
where the majority is rejecting to address the past,
minority or dissident cultures more and
more are able to impose such discussions, as for example in the Japanese case, where the
official attempts to avoid critical discussions about the japanese politics during World War II
meets with significant resistance by a dissident public. “It seems that the german philosopher
Juergen Habermas was right, when he wrote already a couple of years ago , that “ignoring
dissonant memories, can not be arranged, even if it would be be desirable”i.
Oblivion at the same time has lost almost all of its reputation. Forgetting, which Nietzsche
still declared to be a
precondition for any human being´s survival,
today is seen as
illegitimate and as a moral deficit. And those, who speak in favour of the “civilising traditions
of non-memory” , as the Austrian philosopher Rudolf Burger, usually are confronted not only
with academic criticism but with moral accusationsi.
In the century of the Holocaust, of
death camps and genozide, forgetting nowhere seems not be possible any more. Dealing with
the past has become a normative obligation. Some civilizations, as the jewish noble prize
winner Elie Wiesel has put it, may have developped pracitices of forgetting, in todays world
however, amnesia is a desease”i
And indeed, forgetting today even there is questioned, where for long it had been seen as a
stabilising and constructive practice, as in Spain, where the consensus for a public silence
17
about the civil war and the Franco dictatorship apparently had contributed to the country´s
successful transformation from dictatorship to democracy. Even here the “desirable amnesia”,
as the writer Jorge Semprun once has called it, seems to have come to an end and people
literally are starting to dig for the graves from the civil wari.
All this is indicating, that currently we are going thtough a fundamental change in our attitude
towards the past. Confronting ones own past has become a universal obligation. And with
this also the mechanisms to do so have become much more sophisticated, going very much
beyond traditional forms of remembrance such as historiography, monuments, memorial days
or education. Three tendencies seem to be particular striking to me:
First, the increasing importance of the public space for remembrance the past. The public
space as a space for memory today has gained an increasing importqance. Sometimes – as for
example in the case of the Berlin Holocaust memorial - public discussions about the space
of the monument and its aesthetic outlook are becoming the main object for discussions on
the past, gaining more attention than the monument itself. Also the role of the Yasukuni
shrine in the japanese discourse of the past seem to play the same role as a spatial generator
for memory discourses and conflicts.
Secondly, legal instruments increasingly have turned into an instrument for dealing with the
past. Trials, acts of lustration, the right of access to files,
today are more than just
instruments to produce justice, but are powerful generators of collective memory. New
instruments have been added, such as for example „truth and reconciliation commissions“.
Questions of material reparations and restitution, as in the case of the jewish victims of the
Holocaust or more recently the victims of forced labor, are going beyond just the matter of
material compensation, but they are, as the German-jewish historian Dan Diner has put it,
re-creating and reviving memoryi.
Third, the international community today much more has become involved into the process of
dealing with the past. Going hand in hand with the increasing politics of interventionism, the
international community also increasingly has become an actor in the proces of coping with
the legacy of wars and conflicts.
With the international war crimes tribunals it has become a
major player in the legal process of coming to terms with the past. This is nothing new, having
in mind the tradition of the Allied Tribunals of Nurnberg and Tokyo after World War II, but
with the War Crimes tribunals on the former Yugoslavia, on Ruanda or most recently on
Sierra Leone, and in the meantime being transfered even into a regular International War
Crimes Court under the United Nationsit, this today has become much more widespread and
18
institutionalized. Sometimes “coming to terms with ones own past” even has been made a
precondition for financial and political support as for example in the case of former
Yugoslavia, whose successor states were obliged to join the efforts of a legal prosecution of
the past by the international war crimes tribunal in the Hague, before getting financial help,
and the last summit of the european heads of governments with their balkan colleagues in
Thessaloniki in the summer of 2003 even explicitly made “reconciliation” a topic for the
region´s integration into Europe.
To make a long story short, and that was the basic message of my paper: “coming to terms
with the past” and the demand for reconciliation today obviously has developed into a
globalized phenomenon and moral obligation. With all that, one thing however should not be
forgotten: The idea of coming to terms with the past, through discourses, public memory or
education, is an essential “western” historical thinking, which does not necessiraly has any
aquivalence in other cultures. Other cultures indeed have created totally different concepts of
dealing with the past. In some african countries for example, such as Nigeria, following the
civil war of the 1970s, discussing the past was banned from the public space and delegated to
the families and the local village communities. Despite of a extremly brutal civil war, causing
more than a million casualities, not a single instrument of dealing with the past, neither a
public discourse, nor monuments, neither trials nor truth commissions have been applied in a
country like Mozambique as well, and yet, as all observers aggree, reconciliation and a reestablishing of the community has made considerable progress in a remarkable short time in
that countryi . Also elsewhere as in Cambodia, the stimulus to deal with the past of the Pol
Pot regime is mmore coming from outside, while the society itself seems to be much more
reluctant to do so.
II. Textbooks and Reconciliation: A Look at the German Experience
Education, especially history education, always has been considered as a crucial, if not the
crucial instrument for reconciliation and “coming to terms with the past”. Wherever two
countries have finished a war or wherever a society has gone through severe internal conflicts,
the idea, however, usually comes up to turn textbooks into an instrument of reconciliation.
At least since the 1970s this certainly has been the case in Gemany, where dealing with the
Nazi period and the Holocaust has become one of the major topics of history education.
Sometimes more than 50% of teaching the 20th century is dedicated to these issues. A
particular attention has been paid to foster reconciliation by Improving textbooks by common
19
textbook-commissions with former enemies and victims of German politics. Joint textbookprojects with France started already in the early 1950s, they were later on followed by a very
intensive German-polish-textbook co-operation since 1972, and with Israel in the early 1980s.
Other countries followed these examples, such as Austria, which established a joint textbook
commission with her neighbour Hungary, or Poland, which – however only after the fall of
communism - had installed a joint commission with Israel and its new neighbour Lithuania.
Dureing the period of detente in the 1970s for a short period of time even a Soviet-american
textbook working group had been active, and as is well known to you several korean-japanese
initiatives into such a direction also were undertaken. None of these attempts however
developped into such an intensive, long-time and instiutionalized textbook cooperation as in
the case of the various bilateral German initiatives. In particular the German-french and the
German-Polish usually are seen as a largely succesfull model for making textbooks a tool for
reconciliation, sometimes they even are considered as a kind of blue print for a consensual
procedere to overcome biased or even hostile perceptions. And certainly both initiatives can
claim a good deal of success.
The German-French textbook commission very soon after having been founded in the
early1950s, had aggreed about considerable improvements in both countries´ teaching
material, which very soon found their way into the textbooks. They were so succesfull, that
during the 1960s and early 1970s the joint textbook activitiies came to a halt. When the
commission renewed its work since the late 1970s, it wa not the task anymore to eliminate
stereotypes and biased perceptions among the two sides from the textbooks, but to develop
common perspectives on new topics relevant for history teaching in both countries. Since a
couple of years the common work even has developed into the joint preparation of teaching
material, and currently even a regular joint history textbook is in the making which shall be
used in schools in both countries within the next two years.
The German-polish textbook cooperation, starting in the early 1970s, took place under totally
different conditions with the Cold War still going on, but till today followed aver y similar
road. Depsite of the fact that the ealry cooperation between the two sides was burdened by
substantial conflicts, textbooks in both countries during the late 1970s and 1980s began to be
freed from the former negative perceptions as well. Of course the end of communism opened
up totally new chancs for a joint textbook cooperation, making many of the former ideologcal
stereotypes invalid over night. Just as in the German-french case also teh German-polish
tetxbook cooperation therefore in the meantime has gone very much beyond its initial
20
intention and developped into the common pruduction of teaching materials. The germanpolish teachers guide which appeared a couple of years ago, both in polish and in german
language, in the meantime in both countries has reached several editions, with 8000 copies
alone in Germany, which indicates a substantial distribution among German teachers. The
book even was translated into korean language, illustrating the great prestige the Germanpolish textbook cooperation has gained here in this country.
Both examples, the german- french and the geman-polish one could play a favorable role in
the process of reconciliation, because they took place under favorable political conditions,
which in the end made their success possible.
-
in both cases joint textbook cooperation took place under the conditions of a stable
peace.
-
Open questions and in particular contested territorial issues had either been solved or
had lost their significancebe.
-
In both cases textbook cooperation was part of a more general process of
reconciliation, in the case of France it was embedded in the process of common
european integration, in the case of Poland it was made possible by the so-called Ostpolicy. Differing for example from the korean-japanese case, the idea to promote
reconciliation by improving textbooks hterefore had a relatively strong political
backing, even in the German-polish case wihich for a some time was heavily disputed
within the German public.
-
in the German-french case, more than that, the textbook cooperation was supported by
the fact that both countries now were part of the same alliance, sharing common
values and being increasing integrated in economic and political terms – again
differing from the korean-japanese case, wher both countries never developped a
similar sense of commonness, not to speak about integration.
-
Finally, in both cases like the general policy of reconciliation, the joint textbook
cooperation could only be possible on the basic of an unconditional acknowledgement
of what had been done by Germans during the War. Reconciliation always and first of
all is about acknolwedging your own wrongdoing; it demands to reframe your own
self-perception by addressing your own responisbility. Where this is lacking, in and
outside education, it hadly will be succesfull.
21
In both cases the longterm efforts have produced results. In particular in the germanfrench case, the period of reconciliation seems to be over in favour of a status of good
neighbourhood, not beeing burdened by the past any more.
In the German-polish case the situation still seems to be more unstable. Also here, former
prejudices are largely eliminated from the textbooks and the history teaching. Empirical
research indicates that historical animosities have lost ground among the younger
generations. School education certainly has contgributed to this in both countries. At the
same time however, the legacy of the past is far from being forgotten and – as could be
observed most recently -
easily can reemerge on the scene. The tendency to stress the
victimization of Germans during the World War, in particular the expulsion of Germans
from Poland and other East European countries, mentioned above, which found its
expression in the idea of establishing a so-called “Center against Expuslion” and even has
rasied questions of claims for compensation from certain political groups, clearly has
damaged the German-polish relations during the last year. Differences about the attitude
towards the USA in the Iraqui question and conflicts over the question of a european
constitution between the two countries added a general feeling of discontent among the
two countries. Emotions ran high and while acouple of years ago, reconciliation was
declared to be settled, over the last monthes historical prejudices and misperceptions
reappeared which for long were considered to be outgrown, proofing that even three
decades of attempts to make use of education in order to foster reconciliation easily can
become shaky when political troubles are getting out of hand.
The tendency to turn confronting the past” into a global moral obligation more recently
has made education and textbooks also an instrument for reconciliation within societies,
whih had been faced with the experience of a civil war, of ethnic unrest or the legacy of a
dictatorship. In regions like in the former Yugoslavia, in post-conflict societies like Sri
Lanka, Ruanda, South Africa or - as a central european example
- in Northern Ireland,
education and in particular history teaching is called upon to heal the wounds, violence
has opened up. Compared with the legacy of bilateral conflicts among states,
reconciliation within the same society however seems to be much more difficult.
In
almost none of the mentioned countries, education and history teaching has been able to
foster a sustainable process of reconciliaiton. In a country like Bosnia, for example,
education up until now contributes very little to an rapprochement of the three ethnic
22
groups. Textbooks and historical narratives are largely ethnocentric, showing not the
slightest empathy for the other side. Again acknowledgement seems to be the basic
precondfition for any reconciliation, but the recongnition of ones own wrongdoings still is
missing. If political actors are doing a step into this direction, it often is turned against
them. When the croat president a year ago apologized for crimes committed against Serbs
during the war among the two people, his ranking among the population fell to a low.
Even in a country like Northern Ireland, were a lot has been invested into an education
and into textbooks aiming to overcome the legacy of the violence, the real effect up until
now has been limited.
When both conflict actors live within the same society, reconciliation apparently even is
more difficlt than among separate nations. Textbooks should try to its best in favour of it,
and the German-polish or the German-french examples cleraly indicate that they have
some potential to do so. The many obstacles and limits however should not be ignored. It
is not education which can produce reconciliation, but which has to be part of it.
23
Session 1 Discussions
Process of Historical Reconciliation in Europe: Implications for Asia
Professor Daqing Yang (The George Washington University):
We have heard two very rich papers this morning. As for my comments I would like to first ask,
is Germany a success story with regard to reconciliation?
Recently in a speech to
commemorate D-Day, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder was invited to participate in the
ceremony and he acknowledged Germany’s responsibility for World War II. He acknowledged
Germany’s responsibility for the war and mentioned the reality of sending millions of German
soldiers to their death in an aggressive war. At the same time he also talked about soldiers
being united in their death whether they were French, German, or American as there was
something that binds them together. I think he struck the perfect balance between the need to
acknowledge Germany’s responsibility and accepting the need to heal wounds and build peace.
But with respect to the Germany-Poland case there are still problems as well as with the
German-Czech history. I think then it is fair to say that reconciliation with respect to Germany
is still an ongoing process.
What interests me is the question of what motivates national
leaders and politicians to strive for reconciliation with former antagonists and enemies whether
they are former victims or perpetrators?
It seems that we often emphasize the moral
imperative of reconciliation for peace and healing wounds but I think also the pragmatic
motives are important that build on interests such as security and economic interests. I think
here we need to understand how to balance both the pragmatic and moral considerations to
advance the agenda of reconciliation. In terms of the actual process, I am interested in three
types of questions. How do we handle a situation where both countries have mutual claims
against each other where it is not clear that one side is just the victim in all cases or the
perpetrator in all cases? I think we can see this with the German-Polish case and GermanCzech case and as already mentioned this creates new problems in moving the process of
reconciliation forward.
democracies?
My next question is how to deal with reconciliation in non-
I think it is an important question that has implications for the reconciliation
process in Northeast Asia today. The third point is that even within democracies, pushing for
reconciliation is not an easy task. For example Dr. Hielscher pointed out that one of the first
legislations passed on these issues was with a margin of only three votes. So the question
is…what if those three votes where not there? For example how did political leaders in West
Germany gain domestic support for reconciliation and compensation which would not have been
popular with the public?
My last question is whether reconciliation is really a universal
phenomenon? I had mentioned that reconciliation often depends on real interests, self-interests
which are often associated with geo-political calculations. What if the geo-politics shifted? Dr.
Hoepken mentioned that there is a growing global attention to address past wrongs and I agree
24
with him but at the same time, for example, historian Charles Mayer, talked about what he
called this almost excessive devotion of collective resources to past wrongs as an indication of
the failure to address projects about the future.
The end of the cold war and collapse of
communism, you know, that kind of utopian society, is no longer popular so we now look at
conflicts of the past. If that is the case, it is quite a pessimistic view of this global trend. I
would also argue that while addressing past wrongs in domestic contexts may continue,
whether this global trend of addressing the issue of international reconciliation… to what
extent has it been affected by 9/11? This new sort of global war on terror and the so-called
clash of civilizations… to what extent have these shifted the attention in the 1990’s to
addressing issues of past wrongs? I leave these questions for the two presenters and other
speakers. Thank you.
Professor Motohiro Kondo (Nihon University):
I would like to address one point with regard to professor Hoepken’s comment about the
tendency of self-image and thinking of one’s self as a victim. Of course there is criticism of
the Japanese tendency to consider themselves as victims. But I would like to point out one
thing. Every year there are ceremonies in Nagasaki and Hiroshima in which the people in
Japan say “Never again, Never again” to war. It means that the Japanese do not want war
again. This is a ceremony to make a pledge every year. I think people outside of Japan may
not fully understand the meaning of this.
The political leaders in Japan have some difficulties in achieving reconciliation with other
countries because it involves political interests. They wonder how they can get some political
interests through efforts at reconciliation. I think there are some other interests such as
economic and security interests. Recently, some politicians, I am glad to say, emphasize
working for other interests such as having the Japanese people being respected and
establishing a good reputation in order to live together with surrounding countries in East Asia.
Thank you.
Andrew Horvart (The Asia Foundation):
It seems that what Professor Kondo is trying to say was that in the past there was no positive
incentive for Japan to seek reconciliation with neighboring countries and that now some
leaders are seeing some positive incentives including the desire for Japan to gain a certain
moral stature in the region.
Lee Seung-Whan (Korean National Commission for UNESCO):
First of all, I wish to thank Dr. Hielscher of Friedrich Ebert Stiftung and Dr. Wolfgang
25
Hoepken of the Georg Eckert Institute for their very informative and succinct presentations.
I learned a great deal from your presentations this morning, and I am of the opinion that the
experiences of Europe will be very helpful for us in overcoming the task of historical
reconciliation in Asia.
I would, however, like to offer a few comments and questions. Firstly, of the four differences
between Germany and Japan identified by Dr. Hielscher, I wish to reiterate the first and the
fourth points. The first point says that “while Germany wanted to be accepted again by its
European neighbors, Japan felt it could disregard its neighbors because America protected it
anyway.” In this regard, I doubt from time to time whether Japan still harbors such an attitude
toward its neighboring countries in Asia. This comment, however, reminds us of the Japanese
“Out of Asia into Europe” policy when she joined the imperial conquest at the end of the 19th
century. The fourth point mentions the continuity of the basic political and bureaucratic
system in Japan even after its capitulation. In this regard, I would like to point out the fact that
such continuity has been possible with the support of the United States as well as its Western
allied powers.
Secondly, it deserves our attention that the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as
treated by U.S. history textbooks were examined at a Tokyo conference in 2003. It is Asia and
no other region where atomic bombs were dropped for the first time in history, and we
experienced the unbelievably hellish power of it. We have a duty not to allow such a tragedy
to happen again. In this regard, an examination of the historical implications of the atomic
bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, including its background, motivations and
consequences, should be further developed. It is not only a bilateral issue between the United
States and Japan, but one of the most important issues in the history of humankind. I would be
most appreciative if Dr. Hielscher could introduce us to this topic very briefly.
Now let me touch upon the presentation of Dr. Wolfgang Hoepken. I am pleased to note his
message describing how “coming to terms with the past and demand for reconciliation has
developed into a global phenomenon and moral obligation”. He continued by saying that the
idea of coming to terms with the past is essentially “western” historical thinking, which does
not necessarily have any equivalence in other cultures. On this matter, I wish to ask Dr.
Hoepken whether “coming to terms with the past” is indeed a matter of culture or universal
principles as he mentioned in the title of his paper. It is my opinion that such reconciliation of
the deeds of the past is a type of universal morality that should be observed by all countries
regardless of cultural diversity, and across all varieties of region and religion. Let me touch
for a moment upon the subject of cultural diversity. Cultural pluralism and respect for cultural
26
diversity have become more popularly championed and increasingly important amidst the
rapid processes of globalization. But we need to be cautious in dealing with this concept. In
some cases autocratic powers enjoy using cultural pluralism in defending their violation of
human rights and silencing of the voices of minorities. In extreme cases, they go still further
to maintain that their people, tradition and/or cultures are superior to others. Sometimes this
position can be advanced to defend ethnocentrism. In matters of cultural diversity, priority
should go to the protection of disappearing minority cultures.
I agree with the opinion that favorable political conditions are very important for the success
of dialogue on textbooks, but regardless of the political situation, the development of trust and
cooperation among scholars and civil societies cannot be overemphasized. In many cases in
Asia, the general public is in fact much smarter than the average politician; perhaps this
situation is different in Europe.
I also want to emphasize the important role of UNESCO, particularly when bilateral
cooperation meets a deadlock or we wish to develop bilateral dialogue into multilateral
discussion as in the case of Europe. Since its establishment in 1946, UNESCO has given a
high priority to historical research and the improvement of textbooks on history. It has
implemented various kinds of projects in this regard. To name a few, in 1946, UNESCO
launched a new model plan for the analysis and improvement of textbooks and teaching
materials.
In 1988 and 1991, it released guidelines and criteria for the development, evaluation and
revision of curricula, textbooks and other educational materials in international education.
In 1992 the establishment of a UNESCO international textbook research network was
formalized in cooperation with the Georg Eckert Institute. Since the 1970s, UNESCO has
been participating in publications of history on Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, Europe
and Central Asia.
Thus far, the Asian region has not been actively involved in UNESCO efforts in this area. We
may find reasons for such marginalization, including the heterogeneous assembly of
conquering and conquered parties, but I would like to suggest that more support and priority
be focused on this region from UNESCO, international and regional institutions and the
governments concerned.
Finally, I wish to make a comment on the concept of “clash of civilizations”: Though the cold
war era is over, in contrast to our expectations for peace we are witnessing a time of escalated
27
conflict, and the concept “clash of civilizations” has become very popular in the world as a
tool to help us understand such hostilities. In this regard, I wish to clarify the distinction
between phenomenon and root cause. As a phenomenon, I agree that we are experiencing
more “clashes of civilizations.” Yet despite this intensification, differences of culture cannot
be pinpointed as the main cause of conflict. Such differences and diversities are easily
exploited as a tiny rupture to incite conflict. We must try to provide different and disparate
peoples with the ability to interrelate in harmony, happiness and conviviality. The most
important mission with which we are challenged today is to alert people to the danger of
being lured to hate the foreign, the unknown, and the differences among us all.
Lee Jung-Ok (Catholic University of Daegu) :
I became well informed concerning the endeavors of “coming to terms with the past” through
the presentations. To proceed from the German obligation to universal principle, I would like
to pose local-regional-general questions: at the local level concerning the German specific
case, the regional level of Europe and Asia, and the more methodological level of
historiography, to Dr. Wolfgang Hoepken.
First, Dr. Hoepken you have described the past experience of textbook cooperation between
Germany and France and between Germany and Poland as successful. But what is the
standard for measuring success in reconciliation? I read Dr. Yang’s article where he
mentioned two types of reconciliation, “thin” or “thick.” It appears that there are many
different kinds of reconciliation. I don’t think there is any objective standard but what is the
level of success in reconciliation in your opinion? Usually in this kind of “rewriting of
history” there is a dispute between the victims and perpetrators. But sometimes the positions
can change depending on the political situation. Especially in the process of globalization,
domestic-level changes in the positions of perpetrators and victims has occurred. Do you
think this kind of post-colonial interpretation of history to open a more flexible situation for
perpetrators and victims can be more helpful or supportive in moving forward the process of
reconciliation? Second, what is the role of Jewish victims in pushing the perpetrators toward
historical reconciliation?
Concerning the regional level, I want to ask about the realistic possibility of cooperation
between Europe and Asia in spite of unfathomable differences. To be more realistic I would
like to remind everyone of the differences between Europe and Asia: the different positions of
victims and the different attitudes toward globalization and post-cold war order,
notwithstanding the different cultural traditions.
The first and last step in driving dialogue is addressing the wounds of the victims, like
the role of Jewish victims in discourse and dialogue which has continuously been echoed
globally through the cultural representations of popular films and books. On the other hand,
28
the voices of Asian victims have been oppressed into silence. They have only recently begun
to surface through the memories of survivors at the end of the 1990s.
For the Asian perpetrators, they have a double identity of victims and perpetrators in
relation with the modernization experience under Western initiatives. East Asian countries
constructed national identity to deal with western initiated globalization based on the long
tradition of the nation-state system. Furthermore, to some in East Asia, the realization of
peace comes through forgetting. How are we to handle the dealing of history by excuse and
glorification in East Asia? What is a more realistic means of cooperation between the
European experience and Asian experience so as to avoid more wounds?
Finally, I want to ask more general level questions related to post-modernist interpretation
of history which emphasizes different positions such as gender, class and ethnicity both at the
domestic and global level beyond the dichotomy between perpetrators and victims. Do you
think this kind of post-modernistic deconstructive interpretation of history writing can be
helpful in leading to reconciliation for the victim’s side? Sometimes overemphasis on specific
identity such as gender identity, class identity and national identity could weaken the others’
voices or blur the victim’s/perpetrator’s division as already revealed in the Japan and German
case.
How can we achieve a win-win scenario among the different voices? And who can act
as a coordinator or arbitrator?
Responses
Professor Wolfgang Hoepken (Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research):
With regard to the problems still existing between Germany-Poland and GermanyCzechoslovakia, I am still relatively optimistic that this is a short-term development and I
don’t think it is changing the degree of reconciliation among the two countries. Particularly, in
the Czech case, which is a situation that mostly occurred from politicians and did not really
affect the society too much. The German-Polish relation is a little bit more serious. But here
two processes come together such as in Germany where we have the tendency to bring up
historical issues that were thought to be settled already like the question of expulsion claims
and things like that. On the other hand in the Polish political scene we have currently a
political elite that is different from the former ruling powers which is not rooted so much in
German-Polish relations but which has a more transatlantic view of things. I think here
again it seems to be more of a question of short-term politics and so I am still optimistic.
Other questions raised are fundamental and very interesting. What makes reconciliation
possible and what motivates leaders is a really good point that we need to discuss more. I
think one aspect that is very important for me is that reconciliation must be a source for
legitimacy. If this is not on the agenda, if you can only lose by addressing these topics, then
29
it will be very difficult. I think here again we have something that made reconciliation
policy in Germany relatively successful because at both points in the 1950s and in the
Eisenhower era as well as in the 70s with the ostpolitiks it was something which you could
build legitimacy on. Besides that there was a specific aspect in the German case where
reconciliation after the war was simply a necessity due to the total moral defeat of Germany.
For Germany there was no alternative and the only way to be reintegrated into the civilized
community was to deal with these issues. Other aspects, of course, are important but I want
to stress legitimacy.
With regard to the second question raised it is tremendously complicated if you can’t
tell who is responsible for past wrongs, for example, if both sides have victims. In particular,
internal conflicts like civil wars make reconciliation difficult and we clearly see this now in
Bosnia where reconciliation is very hard and the former Yugoslavia where reconciliation is
very difficult to achieve simply due to the fact that on both sides, although there is a hierarchy
of responsibility of course, but both sides have victims and that makes things very difficult.
Also I think in the German case the question of responsibility was quite clear and obvious.
However, that questions were coming up recently concerning the German victims of
expulsion and things like that are to a certain degree a reaction to the fact that these aspects
have been neglected for some time. This was very strong in the 1950s where our discussions
on the post-world war were very much focused on our own victims and less on the holocaust.
If you look at textbooks from the 1950s, you find twelve pages on expulsion and two
sentences on the holocaust. This has totally changed in the 1960s and 1970s but with it the
biographical experience of those Germans who experienced expulsion is not a topic of
discussion and I think what we are discussing now again comes back on the scene and I think
it has a generational and biological dimension because this generation is coming into age.
The task and challenge now is to integrate the question of German victims of the war into a
concept and interpretation of the past which at the same time is not denying moral
responsibility and this is what is on the agenda now. A very interesting question is whether
reconciliation as a universal phenomenon is a sign of crisis or self-reflection? I think it is
both. It has become a kind of ritual, sometimes it is even a meaningless ritual to make
excuses for the past. On the other hand I think in many cases it is opening up a different
attitude toward the past. For example the French discussion on the Algerian war is a taboo
on the agenda but is tremendously important not only for the French society but also for the
immigrant society coming from Algeria. With respect to this I think it has a real enlightening
effect and it is very useful. The consequences of September 11th on the memory discourse are
not quite clear to me yet. Maybe it is calming down the attention to deal with your own dark
side of history as its creating a new kind of conflict order where there is no place for
questioning yourself.
30
Now to address the question from Mr. Lee, is reconciliation driven by global
international forces or cultural factors? What I wanted to stress in my paper is that our
understanding in dealing with the past in a way of an enlightened discourse in historiography,
public monuments, museums, etc. is something which is rooted in Western historical thinking
and that we have other societies outside of Europe which have developed different ways of
dealing with the past. I was very enlightened by reading books on different African societies
and how they deal with the legacy of genocide in Rwanda or civil war in Mozambique and
Nigeria. In Mozambique, for example, there was a terrible civil war with the death of a
million people and they don’t address it in public or talk about it at school or in textbooks.
They leave the problem to traditional healing in the villages and the families. I just want us
to understand that other cultures may have developed others ways to deal with past
wrongdoings than we have and I think this makes it very difficult to develop standards.
As you mentioned, the trust among scholars might be a more important driving
factor than that of politicians and this has been very important for the German-Polish textbook
consultation which took place under the umbrella of the UNESCO Commission. When the
German-Polish textbook group met, the German head was a person who as a young soldier
took part in the Nazi occupation of Poland and the Polish head was somebody who had lived
in a German concentration camp during the second World War. But both sides were able to
have productive discussions due to a common scholarly and academic ethic.
Now to address the question of what is the standard of reconciliation? I think we
can only define it in really broad terms. For me the standard of successful reconciliation
should be whether it is preventing past conflicts from influencing current relationships and
policy. In other words past conflicts are not an opportunity to continue or repeat conflicts.
Another standard relates to the victims as reconciliation is really something that has to be
decided by the victims not by the perpetrator. For example successful reconciliation means
that it respects the pain of the victim by acknowledging the wrongdoings that have been done.
These are only two very rough standards and we need more discussion about it.
As for the role of victim organizations, particularly Jewish victim organizations in the
process of reconciliation I am not quite sure this was a factor because the attempt for
reconciliation toward Israel and the Jewish population came relatively early in the 1950s and
to my knowledge was not influenced by the demands of victim organizations. We have of
course a very strong influence in the recent discussions about compensation for slavery, so
here victim’s organizations are playing a very important role. In general this might be seen as
a kind of new globalized discourse. I think organizations are becoming a very important factor
in creating memory. Demands by organizations for compensation are putting more issues on
the agenda. For example if you follow some the discussions of black organizations in America
with regard to slavery. Memories of past wrongs have become a kind of bargaining tool in
31
politics. If you can make a claim that you have been victimized in the past, it becomes a
political instrument.
European integration is also helping very much at the textbook level to foster
reconciliation. There is an ongoing trend in European countries to reduce national history in
the textbooks sometimes to an extreme. There are some countries in Europe which almost do
not deal with their own national history. If you look at Dutch history textbooks they have 5 or
10 percent of national history and the rest is European history or world history. So there is a
tendency differing from country to country to stress more of the commonness of Europe and
the commonness of what European history means which sometimes ends up in a curious
construction of what Europe is. It is clear that this has a qualifying role for the nation and I
think this something which is probably not the case in the Asian context. I agree there is a
kind of escaping from national history instead of stressing commonness in the textbook
development in Asia. I also agree that rewriting history is not unique as there are class,
social, and gender factors to consider which I think we have become much more aware of.
One example is the issue of German women being raped at the end of the Second World War
which was totally taboo for about forty years and only came up in the 1990s. This issue was
not raised because of a revisionist interest in rewriting history or qualifying German
responsibility but rather emerged as an issue of gender historiography.
Gebhard Hielscher (Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung):
To Dr. Yang’s question… how do you measure success in reconciliation? I think the original
question for Germany was how to be re-accepted by its neighbors. Germany has been
accepted by Europe again but that doesn’t mean we still don’t have problems. We have to deal
with each other as normal countries dealing with each other. Some counties like each other
and some don’t. Now a days there seems to be more differences between politicians within a
country than between politicians from different countries. For example the supposed socialist
German Chancellor now cooperates very well with the supposed conservative French
president, so I believe we are achieving normalization which means being accepted by your
neighbors. I think this is the most important part of it and the rest is just day-to-day politics
and there will always be issues that will never be settled. For example whether the German
language should be used in European affairs was a topic for a while. The conservatives were
reluctant to stress the use of the German language because they had this guilty conscience
whereas the social democrats where more willing to use it. So everything that is happening is
within the normal context and we are fighting our day-to-day battles but the past is not the
issue in most cases anymore. This is what I would call success but, of course, it’s relative
success. But essentially the basic problem has been solved.
Of course there is a relationship between the moral and pragmatic on both sides.
32
For example in order to be accepted you have to do something, not just apologies, but you
have to pay something as compensation. That’s practical. On the other hand, if you are
accepted you will also have economic benefits. So it is important on both sides. A country
cannot just apologize for a past wrongdoing. There must be both moral and pragmatic
gestures.
As for the global aspect, I would mention the issue of stolen artwork. The colonial
powers stole artwork from other countries. Recently the Greeks have asked for some stolen
artwork to be returned by Britain and Italy recently returned some stolen art back to Ethiopia.
UNESCO has played an important role here as well by helping with this issue. I would just
like to stress that the issue of stolen artwork whether in Europe or Asia has global
implications because so many countries were involved.
The Japanese seem really stress the importance of “never again,” no war, and peace
which is a very important part of their movement. However, are the people involved in the
peace movement the civilian people or the traditional opposition? Criticism of Japan is aimed
at the government and the old leadership that still continues. So the people with good
intentions often receive the same criticism as the old leadership because they are also
Japanese and the traditional leadership is not answering the major demands for reconciliation
within the Asian continent. Here the fact that Japan is an island plays a significant role. Had
Germany been an island like Japan we would probably be a long way from where we are now.
The holocaust issue is also so overwhelming with respect to Germany it is difficult to
compare with Japan. Most of the German compensation payments went to Jewish victims or
their families. But one interesting aspect with regard to personal compensation in Germany is
that it has laws that started in the 50s that are not just focused on compensation for racial
reasons but also political reasons or ideological reasons. Basically this means that there are
people who are entitled, under German law, to compensation who are not Jewish. This
aspect is important for Asia. For example in the recent forced labor compensation issue 90
percent were not Jewish but mostly Eastern Europeans who received compensation from both
the state and the industry. The industry and the state paid half and half into a fund. However
in Japan with the issue of military brothels, where women were forced into prostitution, the
state made every effort to stay out of it. Although the Japanese Prime Minister wrote a letter
of apology no money was offered for compensation. Compensation was to be only private and
here is where one of the problems lies. In Japan the state has to accept responsibility for the
operation of military brothels as the national army is at the center of the issue. There may be
well-intentioned people in Japan who are willing to provide compensation for the victims of
forced prostitution but there is no possibility of getting the Parliament to pass a bill for
compensation unanimously. So bringing these issues to the political mainstream is the real
difference between Europe’s relative success with reconciliation and the yet unsuccessful
33
efforts in Japan.
General Discussion:
Dr. Kwon Tae Joon (Former Secretary-General of the Korean National
Commission of UNESCO):
Since initiating international efforts seven years ago to achieve historical reconciliation not
much has changed between Korea and Japan. This includes the governments of the two
countries and academic circles as well. The main expectation I have from this conference is
that our discussions would be elevated to the international organization level. I hope all of
us have a chance to think of ideas for involving the international community of historians or
organizations to set up a permanent or semi-permanent international organization that is either
inter-governmental or inter-civil-society to deal with this issue of history writing or history
interpretation and its international ramifications. We all know as historians that until recently
the writing of history textbooks was thought of as purely domestic affairs, especially in Asia.
This is expressed in the idea that no other countries, governments or individuals from abroad
should have a right to intervene in the writing of another country’s history. This is still the
common understanding. In order to establish an international organization or network we
have to start with changing this view that history is purely a domestic affair. We can approach
history from a perspective of philosophy, humanitarianism, the needs of globalization, mutual
understanding for world peace, etc., but we have to have a certain group of people who can be
heard all over the world to emphasize the fact that certain areas of history have to be studied
or reconsidered with a view towards international ramifications. .
Participant-1:
I think we can make two clear distinctions between a “peace” model and a “human rights”
model, both of which are ways to deal with the truth. If we take truth as a common
denominator for these two models I think the first model seems to take seriously the
remembering process. In order to remember the past with some element of truth one has to
put emphasis on reconciliation based on dialogue and that should logically lead to the peace
model. The second model opposes the idea of impunity where perpetrators can get away
with not being punished. The human rights model must put emphasis on justice and certain
elements of retribution which should lead us naturally to a human rights model. I think these
two models, while having a certain common denominator in the form of truth depending on
the context such as timing, culture etc., sometimes converge and sometimes diverge. What
model should participants in historical reconciliation take? Is there any theoretically satisfying
way to incorporate both models in a single unifying conception?
34
Kwon Ji-youn:
I was very interested in Dr. Hielscher mentioning about the return of stolen artwork in Europe.
I would like to ask you to elaborate on this issue. How effective was this in helping
reconciliation between the two countries and what symbolic impact did it have on the issue?
Participant-2:
With regard to whether notions of reconciliation are universal or particular, I think that when
it involves nation-states and nation-state responsibility we have to look at it on an entirely
different level rather than just as a question of conflict and reconciliation. Secondly, on the
matter of truth and justice… the ends of justice often involve a compromise on the truth and
the ends of truth often involves a compromise on justice. I think reconciliation has another
dimension beyond just moral and pragmatic. There is an ethical dimension in the sense that
internal justice in countries, internal questions of equity and justice should be what motivates
and drives reconciliation and this is true in an international sense too. We cannot have an
international global world order based on principles of inequity and principles of injustice. I
think this is relevant to the Japanese case because the government in Japan is still not dealing
with issues of equity and injustice. We also deal with these problems in South Asia. For
example there are questions about justice in India in relation to the Muslim people. This is not
just a conflict between Pakistan and India but also a question of justice for minorities living
within India. Therefore, how relevant is the European experience in this broad Asian context?
Dr. Samuel Lee:
An important question to ask is what should we remember and what should we forget in
history. Sometimes “remembering” is the healing and sometimes “forgetting” is the healing.
Is this affected by cultural diversity and different traditional historical backgrounds? Or
should there be some universal norms about what should not be forgotten or what should be
remembered? We also heard about the importance of political will. If the politicians and
government have no concern about historical reconciliation then what can we do? In Europe
there was government initiative toward reconciliation and UNESCO is the bridge between the
government and civil society there. But in Asia we still have problem finding the political will
within the government to work toward reconciliation and in that case the civil society,
historians and private organizations must initiate and influence the government. This is the
phase of Asia now. So how can we emphasize the influence of civil society over political
will? Could we hear about some of the experiences of Europe?
Peter Gey:
We have heard mention of whether there is a linkage between culture and reconciliation. We
35
heard earlier about the example of civil war in Mozambique where one million people were
killed and nobody is talking about it. Dr. Hoepken mentioned that maybe the people there
have different procedures for overcoming the situation. In the late 80s, in Cameroon almost
a generation after they had their civil war they were still not allowed to talk about it in public
but at the same time vestiges of the war were omnipresent. When we had seminars we had to
invite people from other tribes in order to include them and complete the range of tribes and
the members were not allowed to talk about animosity or hate between tribes. The
government in Cameroon came to power by force and to open up a public discussion of past
wrongdoings would make the government have to face the demands of the public which the
government is not ready to do. So maybe it is less of a cultural requirement and more of a
political or government requirement as a first step toward reconciliation.
Responses
Wolfgang Hoepken:
A main problem that has been mentioned here several times is the issue of culture and
reconciliation. Certainly, there are different ways of dealing with past. Wrongdoings of the
past must be spoken about because you cannot avoid it. It is there with families or in the
memory of the people and it must be spoken about otherwise it can refuel conflicts and hate.
There are different ways to deal with the past and they should be seen as equal. Therefore I do
not want to generalize any European experiences. I think that within different areas there are
different models such as in the African situation where we have different models like
forgetting, subscribing to traditional forms of healing such as in Mozambique, punishing in
Rwanda, and truth and reconciliation in South Africa. Obviously different societies are
looking for various ways to deal with issues of the past. The idea of forgetting has been
largely discredited today. However, if it is worse to discuss a past wrong, remembering could
become a risk of revenge or eroding a society so maybe we can see a difference between the
“good” forgetting and the “bad” forgetting. The “good” forgetting is based acknowledgment
and the “bad” forgetting is trying to avoid speaking about it and not respecting and accepting
the right of the victims and that their pain must be addressed. The idea of a “peace” model and
“human rights” model sounds very promising but I wonder if you can generalize it as a
universal theoretical concept. In many cases you need compromises. In most cases the
situation is complicated. In the case of Latin- America there was a conflict over telling the
truth and having the military still in power and still influential. So maybe sometimes truth
and re-democratization are in conflict. In other cases the social cohesion and memory might
be in conflict. When I and some of my colleagues were in the Institute for Textbook
Research we were somewhat involved in the issue of how to renew textbooks in Afghanistan,
a very heterogeneous society. Of course we came up with our model that respect for diversity
36
should be put in the textbook. But the people of Afghanistan said that what they need now is
cohesion and that we should not stress diversity. So it is always a very complicated mixture
and each case is unique so I hesitate to draw on a cohesive theoretical model that is applicable
to different cases.
Gebhard Hielshcher:
If we look at Japanese society internally there is no question that the Japanese people want
things to be made right. Bad things done in the past must be rectified. This of course would
lead to apologies and compensation. But this is not a dispute within Japanese society. The
problem is with Japan and the rest of Asia and this is why the problem of political will is so
important. How do you create that political will? How do you create the consciousness within
the politically important center where relations among countries in Asia matter in an
important way as they do in Europe. The Japanese courts have not prosecuted any of its own
citizens for past wrongdoings but in Germany we are still doing this. You can’t try to just
cover up the past if you want to settle some of the basic issues. If countries do not solve the
problems of the past through there own legal processes then the past wounds will not fully
heal. If the victims of past wrongs do not get recognized then that hatred within them will just
continue. I remember as a small child during the second World War in Germany reading
comic books that portrayed the Germans as good guys and the French as the bad guys. It was
always like this and this was how we were educated. I am sure the French had similar
cartoon books with the French as the good guys and the Germans as the bad guys. Anyway,
this is how hatred is created. But we have gone beyond this now in Europe. Yet, a feeling of
togetherness between Japan and Korea… for instance if you talk to individuals there are many
people who have a close relationship and created friendships but these connections do not
have any effect on the political realities between Korea and Japan. There has to be a
recognition by the political center in Japan on the necessity of resolving the issues of the past.
With regard to the question of stolen artwork it did not play a major role in the
previous settlements. Returning stolen art was basically a consequence from the success of the
basic political settlement. So the door was opened to start looking at other issues such as
returning stolen art. The question of stolen art is also a way of diversifying the issue because
so many countries were involved in stealing art, so it makes it difficult to blame only one
country. This issue is one way on agreeing that many countries have done some wrong in their
history so it could facilitate having many different countries sitting down at the same table
and acknowledging that each has some problems and issues of the past to deal with.
37
Luncheon Session
THE ROLE OF CIVIL SOCIETY IN IMPROVING TEXT BOOKS IN TURKEY:
HISTORY TEACHING - DEMOCRATIZATION AND ACCESSION TO THE E.U.
Orhan Silier
History Foundation of Turkey
(osilier@tarihvakfi.org.tr)
Special Importance of History Education and Identity Policies for Turkey
Today’s Turkey is positioned between the Caucasus, the Balkans, Mesapotamia and the
Aegian.
Both Anatolia and these neighboring lands signify a great diversity of ethnicities,
religions and cultures, besides being among the oldest centers of human civilisation.
The former dominions of the Ottoman Empire, to which Turkey is heir in some sense, also
encompassed such a large diversity of ethnic, religious and cultural diversity. Just like its
predecessor, the East Roman empire, the Ottoman Empire brought together a large number of
different identitites. The Ottoman Empire, which extended over a period of six centuries,
from the beginning of the 14th century to the 20th century, faced, especially during the last
two centuries of its existence, various struggles for national independence. Twenty five
different independent states now fill the same area occupied by the Ottoman Empire at its
height, and were formed during a long drawn out period of retreat culminating with the First
World War; some of them reaching statehood only after the Second World War. The legacy
of this empire has engendered, for a large number of communities, a relationship of “the
other,” vis a vis the Turks, defined loosely in religious and cultural terms.
This picture can be extended back to the eleventh century, and the beginning of the first
Crusades, where the Turks represented, for the Christian West, the Moslem East.
The fact
that the museums from Madrid to Teheran, or Paris, Berlin, or Venice are embellished with
war scenes against “the Turk,”
carries a great symbolic weight which lies very deep in the
national consciousness of these peoples.
The ethnic, religious and cultural composition of today’s Turkey, even after a long series of
38
migrations, exchanges of population, etc. of the last two centuries, still reflects a variegated
structure.
Besides the peoples of Anatolia which predate the Ottoman Empire, at the end
of this process, other groups like the Bosnians, the Circassians, the Georgians, Albanians, the
Crimean Tartars and many others were added to this spectrum.
A respect for differences and fostering a peaceable perception of the world, is the sine qua
non of history education in any country.
In a country like Turkey, which has to deal with the
three pronged problematic of the legacy of empire, of the East-West confrontation and of a
highly diverse population structure, this task becomes a very important and difficult one.
History Education in the Ottoman Empire
In the Ottoman period,
the 1830’s.
history courses were first introduced in some professional schools in
In the 1850’s and 60’s, the Ministry of Education was set up and the school
system was structured into primary, lower and upper secondary and higher educational
institutions for the whole empire. In this context, the history curricula in the primary schools
and then in secondary and higher education were tied down to some regulations. The
introduction of Ottoman history in the primary schools, both Ottoman history and general
history in secondary schools, and other areas of specialisation in higher education, prompted
debates regarding the content, aims and methodology of history education.
In the 1870’s the
first large scale educational reform movement brought with it special legislation, even
defining what prizes should be given for good history book writing.
During the second half of the 19th century and the first decade of the 20th century, history
courses were seen as a channel of providing basic knowledge on the political history and
creating an “Ottoman identity” and love for the Ottoman fatherland. For the non-moslem
communities these classes were given in the native language. It should be noted that, both for
Christians and Moslems as well as Jews, these history courses ran, in some sense, parallel to,
and complemented, the religious history which was taught as part of religious instruction,
and took the form of the lives of the prophets and the saints.
It would be fair to say that this
religious histoy was for the majority, still constituted the main component of what they
regarded as “history.”
39
With educational reform, we see the spreading of the use of maps and the globe, as well as the
organisation of classrooms with blackboards, the preparation and translation of western-type
textbooks and standardization of history education. Educational reform was one of the main
components, along with the administrative, financial and military reforms, of the efforts
aiming at saving the empire, and uniting all Ottomans under one flag. The palace and the
Young Ottoman opposition at home and abroad, were united for such reforms although they
proposed different methods.
After the short lived experiment in 1876 in constitutional monarchy, followed by a very
repressive thirty year period, came the 1908 revolution headed by the Young Turks, once
more inaugurating a constitutional regime which was hailed with great enthusiasm throughout
the empire.
It was then that a more democratic climate for debate about educational policies
became possible. Within a short time, however, the Pan-Ottoman emphasis gave way to
Pan-Islamicist and especially Pan-Turkist identity building processes.
suffered in North Africa and the Balkans, together with
The military defeats
the immigration of millions in
their wake, created a big trauma, and a fear of being driven even from the heartland of the
empire.
With the influence of the ideologues who transmitted Turkish nationalism from the Caucasus
and the Turkic regions of Central Asia, and the political reverberations of the French
revolution and the German racism, Turkish nationalism rapidly rose to prominance, although
it was one of the latest arrivals on the nationalist scene in the region.
These influences fanned a strong irredentist and adventurist leaning among the newly
emergent Turkish bourgeoisie and within the Party of Unity and Progress (İttihad ve Terakki
Fırkası). This brand of nationalism endured even after the dispersion of the Ottoman Empire
at the end of the First World War and has, for a whole century, constituted an important
component of the political, ideological and also therefore of the education, scene in Turkey.
40
New Republican Regime and Nation-State Building (1920’s up to 1960’s)
The foundation of the Republic by Mustafa Kemal after the total defeat in the First World War,
was accomplished by a nationalist cadre who also arose from the Ittihat Terakki ranks, but
who were more open to the world and to humanistic ideas, and who embraced the ideals of
peace at home and in the world. As a result of this, the reforms undertaken in the 1920’s and
30’s in the area of education in general, and in history aducation in particular, entailed the
teaching of world and European history at greater length and breadth, and also involved rather
sophisticated discussions regarding the methodology of education.
However, this process as in all other processes of nation building, also harbored the
tendencies to identify with a glorious past, to emphasize and promote a national identity at the
expense of suppressing local identities, and their
not exclude the use of force.
assimilation through measures which did
Nevertheless, Kemalist nationalism, in its approach to history,
remained detached from Pan-Ottomanism and Pan-Islamism.
Democratisation of the Educational System – First Phase (1960’s to mid 70’s)
The democratic opening seized after the Second World War, with the transition to a multiparty regime accompanied by more liberal economic policies, brought with it new debates in
the area of education and history education in particular. The political climate which was
shaped by populism, clientelism and limited democratic rights, led to a greater emphasis on
the victorious age of the Ottomans, as well as a greater identification with Islam.
This trend was mitigated, however, by the rise of liberal and left politics, the surge of the trade
union movement among the teachers and other sections of the society, and a new wave of
critical thought coupled with a renewed interest in social and historical research, now set in a
wider context, thanks to the theoretical framework underpinned by such concepts as
imperialism, center – periphery relations, underdevelopment, etc.
41
Turkish-Islamic Synthesis as an Extreme Right Wing Reaction (Mid 70’s to mid 90’s)
After the formation of a “National Front” coalition uniting the right in the mid ‘70’s, and the
military coup of 1980, brutally interrupted this process.
Thus, at a time when history
education and history textbooks came under radical scrutiny and reform in the West,
education in Turkey was being shaped under the new slogan of “the Turkish-Islamic
synthesis.”
Chauvinism, authoritarianism, xenophobia and Islamicist, racist themes found their way into
history books in a much larger way than in the past. The great emphasis on obedience to the
state, and the elevation of the state to the greatest virtue, masked the reduction of all the
educational concerns, and the transformation of the educational apparatus, (including the
Universities, under the newly created Higher Education Council)
to that of national security.
Search for a European Identity (1990’s up to Nowadays)
The last ten, fifteen years has been taken up with efforts to try to repair this demage.
Although civil societal organisations, including professional unions, are exerting great
pressure in the direction of improving history education and text books, improvements are far
from being tangible or secure. The Ministry of National Education allowed the private
sector to also produce textbooks among which the parents and teachers could then, in
principle, make a choice.
Furthermore, in 1991-93 it engaged a group of university
professors to rewrite the history books with a less xenophobic attitude. But these measures
did not lead to a qualitative improvement, and were partially reversed in 2000 when the
National Movement Party became a member of the ruling coalition.
After the establishment of the present government, in 2002, under the heavy criticism coming
from parents, academics and teachers, the Minister of National Education declared that all
curricula and syllabi, as well as the books themselves, would be rewritten.
Since two years,
work has been in progress, influenced by the political liberalisation inspired by the process of
Turkey’s accession to the European Union.
In spite of a few token contacts with the
concerned parties and organisations, this process has been taking place essentially behing
closed doors. Meanwhile, the existing books have remained in circulation, although
42
technically they could be regarded as “damaged goods.”
The Role Played by Civil Societal Organisations
Since the 1960’s, teachers unions and associations, the Philosophical Association of Turkey,
independent researchers, have made various contributions to the reform of history textbooks.
However, within this period, History Foundation, which I represent here, has made the most
important, large scale and decisive contributions so far.
The History Foundation of Turkey
History Foundation is a non-governmental organisation that defends the revision of the
existing approach to history and history education in Turkey. The History Foundation, which
was founded 13 years ago by 264 leading intellectuals, defines history not as an area of
literature or propaganda, but as a field of science.
It stands against an understanding of
history that creates “others” and nurtures animosity. The work of the History Foundation is
based on objective scholarship completely free of all religious, ethnic, cultural and gender
discrimination or chauvinism and is characterised by an approach aiming at establishing
mutual understanding and friendship between the peoples of different nations.
The History Foundation views history consciousness as one organic whole composed of
perceptions of the present, interpretation of the past and predictions for the future, and regards
the deepening and widening of history consciousness as an important factor in increasing the
problem solving capacity of a society. We believe that such an approach to history will
greatly contribute to the development of a participatory democracy in Turkey and will enable
a modern and strong sense of solidarity among our citizens.
These views of ours significantly differ from the visions that are dominant in the official
circles and from the Turkish History Institution (Türk Tarih Kurumu), initially founded by
Ataturk in 1930 as an association and later turned into an official organisation after the 1980
military coup.
In spite of this, just as we cooperate with some private corporations,
international organisations and municipalities on projects, we also work together with a
43
number of ministries and governmental institutions in various specific projects. However, we
exist as a non-governmental organisation and an initiative of progressive intellectuals,
established and administered entirely by a group of citizens, independent of the state in both
our management and line of work. As a result, we fulfil our duty to warn and criticise the
official policies whenever necessary, but also, express our viewpoint to society in the form of
hundreds of cultural products.
Thirteen years ago, we, the founders of the History Foundation, after contributing 100-120
dollars each, started work in great poverty in a two-room small communication office with
second-hand furniture and a few computers. Today, we are still facing financial problems in
every area. Nevertheless, the History Foundation has emerged as one of the most important
four or five NGOs of the country.
Ever since its establishment, the History Foundation has published 375 books, two
encyclopaedias and four periodicals.
It has organised more than 25 exhibitions and 120
technical meetings, conducted history research on 25 institutions and sectors, established a
large oral history archive, a comprehensive specialised archive and a library of 25,000 books,
coordinated the Istanbul History and Sea Festival, as well as the celebrations for the 75th
Anniversary of the Turkish Republic and led the foundation of local history working groups in
more than 20 Anatolian cities. We had the responsibility for many activities on civil society
organisations in Turkey, including 15 big NGO - symposia. We brought a new voice to
museology in Turkey through Istanbul City Museum Project and Virtual Istanbul Museum
Project.
The History Foundation is an organisation which employs 50 full-time staff in
addition to project staff.
Additionally, we created a broad circle of a few thousand members,
“friends of history” and supporters.
In all its activities, the History Foundation gets its strength from progressive and democratic
intellectuals.
It manages its various projects by balancing different resources and avoiding
any political prerequisites or interferences for support.
Although Turkey has achieved
significant progress within the last 10 years, it is no doubt still not used to such large scale
activities in the non-governmental sector. Consequently, we face many problems in different
fields and consider them as steps of a mutual learning process.
44
The History Foundation and History Education
At a time when we, as the founders, did not yet have the topic in our agenda, shortly after the
establishment of History Foundation, we came under great pressure from the community:
"Now that you have founded a non-governmental organisation related to history, your priority
should lie in working on the improvement of history education and textbooks in elementary,
and in particular, in secondary school levels".
This demand illustrated that the biggest problem, the major area of complaint of a large
number of parents about history was about the materials and the quality of history education
their children were receiving.
In fact, our observation was later proven to be correct once we,
as the History Foundation, started running the “Youth and History” research project in Turkey
in coordination with the German Körber Foundation – a project which targeted high school
students aged 15 years in 26 European countries.
According to the results of a
comprehensive survey conducted with 1,250 students in 15 different cities at 35 schools of
widely varying qualifications, our students are among the group across Europe who are most
interested in history but they have radical criticisms against history education. The results of
this survey were published as a book entitled “History Consciousness and Youth” in Turkey.
For those who are further interested in the subject and are trying to gather information on the
differences in history education across European countries, “Youth and History,” a two
volumes book published in English by the Körber Foundation is recommendable.
As the first notable activity of the History Foundation history education, we organised a
national meeting entitled “History Teaching and Textbooks” in 1994 in Izmir together with a
local university with the participation of nearly 300 teachers, professors and historians in
addition to some members of the Programming Board of the Ministry of Education and then
published the proceedings in book form. As a follow-up, we organised in 1995 in Istanbul
together with the Bosphorus University, the “International History Education and The
Problem of ‘Others’ in History Congress” with 22 foreign participants from eight different
countries. The papers submitted to this congress were also published as a book. At the end
of the same year, we brought together this time German and Turkish historians and history
teachers. We organised the “Germany and Turkey: Relations through Textbooks Symposium”
in cooperation with the Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research and the
45
Goethe Institute that both have headquarters in Germany.
Later on, we contacted Euroclio (The Standing Conference of History Teachers’ Associations)
and took into our agenda the project of forming history teachers working-groups in the three
major cities of Turkey and organising local history competitions oriented towards high
schools students.
In 1998, during the 75th Anniversary Celebrations of the Turkish Republic,
even though as a one-time project, we developed this project with the support of the National
Lottery Administration under the patronage of President of the State. By way of a 6- issue
periodical and radio and TV announcements, we encouraged hundreds of thousands of high
school students to work on the history of their districts, villages, a local family, building, club
or a grocery shop. Thousands of young people applied; very good quality research, video or
CDs came from hundreds of them. We published the best among them in a book. The
prizes of the winners were presented to them at the Presidential Palace.
In 2000, we organised a workshop in cooperation with the history and education departments
of the Middle East Technical University in Ankara entitled “The Restructuring of History
Education in Turkey”. The President of the Programming Board of the Ministry of Education,
as well as many of its members, actively participated and the meeting was very successful.
The papers and discussions were later published as a book.
With the support of UNESCO, we brought together a group of history teachers and professors
from different Balkan countries within the framework of the “Improvement of the Balkan
History Textbooks Pilot Project”. This project consisted of a planning meeting, a workshop
and a final conference between June and November 2001. Educators from 5 Balkan countries
worked together to discuss and produce reports on the current status of history education in
their own countries, the outlook of their history textbooks on the Balkans and other Balkan
countries and recommendations for improvement. The national reports of the participating
countries were published in English in November 2002.
On the other hand, Regional Meetings of History Educators from Europe and Turkey Project
aimed to bring together European and Turkish history teachers and educators in order to
enable local history teachers benefit from the experiences of their European colleagues. The
first meeting was held in October 2001 in Istanbul, and the second, third and fourth meetings
46
were held in November, 2002 in Izmir (West), Mersin (South) and Sanliurfa (Southeast)
with the participation of 9 colleagues from 6 European countries and 200 teachers from
different parts of Turkey. The proceedings and discussions of the meetings have been
published by the History Foundation.
Translation, Publication and Distribution of 6 Books on History Education is another project
of the History Foundation. Six books have been translated to Turkish, published and
distributed free of charge to the libraries of high schools and educational authorities. Of
these books, five were published as outcomes of the "Teaching and Learning 20th Century
History" project of the European Council and the sixth as a joint publication of UNESCO and
Georg Eckert Institute.
Production, Publication and Distribution of "20th Century History Text Book and Teachers’
Book" is a project which will yield its fruits in the coming two months. This project consists
of writing and publication of a history textbook and a complementary teacher's handbook on
the topic of 20th Century History. This history textbook and accompanying teachers’ book
encompass the main issues of the world, European and Turkish history especially in the postWorld War Two period which up to now have been consistently omitted from the Turkish
textbooks.
Promoting Human Rights in Textbooks
A very important project that we started in 2002 in partnership with the Turkish Academy of
Sciences involves the improvement not only of history textbooks but all textbooks in their
approach to human rights. Project for Promoting Human Rights in Textbooks was inspired
by the United Nations Decade for Human Rights Education, and a need to critically assess the
basic premises of the national educational system as manifested in the textbooks.
Our
assumption was that textbooks could contribute in an important way towards fostering human
rights-consciousness in the students, or, conversely, help engender authoritarian, uncritical,
attitudes which would conflict with human rights education efforts.
The Project set out by first establishing, with the help of a volunteer group of scholars on
philosophy, human rights law, communications, semiotics, discourse analysis, literary /
cultural studies and educational psychology, the criteria under which the textbooks were to be
screened, to establish the current situation of textbooks with regard to form, content and
47
pedagogical techniques, in reference to the principles of human rights and democracy.
In
this Project, 190 textbooks used in primary and secondary schools, in all subjects, were
analysed, in the most extensive and systematic survey of textbooks in Turkey to date, with the
help of 179 teachers, 51 parents and 91 undergraduate or graduate students, who were trained
for this purpose. The study resulted in four thousand distinct reports of different abuses. The
findings, grouped according to subject or the problems addressed, were then discussed and
evaluated in the articles which were published under the title, Human Rights in Textbooks,
Survey Report.
Besides the Survey Report, (in both Turkish and English editions), a book titled Human
Rights-Friendly Textbooks, for textbook writers, publishers and education program
developers, as well as a comic book Towards a Human Rights-Friendly Educational
Milieu, aimed at teachers, and to be used in teacher training programs, have been published
under the auspices of this project, (the latter are available, unfortunately, only in Turkish),
which was financially supported by the European Union and the Open Society Institute.
Another activity foreseen in the project, a survey for determining the attitudes, perceptions
and practices regarding human rights in textbooks and in the classroom, with the aid of focus
groups and a questionnaire, is now in the process of being conducted in 15 cities with 600
teachers and 2500 students.
A series of meetings to create awareness in decision-makers, the
public, concerned non-governmental organisations and the press, of the efforts to improve
textbooks and education programmes are being held in Ankara, Istanbul and six other regional
centres.
An international symposium to present the experience and information acquired in Turkey,
develop suggestions for the sectors concerned and communicate key findings in this field and
to share the experiences throughout the world in the assessment of human rights in textbooks,
was held on the 17-18th of April 2004, with the participation of experts from UNESCO, the
International Institute on Textbook Studies and the Peace Education Center of Columbia
University, as well as a large number of speakers from Turkey and abroad.
The
proceedings of this Symposium will be available in both Turkish and English within a few
months time.
48
The master report for the improvement of textbooks with regard to human rights, based upon
the findings of the project, will be submitted to the Ministry of Education, the
Board of
Education, and all concerned in the education and publishing circles, upon the conclusion of
the project in the beginning of this summer.
Will the History Education Reform Leave the Society without Solidarity and Identity?
As the History Foundation, we suggest that the history education should carried out in the
following manner:
*
student oriented;
*
improving the capacity of students to carry out independent research;
*
enabling students to evaluate in a multi-perspective way;
*
giving sufficient emphasis to European and world history in addition to national and
local history;
*
*
with emphasis on cultural history;
with programmes taking into consideration the pedagogical specifities of the related
age group;
*
with diversified educational materials;
*
enriched with field trips, extra-curricular activities, role sharing and critical readings;
*
providing a wide range of opportunities to the principals and teachers of individual
schools in concert with general and flexible guidance provided by the central
authorities.
We believe that, above all, history education is a problem of raising able, creative, responsible
and active citizens.
Our suggestions do not receive much sympathy from the conservative and chauvinist and
nationalist circles in Turkey. They argue that such contemporary history education will
leave no room for solidarity especially in the sensitive geographic region in which we are
located.
We do not agree with this argument.
Firstly, we believe that the current education fails to
achieve its declared objectives. Recent research shows that more than half of the young
49
people in Turkey view the world with immense pessimism and that suicide crosses the minds
of one quarter as a general idea and one-eighth as a concrete plan. Already, in the last year,
the number of applicants for citizenship, permanent residency and working permits in the
United States reached 900,000. The greatest dream of millions of people is to settle in a
foreign country.
A primitive McDonalds’ culture is rising rapidly - a culture indifferent to
our historical traditions and heritage, such as architecture, dance, music and rituals, that are in
harmony with contemporary life.
In short, the argument that chauvinism encourages large
populations to protect the national interests and culture holds no validity. Chauvinism only
works towards raising intolerant and violent militants for certain political extremes, which
tends to result in the development of a monopoly over intellectual and political life.
As you well know, to have a historic-consciousness is not the same as knowing a lot of
information about the past or having a lot of nostalgic perceptions. Historical consciousness
is a whole consisting of interpretation of the past, comprehension of the present and
expectations of the future. Without protecting a project that aims at creating a democratic,
culturally active and rich society, which will have an honourable position in tomorrow’s world,
it is possible neither to be history-conscious, nor to provide a contemporary history education.
Therefore, the acknowledgment of such a future project by society as a whole, or at least by a
major part of it, is complementary to the improvement of history education in a country.
There is a close link between the demands of modern pedagogy and the type of citizen on
which modern democracy could be built on.
It is normal that every child or young person has special emotional bonds with their country.
However, the mere fact that our children learn about their surroundings, safeguard others’
rights and become acquainted with the region and the world within a scientific framework,
does not necessarily imply that they will lose the sense of belonging. Contemporary history
education aims not at destroying the sense of national belonging, but to enrich it, deepen it
and bring it in harmony with other identities.
It is apparent that an isolationist education based upon praising and memorising its own
history and which is executed by antiquated methods can not build a developed identity or
collective identities resistant to powerful ebbs and flows of an ever-globalising world.
50
On the contrary, practice reveals that such an education encourages pessimism and primitive
egoism and is more vulnerable to McDonald culture, global fashions, and collective amnesia
than other Western countries implementing a new model at history education. Various facts
such as millions of people applying for citizenship in foreign countries, the erosion of the
ancient cultural values of Anatolia, emigration as the most widespread choice of the young vis
á vis economic crisis and the failure to protect our historical heritage leave us with any
alternative but to discard the present system. It is painfully clear that in fact, it just consists of
a empty rhetoric without any power to shape the actual course of contemporary life, and is
only a crude means of political control.
It is not possible to counteract the effects of globalisation on national culture and national
solidarity by ignoring them, or repeating self-serving platitudes, rejecting different identities
in our society, or by ignoring the history of Anatolia as long as possible and designing a
policy resting on isolation and xenophobia.
Historical consciousness means, according to a widely accepted definition, the ability to
establish connections between interpretations of the past, perception of the present and
expectations from the future. Only an individual having a historical consciousness in this
sense, is able to place her/himself within the flow of time and take her own place actively and
creatively in social life, thanks to a definite and responsible behaviour acquired by having a
designation of a common cultural heritage and a common project for the future.
The conservative approach that tries to use historical consciousness not as an instrument of
change but in order not to change, is an anachronism, a survival from a pre-modern history
concept.
Only with a civilized approach making use of history to construct a just, scientific, honourable
future, respectful of the natural and historical environment, it is possible to make history an
enjoyable, creative and capacity building area that will attract the attention of clever students.
If it is intended to bring up responsible citizens, not submissive “subjects” or “mobs” ready to
attack under the incitement of political demagogy, it is necessary to implement a new model
51
of history education.
The widespread identity crises in the society originates not from the lack of memorized
historical knowledge or breaking away from the past but because of not being able to produce
projects bearing worldwide importance with respect to the future and taking into
consideration the universal values.
Questions on Orhan Silier Presentation
Andrew Horvat:
The way in which outsiders become acquainted with ethnic minority issues in Turkey is in
large part a result of the conflict in Iraq. We are made aware of the existence of a very large
Kurdish minority in Iraq. How is education in Turkey directed toward a multi-ethnic idea?
Is Turkish nationalism exclusive? Does it project or force a Turkish identity on minorities ? Is
there a more multi-ethnic approach, and if so, is Turkey in anyway influenced by the fact that
it has an application to join the European Union and does this influence its educational policy
vis-à-vis the minorities.
Response:
It differs according to the time period. During the Ottoman period, education was a matter
within each community group. During the independence war there was more room for interethnic partnership and communication. 1925 to the 1990s was a period of tolerance in a
sense, but a restricted tolerance from top down. In this sense the national identity was so
strong in the educational and political process, that to a large extent, it depended on the
repression of local identities of every type and indirectly religious and ethnic identities. But
still with the Ottoman heritage the tension among the different ethnic religious groups was not
as significant as one expected. For example, at least in civil society life respect for other’s
different beliefs was quite common. During the last fifteen or twenty years the situation is
improving in many ways. A more open policy toward minorities in Turkey such as Kurds,
Armenians and Assyrians, is now taking place. But still there is a lot to be done and we are
trying to influence this issue more by publishing books, writing articles, organizing
campaigns. We try to do this without creating a basis for micro-nationalisms or separatism
and rather try and create a basis for mutual respect and understanding and a common life for
all. Another important activity is a travelling exhibition that is travelling to twenty different
cities in Turkey and mentioning the life stories of some Armenians, Jews, Kurds and other
minorities. Through their own life stories on how life is still difficult for them, sensitivity
toward minority rights is receiving more public attention.
52
Scott Snyder:
I have a question about this Turkish-Islamic synthesis that characterized the education system
in the 1980s and I wonder what influence it has on Turkish politics and society in today’s
context.
Response:
I think the Turkish-Islamic synthesis is the title of a reactionary educational philosophy. It
was a coalition of Islamists and some Turkish to bring their political affiliation directly to the
educational system. I am going to give some symbolic percentages. During the 20s, 30s,
40s, 50s the total number of pages devoted to so-called Turkish history and Islamic history in
the education system was not more than 10 percent. After the 1970s and 80s Turkish and
Islamic history comprised about 80 percent of the total history textbook. This means that even
though Turkey is opening up to the world by being member of many international
organizations, signing many international agreements, being a candidate of the European
Union and in a sense really opening in every respect to the outside world, with respect to
history education it is closing its doors to the world. I think this brought very negative results
to the whole political atmosphere and de-politicizing the younger generation due to the fact
that according to research on youth and history, Turkish students do not find their history
textbooks to be anymore reliable than historical novels and they are right.
Dr. Hoepken:
All of our Turkish colleagues agree that it is very difficult to improve Turkish textbooks
because they have to be fundamentally reshaped. In fact, Turkey needs a whole new
curriculum with completely rewritten textbooks. You mentioned that the new government has
declared to do this. So my question is… are there any first steps to open up the textbook
market to a plurality of textbooks which the teacher or school can use? What is the current
state of the situation?
Response:
This is really not the basic question. For the last fifteen years the market has been open to
the private sector and teachers and parents can choose whatever book they like. But if you
have a curriculum or a syllabus that is very reactionary, diversity in textbooks is not very
significant. Turkey has the second worst textbooks in the whole of Europe, as far as I know,
with the exception of Yugoslavia, Albania or Greek textbooks which are very nationalist.
Turkey’s textbooks are bad, but unfortunately they are not the exception. In today’s world
textbooks are one of the most problematic means of educating people and in this sense the
53
level of improvement in textbooks is very much related to the level of development of
democratization in a country. In Turkey, the textbooks are not reflecting the current level of
democracy and democratization. In Turkey textbooks are lagging behind the signs of
democratic relations and the development of civil society institutions. However, I am
optimistic due to the fact that there is now a growing social consciousness about the need to
essentially revise textbooks. But nationalism of any kind is still a significant barrier for
improvement in textbooks in all countries and especially in Turkey.
Session 2
Historical Reconciliation between Japan and China
Daqing Yang (yanghist@gwu.edu)
54
Associate Professor of Japanese History and International Affairs
The George Washington University
(Please do not cite without author’s permission; comments welcome)
Since the end of the Cold War, there has been a growing global awareness to past
injustice.i The East Asia region is no exception. It has witnessed phenomenal economic
growth and the spread of democratization in recent decades; yet wounds from past wrongs
committed in times of colonialism, war, and dictatorship are not yet fully healed.
In fact, as
many would agree, overcoming historical animosities and building trust has become one of
the most important issues for the future of the region.i
How should we cope with historical injustice? Philosopher David Crocker has set
forth eight “morally urgent goals”—truth, public platform for victims, accountability &
punishment, rule of law, compensation to victims, institutional reform, long-term
development, reconciliation, public deliberation. Simply put, reconciliation is restoration of
peaceful ties and goodwill between former antagonists. A term heavy in psychological
connotations, reconciliation is defined by some as “restoring friendship, harmony or
communion” between individuals or groups “after a traumatic experience(s) locking two
peoples in an ongoing cycle of mistrust, fear and/or hatred.” Usefully, Crocker distinguishes
reconciliation between varieties of “thin”—formerly hostile parties continue to coexist
without taking active revenge—and “thick,” which entails “forgiveness, mercy, a shared
comprehensive vision, mutual healing, or harmony.”i
Needless to say, reconciliation is more
of a process, equilibrium rather than a permanent condition.
If reconciliation is but one of the ways in dealing with the past injustice, we must then ask:
When is reconciliation desirable? Does it always have a higher priority than other “morally
urgent goals”? Who get to set such priorities? And finally, what are the necessary conditions
for reconciliation to take place? In this paper, I propose to examine the status of reconciliation
between Japan and China in the context of their postwar relations. My arguments are as
follows: first, postwar “thin reconciliation” between Japan and the two China’s (and the
Republic of Korea for that matter)—as in the restoration of diplomatic relations—took place
during the Cold War when the latter were under one form of dictatorship or another. Second,
the revival and the escalation of historical animosities between China and Japan largely
55
coincided with major structural changes domestically and internationally. Lastly, the two
major trends in the region—economic integration and democratization—are transforming
state-society relations, and bound to affect the prospect for a “thick reconciliation” in between
Japan and China.
“Thin Reconciliation” between Japan and Two China’s
Japan-Republic of China (1952)
On August 15, 1945, an hour before Emperor Hirohito’s speech signaled Japan’s
surrender, Chinese President Chiang Kai-shek went on the radio to deliver a speech to his
fellow countrymen. Heralding China’s victory over Japan after eight difficult years, he
nonetheless called on his compatriots not to seek revenge on their enemy. Chiang justified this
magnanimity in terms of the Christian spirit of forgiveness as well as such traditional Chinese
virtues as benevolence. In time, Chiang would come to be portrayed as the champion of
“repaying hatred with virtue.” Recent studies have shown that such a policy was not simply a
reflection of Eastern or Christian virtues.
Rather, it was also due to Chiang’s great
disillusionment with the Yalta Agreement, where the great power allies—United States,
Britain, and the Soviet Union—decided the fate of East Asia without consulting China.
i
Influential as Chiang’s appeal was, it would be wrong to conclude that reconciliation
had thus trumped all other demands such as justice or compensation. To ROC, which
participated in the IMTFE and conducted military tribunals of several hundred Japanese war
criminals on its own (which lead to the death sentence of a few hundred Japanese officers),
the Japanese military clique had been duly punished. As a result, the vast majority of the
Japanese military and civilians—numberings millions—could be peacefully repatriated to
Japan. For compensations, too, Chinese leaders had in fact demand reparations and indeed
received a number of Japanese ships and plants, before the US changed its occupation policy
of Japan in favor of economic recovery.
Interestingly enough, Chiang’s rhetoric of “repay
hatred with virtue” was also evoked by clever Japanese negotiators to drive a hard bargain
down Chiang’s throat in 1952 after he had lost Mainland China. “Indebtedness to President
Chiang” also proved useful when used by the so-called “Taiwan faction” politicians in Japan
to justify Japan’s ties with ROC at the expense of PRC and to soften criticism of the
government by the public. It didn’t seem to have much effect on government officials
56
involved in making China policy.
i
Shortly after the signing of the Japan-China Peace Treaty, Chiang dispatched one of
his trusted lieutenants, Zhang Qun to Japan.
A top KMT official, Zhang had previously
studied in Japan. During his audience with the Emperor, the latter allegedly expressed regret
over the “unfortunately events” in the bilateral relations. Zhang reminded that the most urgent
task for both countries now was to strengthen an anti-Communist alliance.i
In practice,
indeed, even before two governments had formally ended the state of war, Chiang had
welcomed back Japanese officers to train his troops.i
When visiting Japanese politician Ôno
Banboku confessed to Chiang of his strong anti-Chiang rhetoric during the war, no apology
was necessary, as both now shared a vision of anti-Communism.i
Chiang’s use of “reconciliation card” did not always go unopposed, even though
popular sentiment was difficult to gauge.
In 1956, a ROC goodwill mission arrived in Japan.
Headed by the Legislative Yuan leader Zhang Daofang, the group paid a visit to the Yasukuni
Shrine. The ROC Embassy in Tokyo had objected to the visit, on the grounds that the shrine
honored those Japanese who had slaughtered millions of Chinese. Chiang Kai-shek overruled,
arguing the visit was “the best way to demonstrate our goodwill to the Japanese people.”i
Chiang went out of his way to offer forgiveness—a unilateral gesture of reconciliation—in
order to counter-balance the growing Japanese calls for improving relations with his archrival
PRC.
Japan-PRC (1972)
From 1949 to the beginning of the 1970s, relations between PRC and Japan were
conducted on “non-governmental” basis. The Japanese government, under pressure from the
United States, refused to have official ties with the Communist neighbor. The Japanese
government pursued the policy of “separation of politics and economics” [sei kei bunri].
Trade restarted in the early 1950s, subject to strict CHINCOM restrictions, and was put on
more steady basis in the 1960s after the signing of the so-called Liao-Takasaki Memorandum.
There was also a small but steady stream of visitors between the two countries, mostly
conducted through semi-governmental Chinese organizations and private Japanese groups,
pending government approval of visas.i
It is true that China periodically lashed out against the “revival of Japanese
militarism,” often an indirect attack on “American imperialism” and the Japanese government.
While Chinese leaders spoke of Japanese invasions of China since the Sino-Japanese War of
57
1894-95 in conversations with Japanese visitors, they refrained from specific cases of atrocity
and emphasized the Chinese forgiveness and urged new friendship. Indeed, there were plenty
of occasions when the Chinese leaders seemed ready to let bygones be bygones. For instance,
when meeting with Japanese Diet members in 1954, the Chinese premier Zhou Enlai noted:
“The history of the past sixty years of Sino-Japanese relations was not good. However, it is a
thing of the past, and we must turn it into a thing of the past. This is because friendship exists
between the peoples of China and Japan. Compared to the history of a few thousand years, the
history of sixty years is not worth bringing up. Our times have been unfortunate, because we
have only been living in these sixty years. However, our ancestors weren’t like this. Moreover,
we cannot let such history influence our children and grandchildren.i”
Reconciliation with Japan served PRC’s strategic interest of breaking out from the
Cold War containment.
If Chiang had to pursue reconciliation with Japan from a position of
weakness, Mao and PRC leaders had a degree of confidence following the victory in the Civil
War. Interesting, both Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Tse-tung subscribed to the “people vs. ruling
class” formulation since the time of the war, that it was only the small group of Japanese
militarists that should be held responsible for invading China and bringing out calamities on
the Chinese people as well as the Japanese people. While such a formulation was used as a
justification of an otherwise unpopular policy and contained elements of calculation, it also
reflected the similar cognitive world of two otherwise diametrically opposed leaderships.
Such an ideological position also had impact on how they reached settlement with
Japan over the war, serving as a useful justification for reaching out to the country that had
invaded China. PRC, which demanded the right to put Japanese military leaders on trial
immediately after the Japanese surrender, had the opportunity to do so with several hundred
Japanese who had been captured in China’s civil war or transferred from the Soviet Union.
More significantly, the PRC sought to put them through “re-education.” By releasing most of
them ahead of time, the government claimed to have meted out due punishment. The “people
vs. militarist clique” argument was also used to justify the abandonment of reparations from
Japan, a decision reached within the leadership in the early 1960s.
The Joint Communiqué that signaled diplomatic “normalization” between Japan and
PRC in 1972 is significant in that it was the first time when Japanese government put in
writing an apology over past transgressions: “The Japanese side is keenly conscious of the
responsibility for the serious damage that Japan caused in the past to the Chinese people
58
through war, and deeply reproaches itself.” The 1970s were said to be the “honeymoon” in
Japan-China relations. The two governments went on to sign a Treaty of Peace and Friendship
in 1978. The measurement of friendship, however, did not deal with the “unfortunate period”
in their bilateral history but largely evolved around the common strategic posture against the
Soviet threat.
Despite various idiosyncrasies, there were common characteristics between Japan’s
postwar rapprochement with its former victims. First, diplomatic normalization is part of the
reconciliation process, albeit a first step. It was only a “thin” one because it was purely a
state-to-state reconciliation. Paramount strategic as well as economic considerations overruled, or bypassed, emotions. Needless to say, the predisposition and ideological orientation
of leadership also mattered a great deal. Not only was it entirely state-orchestrated, it also left
out questions of individual compensation entirely. Second, such reconciliation was “thin”
because in two out of the three cases, both sides, if inadvertently, skirted the issue of even
trying to reach a consensus over past acts of transgression. To be sure, even for state relations,
the “normalization” was not complete, as territorial disputes were shelved, deliberately. Third,
questions remains as to how much domestic legitimacy there was for each case of the
“reconciliation” conducted by the respective governments. The amount of popular expression
on such “nationalist issues” in each of these countries ranged from virtual non-existence (PRC
and ROC) to limited (ROK).
From “History Problem” to Thick Reconciliation
The “historical problem” between Japan and its Asian neighbors is generally
considered to have begun in the early 1980s after the so-called textbook controversy. The
problem deepened in 1985 after Prime Minister Nakasone’s official visit to the Yasukuni
Shrine, another round of textbook controversy in 1986, and repeated statements by Japanese
politicians to justify Japan’s colonialism and war aroused further condemnation from
neighboring governments. Asian protests caused much indignation within Japan over
“interference into Japan’s domestic affairs.” Since then, the relations between Japan and its
close neighbors seem to have entered a vicious cycle whenever the history issues are touched
upon. Some progress made by Japan in dealing with past injustice—such as improvement in
textbook coverage of modern history, and Japanese payment to “comfort women” victims
59
through the “Asian Women’s Fund, while not entirely satisfying to many Asian neighbors,
invited a backlash from conservatives in Japan.
In many ways, 1998 marked a milestone in the history of reconciliation in Northeast
Asia. In early October, President Kim Daejung of Korea and Prime Minister Obuchi Keizo of
Japan issued a joint declaration in Tokyo. For the first time, the Japanese government offered
explicit apology for the 36-years of colonial rule in Korea. In return, President Kim praised
Prime Minister Obuchi’s gesture and promised to leave the past behind and work for future
cooperation between the two countries:
“Looking back on the relations between Japan and the Republic of Korea during this century,
Prime Minister Obuchi regarded in a spirit of humility the fact of history that Japan caused,
during a certain period in the past, tremendous damage and suffering to the people of the
Republic of Korea through its colonial rule, and expressed his deep remorse and heartfelt
apology for this fact. President Kim accepted with sincerity this statement of Prime Minister
Obuchi's recognition of history and expressed his appreciation for it. He also expressed his
view that the present calls upon both countries to overcome their unfortunate history and to
build a future-oriented relationship based on reconciliation as well as good-neighborly and
friendly cooperation.i ”
Kim’s visit to Japan was widely heralded as the landmark event in the Korea-Japan
reconciliation. If political forgiveness is understood as the promise not to bring past into the
future, it is quite clear that the Kim Daejung has offered just that, with the understanding that
Japan would abide by this as well.
Barely a month had passed when President Jiang Zemin of China arrived in Japan for
his first state visit, which had been postponed due to floods in the country. Throughout his
visit, however, President Jiang brought up the issue of Japan’s past aggression against China,
even in the presence of Japan’s emperor. The Japanese government repeated apology in an
oral statement, but refused to offer the same written declaration that he had demanded. Some
Japanese blamed Jiang’s unwillingness to offer the same kind of forgiveness as the cause. As a
result of the visit, the already deteriorating mutual perceptions in both countries sank further.
If the reconciliation between Japan and its neighbors prior to the 1980s belong to the “thin”
variety, 1998 seemed to mark the beginning of a “thick reconciliation” between Japan and the
Republic of Korea, whereas that between Japan and China remained elusive.i Despite some
efforts on the part of Chinese leaders since 1999, the two countries seem to have entered a
deadlock over one of the contentious issues concerning the past: Japanese Prime Minister
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Koizumi Junichirô’s continued visits to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine have made him a
persona non grata in China.
The current relations between the two leading powers in Northeast Asia has been
characterized as “hot economically, cold politically.” The cold political relationship has many
causes: mutual mistrust and ambitions in the context of a rising China and “normalizing”
Japan; Taiwan question. There is no doubt that historical animosities both contribute to and
are reaffirmed by it. The prospect for deepening reconciliation in Northeast Asia, and between
Japan and China in particular, hinges on the following questions: How does domestic politics
affect external reconciliation? How does economic integration promote historical
reconciliation? What influence can external actors bring to bear on the players involved?
Implicit in this last question is to what extent Japan-ROK reconciliation can serve as a model
for China.
Nationalism, Democracy, and Reconciliation
Rising nationalism in both China and Japan in recent decades is undoubtedly a major
obstacle to reconciliation.
Since the late 1970s, patriotism has been firmly established as the
new (in fact, old) official orthodox in China. Much has been said about the need to replace the
Communist ideology that had guided the state over previous decades, to provide a muchneeded social cohesive in a time of mind-boggling social and economic change in a country
of 1.3 billion. Viewed in the modern history of China since the late 19th century, however, this
is not an entirely new phenomenon, and thus can be considered a return to the pre-1949 norms.
Regardless of its cause, it is undeniable that with patriotism as the orthodox propagated by the
state and embraced by the public,
i
As China’s modern history has shown, patriotism is always a double-edged sword, however.
As in the case of 1930s, historical enemies abroad often served as surrogate target for
criticizing government when otherwise such freedom would be severely limited: student
demonstrations in 1985 against Japanese Prime Minister Nakasone’s visit to the Yasukuni
Shrine was one of the first of such events. It had the ironic effect of contributing to the
downfall of one of China’s most promising liberal leaders, Hu Yaobang, who had made a
concerted effort of improving relations with Japan and its leaders. i Has the Chinese
government become a captive to its own rhetoric? For one thing, it seems that the state is far
from being monolithic, with constituent parts often working for different purposes. Whereas
those guardians of ideological matters still see patriotism a savior to China, the Foreign
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Ministry is always complaining in private about the difficulty of doing diplomacy, especially
with Japan.
Chinese media, still under state control at levels but also increasingly having to
consider circulation and profit, nonetheless seizes on such issues of “popular interest” in
recent years. As a result they often inflame the public sentiment at their own initiative. The
phenomenal expansion of the internet use, while still carefully monitored and controlled by
the state, has opened a somewhat peculiar space for unprecedented level of “free speech” in
China. In July 2003, history activists organized an online petition to the government, not to
award Japanese company the contract to build China’s high-speed rail link between Shanghai
and Beijing. Within eight days, they collected 80,000 signatures. i Increasingly, their
endeavors have taken on the appearance of “citizens’ movement” in a country lacking a real
civil society. As James Reilly points out in a recent article, over the past two decades, these
"history activists" has maximized its professional independence, social credibility, academic
resources, and international connections to usurp many traditional roles of the state in
building new institutions and engaging in activism aimed at documenting and disseminating
information on Japan's wartime atrocities.i
Beginning from 2003, a number of well-placed Chinese commentators in proposed
what came to be known as the “New Thinking toward Japan.” They argued that given the
importance of Japan in China’s security environment as well as economic development, China
should shelf the issues over history and work for closer cooperation with Japan. Tellingly,
the loudest condemnation of these moderate opinion makers came not from the government
but from other scholars and especially internet chat rooms. In this case, it may well be that the
state needs to get down from the tiger it had mounted although it is increasingly difficult to do
so. Even if the government has a long way to go before becoming a democracy, it already
had to deal with “voices of the people” in ways unheard of since 1949.
Here the distinction
between democracy and democratic transition is relevant. As Victor Cha has noted in a recent
essay on Japan-ROC reconciliation, whereas “democratic consolidation” is crucial,
democratic transition from authoritarianism is often unstable and chaotic, creating new
political freedom and unregulated marketplace of information that is ripe for abuse. Very
often, what he calls “democratization hysteria” is targeted against historical enemies. i
The challenges for Japan are no less significant. Maybe not so much regime legitimacy,
but certainly electability. The tendency to use nationalistic issues to gain popular votes is not
entirely absent in a more established democracy like Japan where the long-ruling LDP’s
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dependence on votes from the Association of War Bereaved Families is beyond doubt. i
Writing the national flag and national anthem into law, as well as required display of the flag
and signing of the anthem at school functions, can perhaps be seen as an effort to repair and
solidify a fractured society. These moves in turn feed the suspicious in neighboring countries
about the revival of state-centered ultra-nationalism as in the prewar period. Democratic
values and practice--respect for human rights among its core— are as important as, if not
more important than, the mere existence of democratic institutions when it comes to
reconciling with another nation. There is plenty historical evidence that such democratic
government have enacted undemocratic laws, especially when they deal with what are
considered “foreign.” Moreover, democracies have an obligation that democratic
institutions—elections and freedom of speech---are not abused by demagogue and
xenophobes. Examples like the popular Tokyo Governor Ishihara Shintarô (bearing certain
similarities to Mr. Haider of Austria), who has no qualms in fanning discrimination toward
Chinese and Koreans, seems to have escaped public condemnation within Japan. In this sense,
even the most established democracy in Asia such as Japan has plenty lessons to learn.
It is not easy in a democracy, especially one that had a dark past to settle, to push for
redress and justice. As historian Jeffery Herf has shown in his study of postwar Germany, the
deeper dilemma lay in the expression of popular will as manifested in democratic processes
and fair and free elections whose outcome was defeat of those politicians who advocated a
harder line on denazification. Had it not been for leaders like Konrad Ardenaur and the Social
Democratic opposition, “a West German democracy would have emerged with far less
memory, far less justice, and far less compassion for survivors [of Nazi crimes].” i
A
democracy thus does not necessarily make reconciliation easier. Often it may be the opposite,
making it a messier process. Enlightened leadership is thus even more crucial in building
public support for sometimes unpopular policies aimed at reconciliation. Only this way,
reconciliation by a democracy can be accomplished and is likely to have more lasting power.
Regional Economic Integration and Reconciliation
In some ways, a more significant change in China as well as in the entire region is in
economic sphere. Rapidly growing economic ties as well as deepening economic
interdependence in the region are bound to have important implications for reconciliation.
63
First, inter-societal interaction increases as a result of growing economic interdependence. Closer economic ties necessarily increase flow of people and other links—if
purely business-like ones—across the border.
Shanghai now has one of the largest
concentrations of overseas Japanese. In September 2003, Chinese government quietly
introduced an unprecedented measure: Japanese citizens traveling to China for under 15 days
would not need a Chinese visa. While it is mostly economic motivation of promoting tourism,
such measures were not extended to other foreign tourists. The fact that it was not reciprocal
is also significant, although talks are under way to relax some restrictions on Chinese citizens
visiting Japan. History has proven that increase of institutional links across the borders is
crucial factor in building common interest.
Second, economic dependency seems to be creating more pragmatism, at least on the
part of leaders and some elites. The history issues, while important, are then accepted as
only part of the wider range of goals worth pursuing. Recently, the mayor of Nanjing visited
Japan’s sister city of Nagoya, to appeal for Japanese investment in his city—now a symbol of
Japanese wartime atrocity. The current state of Japan-China ties are such that while Chinese
government has refused to invite Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi to visit China due to his
insistence at visiting the Yasukuni shrine, it has not adversely affected Japanese investment in
China (with the possible exception of China’s high-speed rail link).
This speaks to both
Chinese leaders’ pragmatism as well as the deepening mutual economic dependency.
Though still at a low level and restricted geographically, cultural inter-penetration is
also taking place between Japan and China, part of a growing trend within Northeast Asia.
It
is especially true among the younger generation in urban areas. Much of it is economydriven, and its implications for reconciliation remain to be seen. There are those who argue
that generational change provides healing of war wounds.i To be sure, increased contact
between societies do not in itself lead to better mutual understanding. At times, friction and
misunderstanding aggravated the existing problems. The visit of a group of Japanese company
employees with Chinese prostitutes in southern China, around the sensitive anniversary of
September 18th, created a firestorm throughout China. Performance by several Japanese
students at a Xian University in 2003 caused such misunderstanding that Chinese youth
staged demonstrations and even rampaged foreign student dormitories.
At the very least,
with two societies bound in close interactions, such incidents make it plainly clear that there is
no alternative to improved understanding since turning away is not an option.
On the Japanese side, there is indication of growing the realization of the need to
64
appeal to the public in China. Providing balanced information of contemporary Japan has
become a major goal. Japanese embassies in both Beijing (and Seoul) run extensive
homepage and internet magazines aimed at Chinese and Korean readers. Kyodo news agency
also operates a Chinese-language website devoted to news and in-depth analysis.i
At the top
state level, however, there are limits due to domestic politics. For instance, Koizumi’s
(seemingly) offhanded dismissal of Chinese (and Korean) anger at his repeated Yasukuni
visits demonstrates his lack of appreciation of the importance of public opinion in countries
not his own.i
External Forces and Reconciliation
Three external actors are likely to shape the interactions between Japan and China and
affect the prospect of thick reconciliation.
As the only remaining superpower the United States still maintain much influence in
the East Asia region. As a close ally of Japan, the US is also deeply involved in what China
considers its domestic affair—the defense of Taiwan. Just as the appearance of close SinoAmerican relations in the Clinton years produced discomfort in Japan, the US is not likely to
be pleased with what some once called a Sino-Japanese Axis should the two countries
overcome their historical animosities and become close allies. Though not specifically with
China in mind, the decision by the Bush administration to reaffirm the finality of the San
Francisco peace Treaty and helped bring an end to law suits filed against Japanese
corporations in the US—in contrast with the US semi-official role as a mediator between
German firms and plaintiffs shows different geopolitical dynamics.
If the realists both in and outside the US government see closer cooperation between
Japan and China as detrimental to US influence, this is far from the consensus in the US. Nor
are the non-official actors in the US uninterested in or incapable of promoting reconciliation
between Japan and China. Promoting collaborative research into disputed history is one
such area. Ezra Vogel of Harvard University and others have been working hard in brining
Chinese and Japanese historians together to join Western scholars to study the Sino-Japanese
War (1931-1945).i
The United States Institute of Peace, funded by the Congress, has jointly
sponsored a conference with the Tokyo Foundation and hosted a workshop on reconciliation
in Asia that has led to publication in both Japanese and English. My own university is
launching a policy and research project this fall entitled “Memory and Reconciliation in Asia
Pacific.” We seek to serve not only as a clearinghouse of reliable data on Japan’s record of
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war and colonialism as well as postwar settlement, but also a conduit of constructive dialogue
between journalists, scholars, and practioners in the US and in Asia.i
Given its relative success in inter-ethnic reconciliation and with less geostrategic stake
in East Asia, Europe has potentially a greater role to play in promoting historical
reconciliation in East Asia. Again, this is already happening.
It may be remembered that
the UNESCO first attempted to promote Japan-Korea dialogue as early as 1960s. Now, the
Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung is playing an active role, as the Georg Eckert institute of
International Textbook Research. Obviously East Asia is as different from Europe as China
and Japan are different from Germany and France, yet there is much in common in the human
experience of overcoming historical animosities that can be shared.
Finally, Korea, with unique experience of pursuing international and external
historical reconciliationi, has a special role to play. Korea’s ongoing historical reconciliation
with Japan is making greater progress and enjoys more support within Japan (and from the
US). This is particularly significant.
Although geopolitical consideration is part of the
motivation, thick reconciliation between Japan and Korea will have to depend on democratic
values and respective for human rights, and require active involvement of both state and
society. Japan, like Korea, is likely to undergo major changes in its historical education of its
younger generation. As a past victim of Japanese aggression, Korea’s path toward
reconciliation with Japan will offer useful lessons for China as well.
Finally, from a
geostrategic perspective, there will be greater pressure for Chinese government to strive for
deeper reconciliation in case China would be left out. All of this will have a positive effect on
Japan-China reconciliation.
The “Tsukuru Kai” History Textbook Controversy
history education in Japan in regional and historical context since 1945
By Motohiro Kondo
Professor, School of Graduate Studies
66
Nihon University
The junior high school history textbook published in 2001 by The Japanese Society for
History Textbook Reform (atarashii rekishi kyokasho wo tsukuru kai, hereinafter referred to as
Tsukuru Kai) contains a number of passages insulting to neighboring countries. The textbook has been
the object of negative attention for having painted a genrally rosy picture of Japan. It is my opinion,
however, that neither the behavior nor influence of the Tsukuru Kai are understood very well outside
Japan. I would like to take issue here with a view held abroad that the appearance of the Tsukuru Kai
history textbook indicates a swing to the right in Japanese society as a whole. Nothing could be farther
from the truth.
The Tsukuru Kai’s views in no way represent mainstream public opinion in Japan. In fact, it
is the very absence of public support that makes the Tsukuru Kai take action designed to attract
publicity.
The Japanese Ministry of Education’s custom of vetting textbooks used in Japanese schools is,
I believe, a major cause for the misunderstandings abroad with regard to the Tsukuru Kai textbook.
One should keep in mind that the Japanese textbook vetting system is totally different from the stateapproval systems used in China and Korea. It is often reported that the Japanese Ministry of Education
-- or even that the Japanese government -- has approved a particular textbook when in fact all that the
Ministry did was to examine it to make certain it adheres to certain minimum standards. The Ministry
in no way recommends the use of any textbook.
Textbook approval takes place once every four years in Japan. It should be kept in mind that
in 2001, the year the Tsukuru Kai textbook went through the vetting process, the Ministry examined
155 textbooks for use in primary schools and 105 for use in junior high schools.
The decision whether or not to use textbooks approved by the Ministry is made by various
local educational committees: in the case of primary and junior high schools at the local government
level, and in the case of high schools, by prefectural committees of education. Judging from the fact
that no more than 0.03 percent of eligible schools chose to study history using the Tsukuru Kai
textbook, we can see that most Japanese neither accept the Tsukuru Kai’s work as a textbook, nor do
they agree with its contents.
At present, the view that the Ministry of Education’s textbook approval system should be
abolished is gaining rapid acceptance in Japan. There are two reasons for this: first of all, the vetting
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system does stand in the way of freedom of choice in education; secondly, it invites criticism from
abroad based on misunderstanding.
Judging from the situation described above, it should be evident that Japan does not impose
on its citizens a single, uniform vision of the nation’s past, that its citizens do not share such a single,
uniform vision and that a large variety of opinions on historical issues compete with one another.
Let me discuss for a moment the historical background to the emergence of the Tsukuru Kai
movement. Although I have stated above that there are a variety of views on historical issues in Japans,
since the end of World War II, a single dividing line can be easily discerned splitting public opinion
into two. While Japan (unlike Korea, Germany or Vietnam) escaped the fate of physical division after
1945, Japan experienced an internal division during the Cold War based on ideology.
On one side of the dividing line stood those who saw China and the Soviet Union in utopian
terms. The opposing camp held that Japan can survive only by aligning itself with the West under the
leadership of the United States. Since the members of the faction who supported China and the USSR
openly sympathized with socialism, let us for sake of convenience call them “leftists.” Line up on the
right, were those favoring capitalism and a market economy. In other words, the ideological
antagonisms of the Cold War were replicated domestically inside Japan.
At the core of the leftwing movement were the teachers unions, whose members were driven
by a strong sense of remorse for their wartime role in preparing young people to die for their country.
They formed powerful, politically active unions and they vowed that they would never again send
students to war. Not surprisingly, such leftist teachers embraced socialist visions of history and
tended to emphasize the negative aspects of Japan’s past.
At this time, many Japanese leftists thought Japan should abandon capitalism and adopt a
socialist system like that of China. There was also some support for Soviet-style socialism but in
general, the Japanese left was overwhelmingly pro-Chinese. On Korea, the left supported the North
and opposed the South.
On foreign policy issues, the left was anti-US, anti-West, and consistently pressed for
stronger ties with East bloc nations. The left also advocated improved relations with neighboring Asian
countries. Leftist views on historical issues closely followed the left’s perceptions of the world
situation.
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Left and right clashed on how history should be taught in Japanese schools. The battle lines
were drawn in educational institutions, in debates over the wording of passages in history textbooks,
and even in discussions between parents and teachers. It is worth repeating here that under these
circumstances, a domestic consensus on modern Japanese history – i.e. the actions taken by Japan -could not evolve either within the educational community, or among members of society as a whole.
As a result of the absence of a broadly based, nationally shared vision of history, teachers
tended to avoid enthusiastic teaching of Japan’s recent past, instructing students instead to read
relevant passages from the textbook on their own. That is to say, the ideological split within Japan on
historical issues and regional relations made it difficult to carry out meaningful instruction about
Japan’s relations with neighboring countries.
This is probably the main reason why the majority of Japanese young people lack basic
information about recent relations between their country and its neighbors. I am glad to be able to
report that we are making headway toward the forging of a shared vision of the past, or at least we are
headed in that direction.
Between defeat in World War II and the early 1970’s, a disconnect emerged between Japan’s
actual policies on the one hand, and mainstream thinking within Japanese education and the mass
media on the other. Whereas Japan was firmly rooted within the Western camp, the country’s
educational community and its media were strongly leftwing. Such people tended to be critical of
Japanese actions.
In spite of this, the rural-based Liberal Democratic Party was able to hang on to power (thanks
in large part to the disproportionate strength of farm votes). As a result, Japan remained firmly within
the Western camp and could eventually benefit from rapid economic growth. As Japan’s economy
improved, so did its relations with South Korea. Reports of actual conditions in North Korea, China
and the USSR began to reach Japan. These factors combined to greatly undermine support for the
once-powerful Japanese left.
In the meantime, a significant portion of the Japanese public came to feel their country, having
achieved such rapid economic growth and high living standards, deserved to enjoy a reputation abroad
commensurate with its achievements. From the viewpoint of such people, Japan’s having ravaged its
69
neighbors, is a major embarrassment and nothing would please them more than to be able to find some
excuse to for the country’s despicable conduct. As a result, in part to restore their own self-confidence
as Japanese, they came to feel the need to find some justification for their country’s past aggressive
behavior. One motive behind this kind of whitewashing of history was to counter the left’s generally
negative appraisal of modern Japanese history.
However, with the advent of a globalized economy, it did not take long for most Japanese to
figure out that Japan cannot exist in isolation from the rest of the world and that it needs to coexist in
harmony with its neighbors.
At this moment a consensus is emerging among Japanese educators that the advent of
globalization means that Japanese history has to be placed into both a regional and a global context.
Globalization has also inspired people to understand that Japan’s recent rapid development in isolation
from its neighbors represents a relatively short period in history. While the consensus is emerging
slowly, recognition is gaining for the view that Japanese history cannot be properly taught as a
“national history” separate from the history of East Asia, or of the world.
Directly reacting to this trend, there are those who continue to cling to the idea that history
must be taught as “the story of a people” or “the history of the state.” For these people, the history of
Japan must be told as a record of past glories. These are the same people, who look for excuses and
justifications for Japan’s wartime acts of aggression.
The Tsukuru Kai should be placed into the above-described historical context. They are a
small minority, and their hunger for publicity is directly related to the smallness of their numbers.
Their craving for recognition is also an indication that they wield little influence.
As I have stated above, there is an absence of domestic consensus on historical issues in
Japan. Among many Japanese who speak out on historical issues, there are some whose offensive and
arrogant remarks draw strong reactions from our neighbors. I am afraid, however, that the strong
reactions are often counterproductive. The stronger the reactions from Korea and China, the more
ordinary Japanese are likely to come to the conclusion that in Korea and China, unpopular views are
not tolerated. Strong reactions only trigger stronger reactions.
Allow me to turn to a more pleasant subject, the 2002 joint Japan-Korea hosting of the World
Cup soccer championship matches. The positive outcome of the series of football matches has been
nothing short of phenomenal. It is now very fashionable in Japan to be known as “a Korea expert” or
someone who likes things Korean. The Japanese media is now inundated with articles and programs
70
introducing various aspects of Korea. Korean restaurants are enjoying an unprecedented boom. Korean
soap operas have such high viewer ratings that one Korean movie actor is now by far the most popular
screen idol in Japan. Korean movies too are attracting large audiences. There is little doubt that this
trend is fostering feelings of warmth among Japanese toward Koreans. The numbers of Japanese
travelers coming to Korea too can be expected to continue to rise. With regard to China, Japanese have
always had a respectful attitude toward Chinese civilization. I believe it is reasonable to expect that
past positive feelings combined with the sense of closeness fostered by popular culture today will help
to bring about improvements within Japan in both historical attitudes and education. I anticipate a
move away from the teaching of “The History of Japan” toward courses on “History of Relations with
Neighboring Countries.”
Let me close with two thoughts. Firstly, it is rather important to note that not one Japanese
school district that was given the democratic right to choose its own textbooks, opted to use the
Tsukuru Kai’s history of Japan. The only schools that are using the textbook at present are a very
small number of special schools located in prefectures run by conservative governors who exercised
their prerogative to order the schools to purchase the Tsukuru Kai texts. [Translator’s note: About 430
Tsukuru Kai textbooks have been purchased for use in schools.]
I believe that this should be seen as
evidence that half a century after defeat, Japan does have a thriving democracy.
I would be very happy if our neighbors could be persuaded to see this phenomenon as a
triumph of democracy in Japan. I am also very keen to see this kind of positive news also being
transmitted quickly to neighboring countries. I would like to see the development of the kind of
relationships between Japan and its neighbors in which positive news about Japan is also welcome.
Finally, historical education must come to be valued as an investment in the development of future
good relations with neighboring countries.
Translated by Andrew Horvat
Korea-Japan Joint Efforts Toward the Reconciliation of History
-Recent Developments Concerning the Perception of History and Improvement of
History TextbooksCheong, Jae-jung (Professor, University of Seoul)
Introduction
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The Korean National Commission for UNESCO (KNCU) held the "International Forum on
History Textbooks of the 21st Century" in Seoul on the 24th and 25th of September, 1997 in
collaboration with the German Commission for UNCESCO. In this forum, eminent scholars
not only from Korea and Japan but also Poland, France, Germany, and Finland—all countries
that experienced similar conflicts over history—participated and discussed an international
cooperative plan for the editing of history textbooks.
I had presented a thesis entitled
"Consultative Activities and Tasks of Korea and Japan for History Textbooks." The aim of
the thesis was to examine the experiences over "discourse on history" by nongovernmental
groups in Korea and Japan, countries that have been confronting the perception of history
within their diplomatic relationship over the past 20 years.
This is being done in order to
overcome the Korea-Japan "dispute of history" as well as to acquire guidance from others
participating in similar "discourse on history" in Europe or from researchers dealing with this
issue.
I am so delighted to present this thesis today, which introduces the kinds of efforts Korea and
Japan have made together toward the "reconciliation of history", at a UNESCO-sponsored
forum held once again in Seoul in seven years. In fact, both the internal and external
environments of Korea and Japan surrounding the perception of history and history textbooks
have significantly changed since the last forum. One of the most important changes is the
introduction of new history textbooks that have come into use in a small number of middle
schools through the Japan’s Ministry of Education and Science (일본 문부과학성) in April
2001. Before and after the emergence of these new textbooks, "discourse on history" over
perceptions of history and history textbooks in Korea and Japan intensified and the joint
development of history textbooks that can be used in both countries has been promoted.
However, the last 7 years has seen significant changes in the internal and external
circumstances surrounding Korea and Japan.
Just to mention a few, we have seen the
successful co-hosting by Korea and Japan of the 2002 World Cup, the reconfirmation of the
Pyongyang Declaration and resumption of diplomatic negotiations by North Korea,
confirmation of the abduction of Japanese citizens by North Korea, suspicions over North
72
Korea’s development of nuclear weapons, the Iraqi war and the deployment of troops by
Japan and Korea, regime change in South Korea, Conclusion of Laws on Emergency
(유사관련 법안 채결), and successive summit meetings among South Korea, Japan and the
United States. These examples contain elements that can affect mutual understanding between
Korea and Japan while the “perception of history” and "discourse on history" between the two
countries has further expanded and deepened.
It appears now that history-related dialogue
between Korea and Japan has matured to the degree that it is not influenced by political
affairs.
I would like to provide an outline of the "discourse on history" that has been shared between
Korea and Japan since the forum in 1997, especially starting with the emergence of new
history textbooks to the present day, which will cover a period of about three
years. However, due to the limitations of this paper, I am unable to cover everything in its
entirety. Therefore, I will only mention those things that are, in my opinion, relevant to the
goals of UNESCO with regard to "discourse on history," issues in perception of history and
history textbooks.
Firstly, I will introduce a general framework for "discourse on history" and a few more
specific types according to the nationality of the participants.
Secondly, I will look at the
characteristics of the subject of "discourse on history" which will be categorized according to
their topic and main point of disputation.
Thirdly, I will introduce representative cases of
collaborative efforts for the development of common history textbooks of Korea and Japan.
It is my hope that this thesis can aid our understanding of the reality and the characteristics of
"discourse on history" that Korea and Japan have shared, and also prompt open-minded and
frank discussion from others concerned. I earnestly hope that UNESCO will establish
consolidation of international understanding in education and assist in promoting international
cooperation in the editing of history textbooks.
"Discourse on History"
73
The introductions of new history textbooks and historical disputes between Korea and Japan
have culminated in an atmosphere of continuously promoting "discourse on history" inside
and outside of Korea and Japan. Types of "discourse on history," categorized according to
the nationality of participants, are as follows:
Firstly, there are academic institutes composed of Korean history researchers and history
educators in Korea. These are intended for a discourse on history among Koreans.
The Headquarters of the Movement for the Correction of Japanese Textbooks
(일본교과서바로잡기운동본부) and The Institute for Korean Historical Studies (역사문제연구소)
held a symposium under the theme "The Perception of History in East Asia for Reconciliation
and Reflection: Centering on Comparisons of the Textbooks of Korea, China and Japan and
the Understanding of History" in Seoul on April 13th, 2002. The sponsors suggested that all
East Asian countries as well as Japan have to endeavor to criticize and rectify the distorted
perceptions of history in order for East Asia to become a region where peace, human rights
and universal values are realized in the 21st century.
They called for the promotion of
mutual understanding among nations and peoples and the healing of conflict as imperative to
understanding the history and perception of history of neighboring countries.
They also
hoped to see cooperative efforts to establish a common understanding of history in East Asia
beyond the level of just the nation and its people.
The Korean History Education Society (역사교육연구회) held a symposium under the title "The
Perception of Korean History in the History Textbooks of China" in Seoul on October 10th,
2002. At this symposium, researchers of Chinese history analyzed and examined the
curriculum for history in middle and high schools in China, which is recently showing rapid
change, with a focus on the features of Korean history reflected in relation to world history.
The purpose of the conference was to reflect on traditional discussions about foreign
textbooks that have been largely biased toward perceptions of Korean history in Japanese
textbooks along with the goal of expanding such discussions to encompass China.
74
The Headquarters of the Movement for the Correction of Japanese Textbooks (일본교과서
바로잡기 운동본부),
The Institute for Korean Historical Studies, National History Teachers
Association, and The Korean History Society held a symposium on "Korean History
Textbooks in the 21st Century and the Direction of History Education" in Seoul on November
9th, 2002.
At this symposium, in which many researchers of Korean history and history
educators participated, Korean history education in middle and high schools in Korea
especially the structure and content of the Korean history textbooks were severely criticized.
The symposium was planned for the purpose of examining the present situation of Korean
history textbooks and offering suggestions for correcting historical distortions in Japanese
textbooks that served as a good opportunity to learn from other textbook sources.
The Korean Society for Western History (한국서양사학회) held an academic conference under
the theme "History to be Remembered and History to be Forgotten: Analysis of History
Textbooks in the U.S., Great Britain, France, Germany and Russia" on December 13th, 2002.
The symposium, attended by western history researchers, was organized with the critical
understanding that history education in Korea also has something to learn from the methods
of remembering or forgetting the past as found in the textbooks of Germany, Russia, the U.S.,
Great Britain and France. It is noteworthy that Korean researchers of western history who
have also been observing historical distortions in Japanese history textbooks and Korea’s
response suggested this gathering.
As mentioned above, researchers of Korean history, Chinese history and western history, and
history educators are engaged in an active dialogue on history education and history textbooks
from their particular points of view. This is an exciting development when we are reminded
of the fact that "discourse on history" between researchers of history and history educators
had not been very active in the past.
Secondly, "discourse on history" was achieved between South Korea and The Democratic
People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) or North Korea to seek a common response in
denouncing the historical distortions in Japanese textbooks.
history discourse between the two Koreas.
75
This is to become a cooperative
Historians from both South and North Korea held an academic forum on March 1st 2001 in
Pyongyang with an exhibition of materials showing the illegality of the Japanese occupation
of the Chosun dynasty. This was the first event attended by historians of both Koreas since
the division of the peninsula. A joint statement by historians of South and North Korea
denouncing the conspiracy to distort history textbooks by the Japanese government was
issued at this forum.
Historians of South and North Korea held a forum entitled “Asian Regions Demand that
Japan Settle the Issue of the Past” on May 3rd to 4th 2002.
Also at the August 15th National
Unification Conference held in Seoul on August 16th, 2002, an inter-Korean academic forum
was held to discuss the issue of Dokdo Island.
Historians of South and North Korea held a joint exhibition and academic forum on February
17-25th, 2003 on the “Illegality of Japan’s Forceful Takeover of the Chosun People.”
Participants conducted a field investigation together to Pyongyang, Mt. Myohyang, Kaesong,
and Shincheon.
They also held the “March 1st National Conference for Peace and
Unification” in Seoul, on March 2nd, 2003 and held a North-South academic forum on the
problem of Romanization of Korea’s national name in Pyongyang on August 21st, 2003.
In
addition, an announcement was made to send a joint petition to South-North Korean and
foreign scholars overseas and to all people.
Historians from South and North Korea held a “Joint Inter-Korean Academic Forum and
Exhibition for the Return of Plundered Cultural Assets” in Pyongyang on February 25th, 2004.
A joint resolution was adopted at this time.
Also during this event, a joint forum was held
on the injustice of using the expression “The Sea of Japan” to denote the body of water east of
the Korean peninsula.
Another inter-Korean academic conference under the title “Historical
Experience of the Modern and Contemporary anti-Japanese National Movement and the
Turning Rightist of Japan” was held in Seoul on June 4th, 2004.
76
Continuing dialogue on history between the two Koreas finally culminated in the formation of
the Historians Council of South and North Korea (남북역사학자협의회) in April 2004.
In the
text of the minutes of the formation council, historians of both South and North Korea
recognized that it is the nation's historical task, in order to protect sovereignty and autonomy,
to censure and rectify unjust distortions of history by Japan.
A pledge was also made that
South and North Korea would take full responsibility for protecting national history through
collaboration and the establishment of security, prosperity and unification of the nation under
the spirit of the June 15th Joint Declaration of 2000.
The purpose and themes of historical
dialogue between South and North Korea up to now have focused on forming a common front
line mainly to criticize the injustices of Japan’s historical distortions dealing with the issue of
the past and rectification.
It should be understood that the direction and characteristics of
mutual cooperation concerning the discourse on history would largely depend on how the
diplomatic relationship between North Korea and Japan unfolds.
Thirdly, “discourse on history” with Korea and Japan becoming narrators is needed so that
dialogue moves back and forth between both countries. This would be a kind of KoreaJapan bilateral historical discourse with the possibility of a variety of activities. One typical
example is the “Trends of Historical Research and Descriptions of History Textbooks” which
is a group that has been making recent progress.
They have had twelve meetings since 1997
and examined the descriptions of the history of diplomatic relations between Korea and Japan
presented in the textbooks of both countries. They are currently developing a supplementary
textbook that can be used in Korea and Japan.
Another noteworthy development is the discourse on history that has started since 2001 by the
National History Teachers Association of Korea and History Educators Committee of Japan.
These two organizations are actually engaged in history education and are focusing on
deepening the perception of history of teachers and students by presenting and discussing case
studies of history classes with the Korea-Japan Exchange of History Education
(한일역사교육교류모임)
in Korea and the Japan-Korea Exchange Committee of History
Education (일한역사교육교류회) in Japan. They are also contributing to the promotion of
77
mutual understanding by exploring each other’s historical relics and promoting the codevelopment of a history textbook that can be used by students in both countries.
There are as many as ten organizations of historical studies that have national-level
memberships such as The Historical Studies Society (역사학회) in Korea and The History
Research Society (역사학연구회) in Japan which held “The Korea-Japan Joint Historical
Research Symposium: The Problem of Curriculum” in Tokyo.
Many researchers and
educators from Korea and Japan were present at this conference. Various opinions were
exchanged regarding Korean and Japanese history textbooks and exchanges in history
education. This symposium was organized to broaden the horizon of perception of history and
mutual understanding through academic discourse by acknowledging and considering the
conflict that has emerged since the introduction of new history textbooks that were approved
by Japan’s Ministry of Education and Science (문부과학성) in April, 2001. The second
symposium was held under the same spirit on June 23rd 2003 in Seoul.
Korea-Japan Bishop Exchange Meeting (한일주교교류회) in Korea and Japan inaugurated the
Consultation Meeting for Korea-Japan History Textbook Issue (한일 교과서 문제 간담회) on
February 16th, 1996 and had eight meetings by 2002 and supported the exchange of youth
from Korea and Japan twice every year. With a critical understanding that the Catholic
Church’s future depends on perspectives of history and the values of its youth, it intends to
reconcile the deeply felt conflict caused by the problem of Japan’s history textbooks and the
recent visits by the Prime Minister of Japan to the Yasukuni shrine. Essentially, it hopes to
build a bridge of strong friendship and harmony.
Historical discourse between Korea and Japan up to now has basically progressed at the
nongovernmental level.
However, the dialogue that both governments are now supporting is
proving means for overcoming the deepening conflict and confrontation that has emerged
since Japan’s publication of new history textbooks. Some of those activities are The KoreaJapan Historians Conference (한일역사가회의), which began in 2001, and The Korea-Japan
Joint History Research Committee (한일역사공동연구위원회), which has become fully active
from 2002. The former involves a dialogue of history in which internal committees of the
78
International Commission of History (역사학국제위원회) of both countries are the main actors.
It is a relatively free and open meeting that contributes to joint-ownership of a universally
valid perception of history and the development of history research.
The conference has
been held three times in Seoul and Tokyo from November 2001 to the present.
The Korea-Japan Joint History Research Committee (한일역사공동연구위원회) is a formal
gathering in which the committees of both countries have to write articles on nineteen
different themes related to the history of Korea-Japan relations for a period of two years; and
are obliged to submit the accomplishments to the government of both countries and notify the
editors of textbooks and researchers of history.
The National Institute of Korean History (국사편찬위원회) held a symposium under the title
“Common Perceptions of History in the History Textbooks of Korea and Japan: Teachers’
Perceptions of History for a Korea-Japan Partnership” in Seoul, December 7th, 2002.
It is
noteworthy that a government organization has become involved in the dialogue among
teachers but this could prove to be only a one-time event.
Fourthly, exchanges among Korea, Japan and China or North Korea and Russia are
opportunities for exchanges concerning history. Ultimately, this is dialogue on the history of
Northeast Asia.
One recently emerging phenomenon of historical discourse in Northeast Asia is that many
civil organizations, history researchers and history educators are participating together from
Korea, Japan and China and have held full-scale international conferences regularly.
The
headquarters of the Movement for the Correction of Japanese Textbooks (일본교과서 바로잡기
운동본부)
which was formed in Korea in March, 2001 joined with similar groups such as
China’s Research Editorial Department on Anti-Japanese War of the Modern History
Research Center at
Chinese Academy of Social Science (중국사회과학원 근대사연구소
항일전쟁연구 편집부),
The Operational Committee on Perceptions of History of Japan and the
East Asia Peace Forum (일본의 역사인식과 동아시아 평화포럼 실행위원회) and held “The
Perception of History and East Asia Peace Forum (역사인식과 동아시아평화포럼) in Nanking,
79
China from March 27th-31st, 2002 and in Tokyo from February 27th to March 1st, 2003. The
sponsors expressed that they had organized an international conference for researchers,
teachers and civil organizations from Korea, Japan and China in order to form joint networks
with balance, respond to the historical distortions by Japan and to lay a cornerstone for
formulating a common perception of history.
They also formed the Korea-China-Japan Joint
Special Committee on Establishing Supplementary Textbook (한중일공동부교재특별위원회) for
developing history textbooks centered on modern and contemporary history, opened a history
experience camp for Korean and Japanese youth and explored the historical relics in each
other’s countries.
Since mentioning the others we should also introduce one more.
Considering those
previously mentioned organizations above as the main body, the International Coalition for
Requesting Japanese Liquidation of the Past (일본의 과거청산을 요구하는 국제연대협의회) was
inaugurated in Shanghai, China, on September 17th, 2003.
This Council was established for
the purpose of restoring sovereignty and honor to the victims of war crimes through close
collaboration with individuals and organizations from all over the world, requesting an
apology and compensation from the Japanese government and ultimately bringing about
reconciliation and the establishment of peace in Asia.
The Council held their second
conference in Seoul, May 20-23rd, 2004. Three hundred participants from South Korea,
North Korea, Japan, China, Taiwan, the Philippines and the United States were present.
The Science Council of Japan (일본학술회의), The Liaison Committee of Historical Research
(역사학연구연락위원회),
(교육전문위원회),
History Research (역사연구), Expert Committee of Education
The Japanese History Society (일본역사학협회) held an international
symposium under the title “Editing History Textbooks in East Asia: History and
Developments" on October 12th, 2002. Much discussion took place on the editing systems
and methods of history textbooks, which showed the many recent changes with respect to the
editing of textbooks in Korea, China and Japan.
Korea stated that schoolbooks compiled by
the state under dictatorial regimes have been done away and the 1st and 2nd category textbooks
with advancements toward free publication and the authorization of a variety of different
kinds textbooks are now in use. Japan examined the inspection process for high school
80
history textbooks in relation to the changes of content.
In addition, they also introduced the
characteristics of textbooks and the extent of their circulation and use throughout Japan.
China alluded to the reality that the textbooks in use in urban areas such as Shanghai and
those in the more rural areas are very different in terms of publication and content.
On the other hand, an international academic conference on “Imperialist Japan and the
Plundering of East Asia” was held in Holbein, China from October 25th-30th, 2002. More
than forty scholars from South Korea, North Korea, China, Japan and Russia attended.
Fifthly, discussion of history among countries such as South Korea, China and Japan and
some western countries from Europe and the United States ultimately becomes a dialogue of
history between Northeast Asia and Western countries.
The Korea Educational Development Institute (KEDI) held an international academic
conference under the title “Textbooks for Creating Mutual Understanding among Nations” in
Seoul on October 16th, 2002. The sponsors organized this conference in order for Asian
countries to glean suggestions from the experience and knowledge of textbook experts from
Germany, France, Poland, Japan and Korea through presentations, lectures, and discussions.
Korea’s Institute of History and the U.S. Institute of World History held a large international
conference under the theme “Korea and the World in History” on August 15th, 2002. There
were many presenters and discussants from South Korea, the U.S. and Japan at this
conference, which was organized to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the establishment
of the Institute of History. There were several sessions related to history education and
history textbooks with various presentations and discussions.
The Asia Foundation (TAF) and Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES) held an international
symposium on “Textbooks, History and the War Experience of Europe, Asia and the United
States” in Tokyo on November 13-14th, 2001. Five sessions were held in this symposium
and historians from Western countries like the United States, Germany, as well as South
81
Korea, Japan and China participated and presented thirteen papers followed by insightful
discussions.
The Teachers Union of Japan (일본교직원조합) held an international symposium under the title
“The Prospect for Co-Existent Solidarity in Asia Now and After History Education: Learning
from International Research on Textbooks”, in Japan on January 27th, 2002. Presenters from
South Korea, Japan, China and Germany reported and discussed the system and content of the
textbooks of South Korea, Japan, China, Germany and France in the presence of teachers
from all over Japan.
In addition, the Japanese teachers shared their experiences regarding
exchanges on history education with Koreans, Chinese and Koreans residing in Japan.
The Political Education Center of German Federal Republic (독일연방정치교육센터), Japanese
Cultural Center in Koln (쾰른 일본 문화 센터), Japan Research Center of German
(독일일본연구소)
held an international symposium with Korea, Japan and Germany at the
Japanese Cultural Center in Koln, Ost-West Kolleg (동서콜레그) , Germany from September
25-27th, 2002. The focus of the symposium was “Tasks and Prospects for a Common Future
for Japan and Korea” with three panels set up under different themes. Panel 1 looked at the
political and economic framework in the relationship of Korea and Japan with a focus on
interdependence and regionalism.
Panel 2 provided a venue for discussing the history of
Korea and Japan or struggles with the past with particular focus on developments and
prospects.
Panel 3 looked at a new path in the relationship of Korea and Japan by civil and
cultural initiatives with a summary and conclusion focusing on a common future for Korea
and Japan. This was a meaningful event in that a new type of symposium was held in
Germany, a country that has taken the leading role in the “dialogue of history” in Europe
whereas historical discussions centered on Korea and Japan took place mostly in Korea, Japan
and China. This was an example of Germany both demonstrating its interest in dialogue on
history between Korea and Japan and offering encouragement.
Promoting a Common Perception of History
Through the information I have shared above, we have realized that the dialogue on history
that historians and history educators from South Korea, North Korea, Japan, China and
82
western countries have participated in for the past three years has been developing.
Citizens
who have become informed through publications and the press as well as narrators and
discussants that participated in this dialogue have been able to broaden their horizons in
understanding history and promote mutual understanding.
I would now like to summarize
the accomplishments that historical dialogue has produced with a focus on deepening and
bringing about co-ownership in historical perceptions.
Firstly, alternatives were sought after history education and Korean history textbooks came
under thorough critical analysis.
The symposium held by The Headquarters of the Movement for the Correction of Japanese
Textbooks (일본교과서 바로잡기 운동본부), The Institute for Korean Historical Studies
(역사문제연구소),
of
National History Teachers Association (전국역사교사모임), Research Group
Korea History (한국역사연구회) under the title “Korean History Textbooks and the
Direction of History Education in the 21st Century” in Seoul on November 9th, 2002 reflects
this development.
This symposium was a representative case showing that Korean history
researchers and educators came to have an interest in history education in Korea on the basis
of historical distortions by Japan.
Topics of discussion at the symposium included the
incongruity of the 7th curriculum and the system of history education, criticism and
alternatives regarding the writing of state textbooks, de-coordination of the system of history
education and historical descriptions in national history textbooks, perception of history and
the plan for improving the description of history in the authorized textbooks of Korean
modern and contemporary history, and the patriotism that has appeared in the descriptions of
gender, labor and international relationships in national history textbooks.
Also discussed
were a normalization plan for world history education that had faced a crisis in overcoming
the gap in the perception of history caused by the separation of Korean history education and
world history education and a plan for revamping the history education system and improving
textbook content.
Secondly, the characteristics of Japanese historical distortion were fundamentally reexamined
and a common response was sought.
83
“The Perception of History and East Asia Peace Forum” held in Nanking and Tokyo and cosponsored by Korea, China and Japan, the academic forum held in Pyongyang sponsored by
South and North Korea and the Holbein academic conference in which scholars from South
and North Korea, China, Japan and Russia participated also characterize this development.
Among these meetings it was significant that civil organizations from South Korea, China and
Japan gathered on the very ground of the massacre of Nanking and criticized all aspects of the
historical distortions of Japan and agreed on a common response to this matter in the future.
In addition, realistic perceptions of history over the abduction of Japanese citizens by North
Korea, which has become a current issue, Japanese officials worshiping at the Yasukuni
shrine, the Bush administration and relations with the United States were discussed.
Thirdly, efforts were made to cultivate the perception of history in East Asia among Korea,
Japan and China, etc. in the direction of peaceful coexistence.
The symposium called “The Perception of History in East Asia for Reconciliation and
Reflection: Centering on Comparisons of the Textbooks of Korea, China and Japan and the
Understanding of History” held in Seoul and “The Perception of History and East Asia Peace
Forum” held in Nanking and Tokyo also characterize this development.
It was pointed out
in the former that the debate surrounding past memories is not unique to Japan but a common
phenomenon in Northeast Asia, which was an arena of struggle during the cold war with the
conflicting hegemonic tendencies between the U.S. and the Soviet Union.
In addition,
history education and history textbooks should be free from ethno-centrism (자민족중심주의)
and extreme nationalism (자국가우선주의).
The latter advocates the necessity of a common
perception of East Asian history and civil solidarity, and promoting the development of
common history textbooks that can be used jointly in Korea, China, and Japan.
This will be
explained in more detail later.
Fourthly, Korea, Japan and China took the opportunity to learn from the experiences of
various countries such as Europe and the U.S. on resolving the problem of the perception of
history and issues over history textbooks.
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The international symposiums “History to be Remembered and History to be Forgotten:
Analysis of History Textbooks in the U.S., Great Britain, France, Germany and Russia” by
The Korean Society for Western History (한국서양사학회), “Textbooks for Creating Mutual
Understanding Among Nations” sponsored by KEDI, “The Prospect for Co-Existent
Solidarity in Asia Now and After History Education: Learning from International Research on
Textbooks” by the Teachers Union of Japan (일본교직원조합) fall into this category. The
symposium held by The Korean Society for Western History (한국서양사학회) emphasized
that Korea has to face the past especially “the past that wants to be forgotten” to make the 21st
century a century of harmony and peaceful co-existence rather than a century of war.
It also
has to utilize the many lessons it has learned in order to avoid making future mistakes.
For
this, Korea has to learn how various western countries acquired the wisdom to realize
peaceful co-existence from not forgetting the past both inside and outside their respective
countries.
The symposium by KEDI emphasized this point more clearly.
International
dialogue surrounding the textbook issue is an important means by which to promote mutual
understanding and mutual co-operation among nations and cultures. Asian countries like
Korea and Japan can promote dialogue on history more efficiently by absorbing the
experience, knowledge and know-how that Europe has accumulated. The symposium by the
Teachers Union of Japan (일본교직원조합) was held with similar hopes in mind.
Fifthly, there was a movement to understand, from an international perspective, the
perception of history and the characteristics of the issue of history textbooks responsible for
creating the conflict between Korea and Japan. It was very meaningful to have influential
foreign foundations lead this venture aimed at international understanding, peace and mutual
prosperity.
The international symposium entitled “Textbooks, History and the War Experience of Europe,
Asia and the United States.” held in Tokyo by the TAF and FES, the international conference
entitled “Korea and the World in History” held by Korea’s Institute of History and the U.S.
Institute of World History, “Tasks and Prospects for a Common Future for Japan and Korea”
co-hosted
by
the
Political
Education
Center
of
German
Federal
Republic
(독일연방정치교육센터), Ost-West-Kolleg (동서 콜레그), Japan Research Center of German
85
(독일 일본연구소) fall into this category.
Especially, the symposium by TAF and FES and
the symposium co-hosted by the four organizations just mentioned were especially significant.
Just to mention briefly, it was pointed out that there is a tendency for Germany to understand
the relationship between Korea and Japan through reports in the media regarding the
confrontation caused by the Korea-Japan historical relationship.
A goal was set to give
importance to efforts for overcoming the history issue and the realities of exchange between
Korea and Japan that have gone largely unreported.
The goal seeks the now and after
prospects and to carry out the tasks that Korea and Japan face. In this conference, it was
helpful that the current situation and the future of the Korea-Japan relationship were examined
from various angles including the perspective of Germany.
The views of Korea, Japan and
Germany and the main points of the issue were distilled through presentations, questions and
answers, and discussions on three themes related to the past and the future of Korea and Japan.
The audience could also obtain knowledge and recent information on the Korea-Japan
relationship and issues between Korea and Japan as well contemplate directions for a better
future. German panelists and presiders introduced similar cases of Europe so that Korea-Japan
relations could be observed more objectively and developments in exchanges progressing in
both countries could receive full recognition.
Germany has expressed in the past its interest
in Korea and Japan overcoming the history issue through UNESCO, and with the publication
of Japan’s new controversial history books a venue for discussion with experts from Korea
and Japan was prepared, which was quite significant.
Sixthly, we have activities that promote broadening the horizon of awareness of history by
developing a Korea-Japan common history textbook and exchanging classroom case studies.
The joint activities of The History Textbook Research Society in Korea (역사교과서연구회),
The Historical Education Society in Japan (역사교육연구회), in Korea Exchange Meeting of
Korea-Japan History Education (한일역사교육교류모임), and in Japan Exchange Meeting of
Japan-Korea History Education (일한역사교육교류회) and The Perception of History and East
Asia Peace Forum serve as typical examples.
A section on co-developing history textbooks
will be added in a different chapter.
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Collaborative Efforts for a Common History Textbook.
First of all, we can mention the joint efforts of The History Textbook Research Society in
Korea (역사교과서연구회) and The Historical Education Society in Japan (역사교육연구회).
This gathering composed of professors and graduate students from the University of Seoul
and
Tokyo Gakugei University
(30 members each) has held symposiums on history research and
history textbooks twice every year since 1997. Both sides thoroughly examined the content
regarding Korea-Japan relations in the high school history textbooks of their respective
countries until 2000.
The standard set for examination was whether the findings of history
research of both countries reflected in the textbooks were objective and just or not.
on the results, the work of editing and revamping the texts commenced in 2001.
textbook is composed of subsections, sections and chapters.
Based
The
Every chapter is set up to cover
a historical period of Korea (Japan) and describes Korean History (Japanese history) that
students need to learn in about 2 pages of B5 sized paper. Each section is described with six
to eight subsections including pictures and materials on about 6 pages of B5 sized paper.
After the sections, an explanation of the textbook’s purpose and three to five references
(within 2 pages of B5) can be found.
school students.
The level should be suitable for 1st and 2nd grade high
Under the principle that one person edits one section, we can consider
having individuals from both Korea and Japan participate in the editing process.
This institute finished editing the manuscript and has now started revising the work through a
process of reading in turns.
A general and complete framework for common history
textbooks will be ready after two rounds of joint discussion.
into publication through the hand of professional editors.
The textbook will then be put
The results of these efforts will
vary depending on the evaluators but nonetheless this is a significant development in that
history researchers and educators from both Korea and Japan carried out joint efforts to
produce common history textbooks.
Secondly are the collaborative efforts of Korea’s Exchange Meeting of Korea-Japan History
Education (한일역사교육교류모임) and Japan’s Exchange Meeting of Japan-Korea History
Education (일한역사교육교류회). Both these organizations have been promoting the
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development of common history textbooks in Korea and Japan since 2002.
The common
textbook that they are attempting to produce serves as a handbook that can be used for
teachers to research the textbook.
The content of common history textbooks is supposed to
deal primarily with the history of relations between Korea and Japan from ancient times to the
modern era including important content on Korean history and Japanese history as well as
themes for understanding the culture of both countries from Japanese culture in Korea to
Korean culture in Japan.
The number of themes ranges from thirty to fifty and about
eighteen themes were selected on pre-modern history and are currently being written.
Aiming at a common descriptive style, one theme is about 8 pages of B5 sized paper
including pictures and materials.
The directions provide guidance to students who are
hesitating over “what and how to approach” the culture and history of each other's respective
countries.
Considering the fact that most people participating in the development of
common history textbooks are mostly teachers from elementary, middle and high schools,
about one case example out of three to four themes is to be implemented.
In Japan, teachers have formed the History Educators Committee (역사교육자협의회) since
long ago which is involved in textbook editing and has created lesson plans that have been
carried out with the results being made available in some magazines. Recently, the National
History Teachers Association (전국역사교사모임) was formed and is promoting these
activities in Korea also. It is fortunate that organizations from both countries are actively
sponsoring the development of common history textbooks.
These organizations are not only
trying to develop quality textbooks but also endeavor to popularize the results to schools or
apply their ideas in the classroom based on acquired knowledge and skills in textbook
research and classroom practice.
Thirdly, there is the co-sponsored initiative toward the “The Perception of History and East
Asia Peace Forum.”
It has formed the Korea-China-Japan Joint Special Committee on
Establishing Supplementary Textbook (한중일공동부교재특별위원회) since March, 2002 and
has currently had up to fifteen meetings.
The textbooks deal mainly with modern and
contemporary history of East Asia with emphasis on invasion and resistance, cooperation and
conflict, and war and peace.
The readers of the texts are meant to be middle school students
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but it is also a book that the general reader can understand as it does not involve the concept
of a less accessible supplementary textbook.
The chapters and sections are finished and
editing and revision of the manuscript is underway in each country.
The plan is to finish by
the first half of the year 2005.
Korea, Japan and China have been busy beautifying and justifying their own history.
It is
good to see that the three countries are struggling to bring about the common perception of
East Asian history toward peaceful co-prosperity.
One final thing to add is for the Interchange of Korea-Japan Bishop (한일주교교류회) to
request that historians publish a general outline in book form of Korean history that can be
used in both Korea and Japan.
Such a book for common use in Korea and Japan will
stimulate activities by other organizations.
The authors of the book have expressed that they
expect to be close neighbors that share a future-oriented view of peace and love through an
outline of history that provides a new recognition of the general flow of history in KoreaJapan relations.
Conclusion
Korea and Japan are actively engaged in dialogue on history through various channels. China,
Europe and the U.S., as well as history researchers, history educators and citizens from both
countries are also participating in this dialogue.
the world.
The dialogue has expanded to East Asia and
The range and depth of the dialogue has widened and deepened and its content
and level have greatly improved.
If this trend continues, mutual understanding between
Korea and Japan over the concept of history will show significant developments and the
shadow of history that lurked like a fatal destiny in both countries will disappear into the light.
It is expected that further exchanges of people, materials and information between Korea and
Japan, two nations that are progressing more than any other adjacent countries, will continue
to strengthen these positive developments.
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However, I do not believe that mutual understanding concerning the perception of history
between Korea and Japan will be free from stumbling blocks.
The two countries are still
doubtful and concerned about each other’s perception of history.
When Korean President
Roh Moo Hyun visited Japan in June 2003, neither country referred to the heavy burdens of
past history, which was a first for summit talks. Concerned citizens of Korea and Japan did
not empathize with this unprecedented occurrence or think highly of such actions at a summitlevel meeting.
Rather, they voiced criticism that under the pretext of suspicions over North
Korea’s nuclear weapons program and the war in Iraq, Japan is reverting back to its militarystate status and is seeking a chance to throw off the heavy yoke of history it has carried for so
long. There have been cases of some Japanese calling for Japan to again become a country
where military action is possible and for it to be exonerated from its historical wrongdoings
and become a normal state.
Therefore, a “reconciliation of history” through mutual understanding between Korea and
Japan will progress gradually through a long period of time and will have its fair share of ups
and downs.
The two countries could rush into expanding trade policy for the pursuit of
practical interests such as seeking a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) rather than walking the path
toward reconciling history.
Actually, Korea and Japan often hold conferences on the FTA
and intend to finish up their discussions by 2005.
How should history researchers and history educators think and act in such a situation? We
have to consider the yoke of history as a kind of steppingstone on which to expand and
continue joint work through dialogue and the publication of common history textbooks.
Especially, cooperation should take place at all levels so that efforts to create common history
textbooks will establish trust and solidarity between workers and promote understanding and
empathy among readers.
Improvements over the perception of history among nations and promotion of mutual
understanding will not come about on their own.
have to initiate this process.
Intellectuals and public opinion makers
I am looking forward to and expect good suggestions and
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relevant criticism from the experts and people gathered here today at this UNESCOsponsored forum.
Session 2 Discussions-Historical Reconciliation in the Asia-Pacific Context
Wolfgang Hoepken:
The question of differences between “thick” and “thin” reconciliation is of course very
stimulating. I think it is a good heuristic instrument for dealing with a concrete historical topic.
From the perspective of our discussions here, I wonder if “thin” reconciliation is really
reconciliation or is it what I would call a kind of pragmatic co-habitation which you find in all
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post-conflict situations. Reconciliation inherently has a moral dimension and we cannot get
rid of that. This moral dimension is more than just going back to normalization of relations. It
is about changing identities, changing attitudes and the behavior of people and so I think the
starting point is “thick” reconciliation.
We still need to talk more about what
“reconciliation” really is from the theoretical point of view. I think we should look for a
term to understand “reconciliation” which does not deny the moral dimension and on the
other hand does not ignore other dimensions like politics and interests. From Dr. Yang we
have learned about the crucial role and importance of politics and interests. He even
mentioned the geopolitical perspective in the politics of reconciliation for often pragmatic
reasons which is very useful. But on the other hand, I think if we accept that politics plays a
crucial role, then politics is a kind of autonomous factor influencing the process of
reconciliation. Maybe this is sometimes even contrary to other processes of integration such
as economic integration which is paving the way for the process of reconciliation. So
politics alone is probably not a significant factor but it can spill over into preventing
integration that leads to reconciliation. I imagine that economic integration is developing
without really becoming a factor in reconciliation because political elites behave irresponsibly
and are not supporting the process of reconciliation. Obviously politics plays an autonomous
role and it is a question of how these different processes come together.
With regard to the other two papers…I think both speakers correctly drew a picture of,
especially with Europe or outside of Asia, which is often influenced by the public debate and
by the media that just look at conflicts and we sometimes see this as just one dimension. In
general, I would agree that the Tsukuru Kai textbooks have more or less not been used in
schools in Japan. We have to take this into consideration as well as appreciating the various
initiatives that Professor Jung is talking about which gives us a different picture from the
perception we often have. Nevertheless, I would question Professor Kondo’s ideas. In our
institute we have recently started a large research project on historical revisionism in Asia.
What I have learned from our colleagues who are dealing with the issue of textbooks is that
this issue is having an influence on the public debate beyond the use of textbooks in schools.
Japanese teachers and textbook authors who visit our institute are telling us that there is a kind
of indirect influence from the Tsukuru Kai textbook. This is because other textbook authors
are beginning to feel the necessity to adjust to this discussion on reconciliation. They do not
necessarily agree all the time or swing in a radical direction but they are starting to censor
themselves a little bit. So there is this kind of indirect influence from the general direction that
public discourse on history has taken. I would also ask whether this textbook issue is not
part of a broader tendency toward revisionism and revising fundamental principles in
Japanese historical culture and politics. We should see the more indirect effect of the
discourse, which has been started by the Tsukuru Kai textbook, regardless of the textbook’s
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immediate impact being less than we might have assumed.
Response
Professor Kondo:
Dr. Hoepken, you were talking about indirect influence. Yes, teachers have experienced much
indirect influence This is why the support rate for the Tsukuru Kai textbook is only 0.03
percent. Historical education must come to be valued as an investment in the development
of good relations with neighboring countries. Japanese teachers believe in this concept today.
I am only saying this with regard to Japanese textbooks.
Daqing Yang:
I agree that the definition of reconciliation is something that we need to work harder on. I also
agree with Dr. Hoepken’s discomfort on the issue of “thin” vs. “thin” reconciliation. Rather
than starting from theory, if I start from post-war history, I essentially equated the state-tostate diplomatic normalization with “thin” reconciliation but it did not involve society and
did not really address the so-called historical understanding. It essentially avoided these issues.
In the 1972 Chinese-Japanese diplomatic normalization, the Japanese government did make a
formal apology for the first time but again the impact on the society was rather limited. I think
we cannot deny that diplomatic normalization is part of the reconciliation process. However,
this kind of diplomatic normalization is certainly not anywhere close to the kind of ultimate
reconciliation we are striving for. Especially in view of what happened since the 1980s.
Essentially, you have this new so-called history problem disrupting political and economic
cooperation. So I am also struggling with the definitional problem myself.
I also agree with Dr. Hoepkin’s assessment of the Tsukuru Kai textbooks. I would like
to raise the question of why were the Tsukuru Kai textbooks adopted by such a small number
of people? Has anyone looked at the deliberations on the text book within educational
committees? I think that would be very interesting to look at.
Andrew Horvat:
I can offer some information on Dr. Yang’s last point. The timing, I think, was significant.
This textbook issue was just before the joint hosting by Korea and Japan of the 2002 World
Cup. You can have a negative view or positive view of this. The negative view would see
this a bit of pragmatism. Many small Japanese communities have connections with sister
cities in Korea. The outcry against the history textbook, mostly due to the detailed reporting
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about the history textbooks in Korea, resulted in messages going from these local
communities in Korea to the local communities in Japan. The main message was that if these
textbooks were adopted, this would ultimately change the nature of the relationship of these
sister cities or chamber of commerce ties. In addition, the message was conveyed that the
mayor’s visit to South Korea would be cancelled. Anyway. these ties and connections would
be affected and a lot of things depend on these ties. There was such conflict at that time. I
think it would be important to examine to what degree this sister-city conflict influenced the
textbook selection process. The positive view however is that regardless of the nature of
these exchanges, the fact that there were such close ties is an indication of a certain maturity
of the relationship. So I think this can be seen in a positive sense.
The second point I would like to make is that I think it is safe to say that teacher’s
unions still have significant influence over the choice of textbooks through the educational
committees. I think this may explain the 0.03 statistic rather than heated deliberations at the
community level which resulted in a rejection of the textbook. However, I think that
Professor Kondo’s makes an interesting point that most Japanese do not agree with the
content and statements in the textbook. They either find it difficult to believe or irrelevant. For
example the textbook talks about this highly questionable relationship between the prehistorical kingdom of Mimana and Japan which was very important in pre-war discourse on
the justification of colonial rule by Japan of Korea. This is irrelevant to a high school student,
teacher, or educational official today. It absolutely has no meaning and is only meaningful for
a particular kind of nationalist historian who wants to reintroduce this subject today. I think a
lot of what the different committees discussions of the textbook was about the question of
“Why are we talking about such things like this today?” This is difficult for a high school
student to understand and is likely to lead to misunderstandings.
Gebhard Hielscher:
I think the assessment of Dr. Kondo leaves out one aspect which has to be accounted for and
that is the publisher and his connection with the large publishing groups. In this sense, the
publisher of the book, the propaganda value and the sales increases of all their other
publications are important. This is making it more acceptable to discuss these points of view
in the public than ever before. While the teacher’s unions may still have a lot of influence on
the educational committees they have much less influence than they did twenty years ago on
the general public opinion. So if you take the Sainkai Shimbun group which has about 2
million readers that’s the smallest of the big five papers. But they have a kind of informal
alliance relationship in many areas with Japan’s biggest newspaper. This broad element of
public life has kind of reshaped public opinion as it is expressed in media and then reflected
by politicians. If possible, I would like to have a little more comment from Professor Kondo
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on how he views this general effect.
Chu Chin Oh (Sangmyung University):
Professor Kondo mentioned that the Korean government chooses textbooks and that
the education system is a state-approval system. However, at the high-school level it
changed to a vetting system like Japan so we have six different textbooks. The Japanese
history textbook system problem is not a problem of Korea or China but a problem for the
Japanese people. Sometimes we talk about the Japanese history textbook problem as just a
problem for Korea or China in order to reconcile their past. I think with Japanese textbooks
during World War II almost all Japanese people were educated with history textbooks that
over emphasized nationalism. If the Japanese people use the Tsukuru Kai textbook, I think it
will make Japanese people feel the same way they did during World War II. Professor
Kondo also mentioned that not all Japanese people agree with the Tsukuru Kai textbook.
Other revised textbooks have had the same problems as Tsukuru Kai. Please tell me about
the future of Japanese historical cohesiveness after the Tsukuru Kai textbook problem in 1998.
You also talk about the Japanese history textbook system as vetting system where the
Japanese government does not intervene in the process of publishing and selecting history
textbooks. However, in 1998, the Ministry Education gave an order(asked) publishers not to
write on the issue of sex slaves and the Nanjing massacre. Even though the Japanese textbook
system is a vetting system, the Japanese government has already give an outline of how to
write the textbooks. So many Koreans and Chinese see this as a problem.
I don’t like an emotional approach to things and the condemning of all Japanese, but I
worry about how the Japanese civil society can stop the new ultra-rightwing movement. As
you know the socialist or communist parties have lost most of their influence in Japan and
Japanese civil society does not seem to have much power. How then can Japanese civil
society stop the ultra-rightwing trend in Japan?
I completely agree with Professor Yang on the need for “thick” reconciliation.
However, it is not easy for civil society to achieve “thick” reconciliation because politicians
and some textbooks give increasing emphasis to nationalist ideas. As you have pointed out,
not only the government, but the civil society and the so-called masses are arousing a
sentiment of nationalism. It is not easy in Korea to achieve reconciliation because from time
to time many Japanese politicians bring up many issues that hurt Korean people. So from
1998, Korean civil society opposed Japanese textbooks. This was different from movements
before because in the past they only thought that Japanese textbooks had problems and that
Korean textbooks did not have any problems. Since then they have thought about the
Korean history textbooks, so in Korean historical groups there is wide support for anti95
nationalist ideas. I think that at the government level we cannot achieve “thick reconciliation”
because politicians use nationalistic sentiments for their own benefit. Dr. Yang I would like to
know your ideas on achieving “thick” reconciliation among civil society or the common
people.
For Professor Jung, I would like to say that it seems to me that efforts to develop
common history textbooks is an endeavour that is limited to and only involves a small group
of scholars and does not really interest or reach the greater public. What do you think about
this and how can we overcome this problem?
Professor Kondo:
First, let me say that I am not a representative of Japanese society or the Japanese. I am only
trying to express my opinion. In Japan, you can find many books talking about the Jewish
people and the many things done by the Jewish people. Yet, while people enjoy the stories, I
don’t think anyone believes in them. Mr. Hielshcher mentioned about the Tsukuru Kai
textbook but this does not mean that a lot of Japanese people really believe everything in the
textbook. We do not have to only focus on the negative side or be pessimistic. Of course
Japanese people have to be careful. Professor Chu mentioned that Japanese communists have
lost power in Japan, but this means that Japanese society has matured. I am not sure I
understand Professor Chu’s point about the Minister of Unification giving an order in 1998
concerning the outline of the textbooks. I would like to ask Andrew Horvat to comment on
this please.
Dr. Yang:
I think we need some clarification on this point. I don’t think the Japanese Ministry of
Education gave orders to delete the Nanjing massacre out of textbooks entirely. What you
have mentioned is that textbook writers first present their draft to the Ministry of Education
and the Ministry officials give their opinion with different degrees of obligation. With
respect to the Rape of Nanjing, I think the Japanese government was emphasizing the need to
talk about different statistics about the massacre and not just the statistics of the Chinese
government meaning basically that the scale of the massacre is still being disputed. I think
there may have been opinions from the Ministry of Education saying that it would not be
appropriate for middle school students to learn about sexual slavery or prostitution.
Andrew Horvat:
It would be important to find out the context of these remarks from the Japanese Minister of
Education because politicians often say different things at different places. I would also agree
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with Dr. Yang that the Japanese Minister of Education does not make policy. It would
actually be very unusual for Japanese officials to do what their Minister tells them to do.
This situation could have easily been perceived in Korea as direct orders from the Japanese
Ministry of Unification on how to write textbooks. The requests from the Ministry of
Education of textbook writers are really opaque. I think this is what Professor Kondo means
when he says the Ministry invites misunderstandings. They also invite self-censorship. I was
shocked to here that Korea has recently adopted a similar system to Japan for high school
history textbooks. I don’t think Japan is a good model in this regard.
Orhan Silier:
I would like to address the issue of the political economy of publishing textbooks. I think it is
a very important part of the whole theme. The political economy of publishing textbooks is
related to a very important economic sector. According to our work in Turkey, the size of
textbook publishing is as big as the entire advertisement sector at nearly 2 billion dollars. This
means that even with producing low quality textbooks, good profits can be made. The
manufacturing cost is lower than what is necessary to produce relatively standard level and
good textbooks. This means that publishers are earning a higher profit than if they were to try
and produce standard-level and high-quality textbooks. One of the major problems in many
countries is developing standards for textbooks. If you think of textbooks as a product for
mass consumption then defected goods are a problem in the market. We have a market full of
damaged or defected goods with regard to textbooks. From the perspective on the political
economy of publishing textbooks, we can try to put pressure on publishers to increase the
standards in producing textbooks and to omit the defected parts of the textbooks. Credit
policies or investment policies could be used as a condition in order to raise the standards and
quality of textbooks and educational programs.
Another point is related to the popular history journals and novels. Due to the fact that the
market generally favors the existing prejudices of the consumers, nationalism tends to be a
very important prejudice of the consumers of this very popular history material. If we do not
create effective mechanisms to sponsor less popular history books or journals then there is an
imbalance in the competition between different popular journals. Sometimes you could
publish a popular history journal and sell 50,000 copies if it express a conservative and
nationalist view of Turkish history but when the journal tries to change ideological tendencies
of the public you can only sell three to five thousand copies.
I would like to make one more point regarding the use of popular history activity to create
better relations between different ethic, religious, and cultural groups. We have tried very hard
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to bring together publications and festivals in the areas of cultural reconciliation. For example,
in Greek-Turkish relations we tried to publish a big photo album by sending Turkish
photographers to Athens and Greek photographers to Istanbul. This helped each side
understand the other’s perspective and mentality. We also published a satirical manual
entitled “What to do and What not to do in Greek-Tukish relations.” This manual covered the
kinds of sensibilities both sides have in their relations. We have also published a lot about
Greek culinary arts so we could see similarities and differences in food which is a very
popular cultural aspect. In our exhibitions as well, we tried to select some life stories of
Greeks in order to increase the level of human contact. I would like to propose that similar
things be done in Asia as well because this touches the most important part of the issue which
is the human side of relations between countries.
Chung Jae-Jeong (City University of Seoul):
Professor Chu pointed out that the effort to develop common history textbooks has not
resulted in gaining public support and is restricted to a small group of textbook developers
and scholars. He would like to know if there is a way to overcome this. There is really no
answer. I know it is difficult to garner the support of the greater public for such efforts.
One important question is what is a history researcher’s role in this process?
However, the important thing seems to be that of starting the process and attempting to create
common history textbooks between Korea and Japan. It is quite meaningful that Korea and
Japan have gotten together to try and create a common textbook. The second important
thing is that this process continues. If we only try once and give up, then there will be no
impact. If this process continues at different levels and includes students, teachers,
researchers, etc., it will be easier to gain the interest and support of the greater public. If we
consider the situation between Korea and Japan in 1982 when the textbook issue first emerged
and we look at what is happening now, there is improvement. If the process of producing
common history textbooks continues for another twenty years, then I expect that it will make
a significant contribution to the process of historical reconciliation between Korea and Japan.
Dr. Yang:
I think we should not idealize civil society as only a factor that is capable of doing
good for reconciliation. In fact, in China, because civil society organizations of a political
nature are very restricted by the government, I think the more prominent civil society
organizations with a political agenda are more the so-called patriotic in nature and have
legitimacy. But unfortunately they are not balanced by the kind of civil society
organizations in Korea that you referred to that tend to be more critical of this patriotic or
nationalist orientation. The same is true with Japan. It has already been mentioned that
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Tsukuru Kai has a nation-wide network that promotes a very nationalistic agenda. The recent
response to the issue of Japanese citizens abducted by North Korea is another example where
civil society can be mobilized for nationalistic purposes. So I think the state still has a very
important role to play. This is why I disagree with the idea that governments should do
away with textbook screening in Korea or Japan. I believe the state does have a responsibility
for educating the younger generation and fostering investment in good relations with
neighbors. I doubt that this can occur naturally by leaving textbook selection to the free
market.
In response to the factor of autonomous politics… I think there are areas where
domestic politics can drive political elites to adopt policies that are counterproductive. On the
other hand with economic integration taking place they have to take the economic interests of
the country into consideration as well. So that is an area where politics and economics do
interact with each other. The phrase I would use to describe current Chinese-Japanese
relations is that they are “hot” economically but “cold” politically. But another way of looking
at it is that even without the exchange of Prime Minister visits the economic situation is still
doing ok. So there is more or less a pragmatic cooperation on the economic front and even on
some foreign policy fronts such as the North Korean nuclear issue. But this does not mean
that the symbolic roles of politicians should not be taken into consideration.
Lee Jung-Ok
To Dr. Yang, while I understand the aspect of “thin” reconciliation in the Chinese case,
in the Korean case, the so-called “thin” reconciliation as diplomatic normalization became an
obstacle to achieving “thick” reconciliation. In this case, can “thin” reconciliation really be
categorized as a different level of reconciliation?
Secondly, with regard to the moral dimension, I also agree with more practical and
economic objectives in relation to this textbook issue. However, when the victims first make
an appeal to reveal a past wrong or open up an issue, the moral dimension is very important.
However, I do not know who can provide the so-called global standardization to the moral
dimension. Therefore, I think the moral dimension is necessary but very dangerous. What do
you think about this aspect?
From Professor Kondo I have come to understand much about the real situation of
Japanese society which suffers from ideological separation. I now understand that most of the
so-called “good will” teacher’s association members and civil society actors, who cooperated
more with common history textbook making, came from the leftwing according to your
presentation. In Korea also this kind of division became sharper in the process of rewriting
history. In the East Asia setting, a kind of left-wing coalition from North and South Korea
might be possible. Do you think this kind of coalition is a constructive way to develop
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common history textbooks? Also is there any possibility for crossing the internal border
between the left and right in Japan? In South Korea too it is becoming more difficult to cross
the internal border lines between conservatives and progressives. Also how do we nurture
democracy within this kind of nationalistic sentiment? How can we relate so-called
democratic ideas to rewriting history textbooks?
Scott Snyder:
My question is for Professor Yang. From your paper I get the idea that maybe in Asia “thin”
reconciliation is enough because things are going well and economic integration is proceeding
which has allowed many countries to overcome and maybe even ignore some of these past
historical issues. Do you really believe “thin” reconciliation is enough in Asia?
Ambassador Lee Sang-Joo:
I am particularly interested in the concept of “thin” reconciliation and “thick” reconciliation.
Even though Professor Lee as talked a little bit about this, I think it is difficult to say whether
the normalization of relations between Japan and Korea in 1965 was a step forward or a step
backward. In my view, it was a little bit of a step forward as a kind of “thin” reconciliation.
After all, without government to government relations for normalization, it is difficult to have
people to people contact and exchanges. The problem was that the government concentrated
too much on the contact between politicians within governments and neglected for several
decades the people to people contact and exchanges. This was the mistake made by
subsequent governments in Korea as well after “thin” reconciliation.
Secondly, I understand that a common European history book was published and
written collectively by textbook makers of EU countries several years ago. I am interested in
the effort by European historians or textbook makers to try and make a common history of
Europe with contributions from all countries involved. However, I heard from Dr. Hoepken
that the book was not that popular among Europeans because it is too central Europe oriented.
I was wondering if it is possible for countries in Northeast Asia like China, Korea, and Japan
to write a textbook on relations among the three countries? Professor Kondo made a very
good suggestion. Instead of writing national history alone it might be a good idea to start to
write the history of relations among neighboring countries. This might be easier and have less
obstacles. I would like to hear any responses on the possibility of historians or textbook
writers creating a common history book focused on relations among Northeast Asian
countries.
My next question is for Professor Kondo. Next year the Japanese Ministry of
Education will examine textbooks. Will this be done more efficiently than in the past? Is there
any move on the part of textbook writers or more neutral textbook writers to start writing
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better textbooks in order to counter Tsukuru Kai’s movement. In addition, would it be
possible to organize groups that are writing more neutral texts that are oriented toward
reconciliation in order to counter Tsukuru Kai’s efforts.
Participant 1:
I am from Poland and I would like to address the European aspect of this issue. This is the
first time I have had a chance to hear about World War II and the holocaust issue from the
German perspective. Being Polish you can imagine that I was brought up with a certain
mindset and way of thinking and some stereotypes about Germans. I am very happy to hear
that there is extensive cooperation between Poland and Germany in terms of rewriting history
and rewriting textbooks for school. I have the impression that Germany is ahead of Poland in
terms of changing stereotypes. In Poland we still have stereotypes of bad German guys in
movies, jokes, and various other stories. I am very sorry about this.
I have heard many times during this conference about “forgetting”. We say that we
need to forget or we shouldn’t forget. Which one is better? I would like to say a couple of
words about “forgiving” instead of forgetting. I think that forgiving might be a better idea in
terms of victims forgiving oppressors and the oppressors forgiving themselves. This might be
a good starting point for a further process.
Of course it is important that we do not forget so we don’t make the same mistakes in the
future. I have not studied all the issues concerning victims and oppressors. However, I have a
general impression that there is not enough emphasis on German’s as also victims of the
Second World War. I can imagine how difficult it must have been for the German nation to
be exposed to all the Nazi ideology and how they were poisoned by it. After the Second
World War all this enormous sense of guilt that the Germans carried for so many years must
have been very difficult. Therefore, I myself would see them as victims.
For my last comment, I think there are many signs that humanity is going in a
direction of becoming one or creating some kind of unity. We have already said that there are
no nations that are entirely innocent. We are all victims and perpetrators or victims and
oppressors. I think we should learn from one another’s experience and see the stage of
dialogue between nations or between oppressors and victims. This is just one stage that will
allow us to lay foundations for the next stage which would be the unity of all humankind.
Dr. Hoepken,
I would like to make three points. I want to come back to Dr. Yang’s comments on the relation
between politics, economics and reconciliation. I think it is very difficult to generalize this
relation. In working with the Balkans myself, I don’t see much progress in terms of “thick”
reconciliation. Politicians are not interested in this kind of reconciliation. Yet, we have some
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grassroots tendencies coming out of the necessity to organize one’s daily life. People are
exchanging goods and working together to survive while not letting conflict spill over into
their daily lives. But this still does not have an impact on the greater politics. The people who
are cohabitating in the villages are electing the politicians who are not interested in
reconciliation. This shows us that we have different levels of reconciliation. I think what is
most important is that reconciliation politics brings you some legitimacy. It must be beneficial
to you as a politician. This is what happened in the German case with the “eastern” policy in
the 70s. It was possible to gain legitimacy by starting this policy. This means that not only do
the political elite have to see it as an instrument for gaining legitimacy but society must also
be ready for it. Recently, the Croatian president went to Serbia and apologized for the
wrongdoings the Croats carried out on the Serbs. The next day the Croatian president’s
credibility in the opinion polls fell quite a bit. So there is still the problem of gaining
additional legitimacy.
My second point is on the question of writing a common history book. Recently, I
have learned that there are efforts underway to develop a joint German-French textbook.
After thirty-five years of cooperation we come to this at the end where we might develop a
joint textbook. It sounds very attractive. It sounds fascinating to write a common textbook but
do we really need it? Is it our understanding as historians to come to a consensus narrative or
is it our understanding that we should present different views in the textbook? What I find
most important is not to come to a common narrative but that each narrative, the Korean one,
Japanese one, German one, or Polish one integrates the perspective of the other into its own
narrative. We have the didactic in education and the concept of multi-perspective which is
crucial and should be a more important guideline for writing textbooks rather than looking at
the common book that seeks to tell the truth.
I very much appreciate the comments of our Polish colleague. However, I must say
that I do not agree that Germans are ahead of Poland in freeing themselves from stereotypes.
There are still a lot of stereotypes about Polish people. Especially in border regions between
Germany and Poland there are many stereotypes and misperceptions. So I think education can
play an important role here. We have tried to cope with this by establishing German-Polish
schools and we have a German-Polish University. I also do not agree with what she says
about understanding in a very sympathetic way the burden that Germans carry by being
poisoned during the Nazi period. I think we have to accept that German’s suffered during
the war and we have to respect these experiences. We have to integrate these experiences into
a narrative that is not ignoring the basic responsibility for what happened during the war. As
long as this focus on one’s own victimization is a kind of tool to get rid of your sense of moral
responsibility then it is dangerous and biased.
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Dr. Silier
Reconciliation is a process that needs time and a lot of energy. We need a discussion about
the possibilities and limits of generalizations regarding the process of reconciliation between
different countries or different ethnic, culture, and religious groups. At this point I see the
danger of the other side. The German reconciliation process as an example for the other
reconciliation processes may create more problems than solutions. Germany is a country with
very little colonial past and on the one hand it has a highly developed system of philosophy
and logic but on the other hand it has had ambitions for world power. It lost the battle after
two consecutive wars and went through a reconciliation process. Yet, in most cases the
picture is not clear or open if we look at the British case, U.S. case, or the French case.
There are many complications that make it difficult to use the German reconciliation process
as a format for other cases of reconciliation. So we will probably continue to have this “thin”
reconciliation instead of worldwide reconciliation.
Professor Kondo:
In terms of leftwing and rightwing, they are meaningless now. I would like to say that we
should not be too nationalistic or too patriotic. We must be careful about such tendencies.
With regard to Ambassador Lee’s points…next year we will have to have some other kind of
system. But I don’t recognize any disputes even these days. I suppose many publishers do not
want to remake textbooks and invest a lot of money.
Dr. Yang:
There are several questions related to this somewhat problematic concept of “thin”
reconciliation. Scott Snyder raised a very provocative question about whether “thin”
reconciliation is really enough? I admit that my paper seems to give that impression. Over the
last few years, I have become frustrated in that taking the issue of history head on does not
move us very far in overcoming history in a broader context. In this sense, I appreciated Dr.
Silier’s earlier comment that it is important to have daily life interaction, more appreciation
and understanding of the other and getting to know another person as an individual. These are
certainly grounds or conditions for overcoming the more stereotypical an distorted views that
we have of others. In this respect, I emphasize economic integration as creating or having
the potential to create societal interaction between the people. Just to answer your question
briefly…”thin” reconciliation is not enough for Asia. Also just letting the economic force take
care of itself is not enough either. That’s why I think the efforts by Professor Chung are
important not only among historians but for getting the ideas across to the greater public
through textbooks or other books.
Professor Lee raised a very important question about this leftwing coalition. My view
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is closer to yours as I see progressive forces in Japan as the leftwing remnants that are most
active in reaching out to the Asian countries. Even though Professor Kondo said that the use
of “right” and “left” are no longer useful designations, I disagree. It was pointed out that
while Japan was not divided like Korea, still it is divided internally along ideological lines.
This is an important insight. I am not sure whether this divide has been overcome. The most
constructive statement made by a Japanese Prime Minister about Japanese aggression was
made by a socialist Prime Minister. I don’t think this is a coincidence. If reconciliation and
efforts at joint history research are only done by left-wing groups in Japan, then it is difficult
to change the mainstream of society. Again this is what I think the next important agenda is.
How can we create the critical center in all these countries that have a vested interest in
bringing relations closer together? Civil society and institutional ties and the mainstream
political elites should be brought into the equation.
Han Kyung-Koo (Kookmin University, Educational Development Committee):
I think one issue we need to discuss more is the cultural differences or cultural dimensions
affecting the past and history. For example, whether remembering is a peculiarly Western
tradition or not? If we think about the conflict over textbooks in East Asia we might start
with whether there are some misunderstandings or cultural differences with respect to the
concept of history, textbooks or the concept of confession. East Asian countries are generally
regarded as Confucian with similar cultural characteristics, but actually the countries in East
Asia are quite different. So what is the place of confession in China, Japan, or Korea? Many
Americans have found that in Japan confession is a very important element in the system of
justice. For example if you make a confession then you are virtually forgiven. There is a great
difference between making a confession or not. Then why are the Japanese so reluctant to
make a confession in the case of history? You will find that Kim Jong Il who made a very
broad confession about abductions of Japanese citizens raised serious issues for Japan. So
what is confession in different countries?
China and Korea have shared a similar tradition concerning history which I think
Japan does not share. Therefore we might have different conceptions about history. What do
we expect from history? What is a textbook in Japan, Korea, or China? These are the
questions remained to be answered further.
General Discussion
Danton Ford:
I have two comments. With regard to common history textbooks…I don’t perceive
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that a common history narrative would somehow become dominant in the historical discourse.
I see it as another aspect of the diversity of texts where we could have domestic or nationally
produced texts and in addition to that we can have a common narrative. I also think that the
benefit in developing common history textbooks may not be the end result but the process that
is involved which are the exchanges, the dialogue, and interactions between scholars,
researchers and curriculum developers in different countries. This may be the real value and
having a common narrative in addition to the diversity of narratives already out there only
adds to the overall diversity.
For my second point with regard to a future conference of this nature, I would
propose that one topic we haven’t discussed and that is crucial for Korea in the future is
historical reconciliation between the two Korea’s themselves. If we look at the textbooks
between the two Koreas and the way they tell their history there are quite a few differences.
For a country that shares a common historical experience, the way they perceive it now is
quite different. For example who started the Korean War and who was responsible for that.
Also there is a very interesting dynamic between the two Korea’s ethno-cultural nationalism
in the curriculum as opposed to civic nationalism which is very interesting. I think as the two
Koreas begin to pursue reconciliation in various other areas such as defense and politics
Korean history is something that they will have to look at. They will have to grapple with
what is going to be the Korean historical narrative for a unified Korea. I think research on
historical reconciliation between the two Koreas might also have a place in a conference like
this.
Heran Song:
These are questions that were gathered together from the morning session. To
Professor Yang there are two questions. First, what is the role of Chinese civil society for
historical reconciliation in East Asia? You mentioned in your paper that the Korea-Japan case
may be a good model for China. What parts of the process of reconciliation between Korea
and Japan would be useful or not useful for China?
To professor Kondo… how could a biased history textbook be approved by the
Japanese government? What are the prospects for textbook selection next year? What are your
suggestions for achieving further progress between Korea-Japan and China-Japan?
To Professor Chung… in your presentation you mentioned about progress being made
in the area of historical reconciliation through joint efforts to produce common history
textbooks between Korean and Japanese scholars. What is your plan or strategy to strengthen
this kind of effort? One Korean teacher commented that she appreciated the effort made by
Korean and Japanese scholars for joint history textbooks. Yet, even though she is a history
teacher, she did not know about this kind of effort and in school she cannot see the practical
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results or realizations of these efforts. She said that it is a scholar’s duty to let the public
know of these efforts and work toward practical results. She would like Professor Chung to
elaborate on this more. What efforts are being made to reach the greater public and achieve
practical results?
One of the participants points out that history textbooks are important for teaching
peace and coexistence of human kind but the teacher is more important than the textbook. Is
there any study analyzing the historical perspectives regarding the past between Japan and
other Asian countries?
Question to Dr. Orhan Sieler…as a civil society leader in improving textbooks,
especially the human rights element in the textbook, what has been the level of support and
cooperation or intervention coming from the government for these efforts in Turkey? What
has been your strategy and ways for improving the role of civil society for successfully
improving history textbooks and human rights in the textbook? We have heard about a joint
history textbook by the Balkan nations. What was the extent or level of local participation in
making the joint history book? How has the Balkan common history textbook been received
by the local population? What has been their reaction to it?
The final question is for European presenters…how do we incorporate the issue of
minority groups into the process of historical reconciliation in Europe, especially into the
textbooks? What has been the progress of historical reconciliation in the age of European
expansion such as the formation of the European Union?
Professor Kondo:
We will have to make a third system to check textbooks. I don’t want to depend on
the government. I hope that in each country the role of the government is minimized with
regard to textbooks. We still have a difficult road to travel but it is worthwhile to work
together in this area such as this conference or the efforts of Professor Chung who has many
meetings and conferences with the Japanese. There are also efforts to bring together Czech
teachers and students with Japanese teachers and historians who meet about once a year. We
will have to be careful and the work will not be easy but we must continue.
Dr. Yang:
Regarding the first question about the role of Chinese civil society…in my paper I
tended to emphasize the potential disruptive element but that doesn’t mean that there are not
civil society groups playing an active role such as overseas Chinese in Japan where there is a
considerable population and many of them are working to further better understanding. I
know an individual who produces a short television segment about life in Japan and
broadcasts it on the internet and it has link with the People’s Daily website in China. Within
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China there are intellectuals who are more critical of China’s own position on history issues.
Some of them publish a journal but they have not really become a social force or have strong
institutions.
With regard to the second question on the Korea-Japanese model… I think we would
all agree that the word “model” is a bit of an exaggeration. My understanding is that Korea
and Japan have a better chance of securing a deep or “thick” reconciliation than Japan and
China for many reasons even though Japan and China are still working on it. But if Korea and
Japan does work successfully, I think the lessons as I would understand would be that such
reconciliation would depend on democratic values and respect for human rights and require
active involvement of both the government and civil society groups. For such reconciliation to
take root it requires changes in historical education within both countries, both Japan and
China. These are the things I think can be applied to future Japan-China reconciliation.
Professor Cheung:
Within the next two or three years there should be three different types of JapanKorea common history textbooks. Someone has commented that they did not know of our
efforts to produce these textbooks. The joint textbooks really become a supplemental text for
the teachers and students to use. Even though this is just a supplemental text many people in
both Korean and Japanese society are not in favor of the text. They ask how is such a textbook
between Korea and Japan possible? If this sentiment reaches the greater public then there will
be criticism and it will be difficult to continue with our activities. So now we are not seeking
much public attention. First, we wish to just make the textbook and then see the results and
make an assessment. The process here is very difficult and we worry about what the result
will be. Ultimately, if this effort is not led by the leaders and intellectuals of each country
then it will not be effective. After two or three years when different examples of joint
Korean-Japanese history textbooks are produced by different groups, I would like to hear an
assessment of these books by our colleagues from Europe.
Dr. Silier:
I received five questions which I can group into two questions. One concerns the
relation and strategy to the government and the other is about the Balkan joint textbook
experience. We try to maintain a distance from the government as well as the private sector
and international institutions in order to give enough room for our own independent planning,
project development and implementation. We try to balance different contributions in such a
way that we have our independent existence and our independent work. In this sense our task
is the advocacy of a better history education system and trying to push the limits of the
existing system and try to show alternatives to it through creating, for example, materials.
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Lately we have published six books of the Council of Europe and European Commission
about 20th century teaching and learning.
I propose that the same thing be done in Korea and Japan because these books serve
as good reference books in many fields of history teaching or for organizing teacher’s training
courses. It shows how to develop a teacher’s book and a textbook as an example for the
other classes. In this process, what is important is to give enough room for further
development of the process. For example, from different governmental bodies there was a
lot of pressure on us not to speak in different voices about the Turkish educational system. We
categorically said no as the discussion and different evaluations on history education in
Turkey is the very substance of the development of this process. It is not a national question
but its an international question that we have to deal with.
As for the Balkan countries and our work there…there was a misunderstanding. We
did not intend to write a textbook. Rather it was a project meant to find out what the problems
were in the Balkan area. Although there was an initiative by the Center of Reconciliation in
Thessalonica to write a common history textbook, it failed. We tried to do the minimum. We
selected 19th century sections of the existing Balkan country’s textbooks in order to identify
the easy sources of problems. Also, we tried to develop a web page where we could discuss
ideas for improvements. I stress this point because if we do not find the relatively easy
approaches to tackling reconciliation then we lose our chance to achieve anything. When we
tried to establish an Armenian-Turkish history group, the Armenians insisted that from the
beginning we should discuss how to define “genocide” as the basic task. They also insisted
on having the presences of people with political influence. We tried to convince them that the
toughest questions should be discussed at the end and lets try to organize a discussion among
academics first and then go further. I think that in the process of reconciliation we should
begin with the easiest problems first and move on to other issues later.
Dr. Hoepken:
With regard to the issue of dealing with minorities in European textbooks…this differs in
Europe from country to country depending on the character of the country and on whether
there are a large number of minorities or not. According to the so-called Copenhagen criteria
which have been agreed upon by the European Union, minorities have the right to be educated
in their own language, be represented culturally and in history teaching.
There are different ways in which the European textbooks usually deal with the
minority issue. In some countries minorities don’t really appear in textbooks. For example, in
Germany we don’t have specific chapters on minorities because there are really no large
minority groups in Germany. However, different small minority groups have some of their
own material or textbooks to use. We don’t deal explicitly with minority groups in German
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textbooks. For example, we don’t treat the Turkish population as a minority group but rather
as a migrant group. Other countries use a system where the minority groups have textbooks of
their own. This is something that is largely applied in Russia where you have a wide range of
regional textbooks produced in the region for the people there. In some cases, additional
teaching materials are used, so the minority has the regular textbook and some other
supplementary textbook dealing with themselves or their mother country. However, I am a
little doubtful about this procedure because on the one hand it gives the minority the right to
learn about their own history but then on the other hand there are two separate histories which
are not related to each other. Usually this means that the majority doesn’t learn anything about
the minority which I see as a problem.
The third approach could be what I call a more North American multi-cultural
approach which is still not widely applied in Europe. For example, the Canadians are doing
this by presenting their country in the textbooks as a multi-ethnic one. They integrate the
majority and minority narrative into one narrative. So there are different approaches for
dealing with minorities and while not all of them are well thought out there is a growing
consciousness on this issue and as I mentioned before European criteria are demanding that
we deal with it.
Dr. Hielscher:
I would add one remark. We have finally managed in German law to recognize our
country as a country of immigration. We used to deny this and it took a long and difficult
process but now this has finally been achieved. I think this is a starting point for trying to
get to the next step of how to distinguish the various immigration groups. Nowadays many of
the migrant workers also get German nationality so then their status changes from a migrant
worker to a minority in the cultural sense. So I think the process has reached a different level
of legal status after long battles within the German political context.
Wrap-up Session
Kwak Jai-Seok (Korean Educational Development Institute-KEDI):
There is not much difference between this conference and a conference on a similar
topic two years ago. We heard similar ideas and discussions. More substantial work still
needs to be done. We should have one person from the Academy of Korean Studies here since
they are involved in projects on this issue. In October, the Ministers of Education from
Korea, Japan and China will have a meeting but what will they discuss in terms of history
reconciliation?
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In October 2002, there was the KEDI International Conference "Textbook
improvement with a view to enhancing mutual understanding between countries." However,
there has not been much progress made in historical reconciliation between Korea and
Japanbecause barriers to historical reconciliation still exist as Dr. Wolfgang Hoepken points
out in "Reconciliation and 'coming to terms with the past': from a 'German obligation' to a
universal principle." There is no political backing and sharing of common values, selfperception for its own responsibility.As a model case of "reckoning with past wrongs," the
German case of progressive historical reconciliation projects sheds light on the issues between
Korea and Japan (Dr. Gebhard Hielscher's paper "Introduction to Historical
Reconciliation Project: Findings and Progress")
However, the cases in the Northeast Asian tripartite are in sharp contrast to
the successful German cases. The three papers on China, Japan, and Korea obviously show
the differences of perception and will among us. Efforts for "thick reconciliation" by China
and Korea are often negated by Japan under the pretext of Japan's domestic politics such as
pluralism, democracy, etc. However, historical reconciliation as a universal moral obligation
in a globalized world cannot be compromised with domestic causes. Notwithstanding, the two
papers on China and Korea both show slow but steady progress and hope for mutual
reconciliation in the future. Therefore, mutual economic interdependency in the tripartite is a
good indication for the necessity of historical reconciliation as Dr. Daqing Yang suggested.
To avoid being trapped by nationalism, the new millennium's challenge is the creation
of regional cooperation. Germany's success in historical reconciliation developed out of
a common framework of regionalism, the European Union (EU). The foundations of shared
economic interests and political willingness should take priority over other interests. For
example, German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's participation in the 60th Anniversary of the
allied invasion of Normandy and the one in Russia and Poland demonstrate such a case. Then,
in the Northeast Asian region what are the roles of NGOs and academics? Should we just
wait until politics takes action?
We need a self-reflective approach to historical reconciliation and further
regional
cooperation. Before urging others to change, we should focus on changing ourselves (a study
by Sung-bo Kim in the analysis of historical textbooks of Korea and Japan shows Japanese
textbooks to be based more on universal ethics and an objective descriptive approach to the
past.) We must avoid excessive nationalism. We must also overcome the historical burdens
of colonialism and the intentions of neo-colonialism. In Asia, we need to establish common
interests, like those of the European Union (EU). There are new challenges for the Asia
Pacific region in the new millennium.
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We need a Northeast Asian model of the Socrates program in education that involves an
education network, accredited exchange programs, especially in tertiary education
and vocational training and enhancing student mobility in the region. Sub-programs of the
Socrates program could include the Erasmus program for higher educational development, the
Comenius program for cooperation and assistance in inter-school systems, the Lingua
program for language education to enhance cultural understanding, open and distance learning
program, adult education program and information and exchange programs. In addition, I
propose a Joint Educational Development Assistance program for less developed countries in
the Asia Pacific region. Revealing is healing -> Sharing is healing
Andrew Horvat:
Let me try to connect the first session which talked about European examples and the second
session dealing with the remaining problems in Asia. The question we always ask is…. Is
Germany or is Europe a model for Asia? This is the crucial question. I think the answer is
both “yes” and “no.” Yes, because the European model is successful in achieving a level of
European unity as we have not every had before. I think we cannot but help to respond very
positively to this. Also, we see some of the building blocks of that unity. We know what
took place… the early leaders of Europe, for example, the Germans, French and Italians had a
rational approach and took certain key actions some of which I don’t think we discussed here
today. For example even cut-rate tourism for young people was an activity and a policy
coordination done specifically to get young people to know each other better. I think this was
successful and is something that can be tried in East Asia certainly between Japan and Korea.
What makes these building blocks possible and what we should keep in mind is the positive
vision. Once you have the positive vision, it is really amazing how the other items fall into
place. For example, we had textbook reconciliation programs or discussions between France
and Germany and later between Germany and Poland. These all become part of a goal we are
trying to reach. In this respect, Germany and Europe are a positive model for Asia. I should
also mention that there were the creation of various kinds of organizations intended to provide
archival material for dealing with the past. Why was this possible?… Because Germany had a
national consensus on the need for reconciliation.
Why then is the model somewhat inappropriate for East Asia? Because there is an
absence of national or domestic consensus on historical issues within Japan. We did not go
into full detail about this but it is clearly due to how the geo-politics of the cold war was
different in Europe than in East Asia. So it is very difficult to praise Germany and blame
Japan. Many of the things that happened were global or external. Therefore, the question is
what are we to do? What is the agenda? If I were a Korean, I would say that the first thing to
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do is to create a domestic consensus within Japan on historical issues through a series of
positive and negative incentives. This means conferences like this but perhaps more focused
on Japanese and Korean scholars or like-minded individuals on a broad range of issues. For
example the Asia Foundation will be holding a small workshop on distressed art, that is the
controversial issue of Korean art objects in Japan. I am delighted to note that our Japanese
and Korean collaborators have already agreed that what is needed are positive examples.
Some publicity should be given to the fact that there are now collaborative arrangements
between Korean and Japanese art museums and that Japanese owners of some of these
disputed art objects have accepted the idea that they should offer them to Korean institutions.
The more publicity that is given to this, the more positive the incentive is for reconciliation
efforts in the future.
Another thing that needs to happen is that Koreans start doing, domestically, what
they expect the Japanese to do which is look at their own history dispassionately. I am happy
to note that there is now a movement among some Korean historians to examine the colonial
past in a more impassionate way than before and not as an evil that was perpetrated immorally
upon Korea. They are trying to look at what really happened. What I would really like to see
is a collaborative effort among Korean and Japanese historians to examine this aspect of the
past. Initially this can be done without much publicity and hopefully create a ripple effect in
which there is genuine reconciliation on some of the most problematic issues. However, this is
not an easy process.
There should also be negative incentives for Japan. I think the conflict before the
2002 World Cup over the Tsukuru Kai textbook in which there was concern that if Japan
adopted the textbook, Korea would cancel the World Cup was very effective. Therefore a
carrot and stick approach should be used. The rather comfortable assumption by many
Japanese leaders that everything was settled in San Francisco or that everything was settled in
the South Korea-Japan treaty is wrong. I think a wake-up call is necessary. Perhaps legally
everything was settled but that doesn’t mean that morally it was. More is expected of Japan.
Frankly, I think more is expected of Japan and more is expected of Korea too.
Han Kyung-Koo:
I would like to add two things. We have talked about national interests, economic
interests, strategic interests so that politicians will become interested in reconciliation issues.
Also we have talked about the moral dimensions which are most important. We need to
devise ways to enlighten the politicians and help them realize that moral interests are also
very important because you can gain legitimacy and have morality on your side by pursuing
reconciliation. Also we have realized that it is not always technically or strategically a good
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idea to address this history question because it so difficult. But we had a suggestion that we
should start with something easier. One of my suggestions is that we might start by studying
not this great long history among countries but things like the history of food in Japan, Korea
and China, or the history of clothing or housing. These questions are actually highly political
but on the surface they are not. Therefore, I think there are a lot of things we could learn from
the study of everyday life in Korea, Japan, and China.
The problem is that the Europeans know each other better than the Koreans, Japanese
or Chinese. Asians think that we understand each other but we do not. For example, if two
European intellectuals meet, they have a common intellectual background having read Kant,
Hegel, Nietzsche etc. Europeans enjoy the same music and literature but when Koreans,
Japanese and Chinese meet we have very little in common. We are so ignorant of each other
that we don’t have a common ground to write a common history textbook so it is a very
difficult task. So if there are some other easier things to do then we might start from there.
German Ambassador to Korea, Michael Geier:
I worked for the past four years with the German Foundation on Slave Labor. I was
the head of staff negotiating on behalf of the German government a settlement with five
countries, Jewish organizations and so on. When I came here today, Professor Han was
mentioning the question of confession. That was one of our major discussions and the
Americans gave us a draft of what the German President should say. We decided to make our
own text and the German President said something about the evils that the Germans had
carried out on these people.
Two points I would like to make is that out of this very painful experience of three
years came a grassroots movement of interest in the past by many young people. In other
words, in every German city and village young people were asking themselves what were
these forced laborers doing among us. They started investigating the history of their own city
and inviting survivors. This kind of living memory is very precious. We have to take into
account that here in Korea we have people living who had a first-hand experience and
knowledge of the tragedies of the past. The other experience was that people who were
forced laborers in Germany were mainly from the Soviet Union. When they returned, they
collectively fell under the suspicion of collaboration and many of them where sent to Siberia
for a second round of forced labor. The negotiations and public discussions we led for three
years helped with the rehabilitation of these people who could for the first time face the
younger generations in their own countries and tell them that they didn’t go to Germany
because they chose to but they were forced to. I think this was a very positive outcome of our
discussions and although it was painful and difficult, it was worthwhile.
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Samuel Lee:
I would like to thank everyone for being here today. I think we see some hope. We
have discussed many points and I think the differentiation of “thin” and “thick” reconciliation
was very useful along with comparing the whole European experience with Asia. I would say
that in Europe there has been “thick” reconciliation but in the Asia-Pacific region we have not
even reached “thin” reconciliation. There has not been much national consensus of the people
and the state. I think this agenda of reconciliation and the regional community is really quite
new in Asia compared to Europe.
I have learned that education for international understanding started very strongly
right after the Second World War in Europe. When I was living in Germany, I found that
students in Germany and France were exchange students living one year together and learning
about each other’s language, food, housing, etc. That was the fundamental foundation of
really good and “thick” reconciliation and understanding. However, in my generation as I
attended high school the Japanese language was not taught and we were educated to hate
Japan. So education for international understanding is starting in the Northeast Asia region too
late. We have to recover and by learning from the models in Europe we will now have to
progress.
We heard from Professor Chung that there are many signs of hope and many good
initiatives. I hope that these will be very successful even though I am not very optimistic
about the publication of a joint history textbook by Korea and Japan. Always the
perspective of the oppressors or perpetrators and the victims are different and they can never
unite and harmonize. However, we will try to find some kind of common elements and I
think compared with the past situation there has been much progress. Even though there has
not been much consensus between the two governments, among civil society, teachers, and
professors there has been much contact and dialogue resulting in progress toward a common
understanding. So we will have hope. I think this kind of forum, meetings and opportunity
should be continued. Especially on the topic of East Asia this kind of common effort should
be continued. Thank you.
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*Annex
Overcoming the Negative Legacy of the Past:
Why Europe offer a Positive Example for East Asia
By Andrew Horvat
In the spring of 2004, Chinese premier Wen Jiabao stated at a news conference in
Beijing that manufacturers of Japan’s high speed bullet train would be barred from bidding on
the $15 billion Beijing-Shanghai railway project unless Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro
Koizumi stopped visiting Yasukuni Shrine where the souls of 2.46 million Japanese war dead
– including 14 Class A war criminals -- are consecrated. Yasukuni’s war criminals include
Iwane Matsui, commander at Nanking in 1937 of the Japanese forces that took part in the
massacre of thousands of unarmed Chinese in what has since become known as the Rape of
Nanking. Because of Koizumi’s annual Yasukuni visits, China has refused either to invite
Koizumi to China or to accept Japanese invitations at the prime ministerial level.
In Northeast Asia today, history is not just about the past. Unresolved issues, some
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going back more than a century, cast giant shadows over the world’s most populous continent
at a time of rapid economic change and shifting power balances. Nearly 60 years after
defeat in World War II, Japan continues to have with both China and Korea a long list of
smoldering disputes that can be counted on to flare up regularly. These include: the
treatment by Japanese school textbooks of historical incidents such as the Rape of Nanking;
germ warfare experiments conducted by Unit 731 of the Japanese army on POWs in China;
the legality of Japan’s 35-year colonial rule of Korea; the removal during that period of
thousands of Korean art and cultural treasures to Japan; territorial differences
(Dokto/Takeshima with Korea, and the Senkakus/Diaoyu Islands with China); official
apologies by the Japanese government to surviving ianfu or “comfort women” (the 200,000
mostly Korean women forced to work as prostitutes for the Japanese army until 1945);
compensation for tens of thousands of Chinese and Korean laborers forcibly taken to Japan to
work in mines and factories in slave-like conditions; and so on.
As Professor Hoei Fujisawa of Waseda University warned at a recent conference in
Tokyo on unresolved historical problems in Asia, “Disagreements over interpretation of past
events between Japan and China, and Japan and Korea can trigger regional instability and as a
result can threaten the peace and security of the entire world.” i But, in spite of such
warnings, leaders of China, Japan and Korea have shown a remarkable lack of interest to
follow the example of European nations in working toward a shared perception of the past.
While Japanese officials do little more than repeat the mantra “All claims related to the past
have been settled by the 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty,” Chinese and Korean leaders often
find it all too convenient to exploit popular anti-Japanese feelings for short-term domestic and
foreign policy gain. As the prime mover of the San Francisco Peace Treaty, an ally of Japan
and South Korea, and a key trading partner of all three Northeast Asian nations, the United
States could easily find itself embroiled in future tensions exacerbated by unresolved
historical issues.
In 2004, the year when NATO welcomed seven new member countries that had all
been previously parts of the former communist bloc, and the European Union grew by ten
new members to become a confederation of 25 nations with a combined population of 455
million, one cannot help ask why Europe has been able to overcome the negative legacy of
World War II, while in East Asia historical disputes continue to perpetuate old hatreds. A joke
making the rounds in European capitals in the early 1990s asked, “How many countries will
there be in Europe in the year 2000?” The answer: “Nine. Europe and Yugoslavia.” The
prophecy was off by a mere four years. Today, a war between hostile ethnic groups triggered
by unresolved historical differences is impossible to imagine in any part of Europe except
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perhaps former Yugoslavia. In the meantime, Japanese polls are pointing to a decline in once
friendly feelings toward China. i
It is useful to keep in mind that Asia has no regional security arrangements such as
NATO, no free trade agreements that even vaguely resemble the earliest stages of the EU, and
definitely no equivalents of the European parliament at Strasbourg or the International Court
of Justice at The Hague. The non-governmental history textbook commissions,i which made
dialogues on historical issues between Germany and its former adversaries possible, also find
no counterparts in East Asia. In other words, not only do the countries of East Asia face
having to deal with a litany of unresolved historical problems, they also lack the regional
organizations that could provide forums or mechanisms to bring about solutions, assuming
that there is a desire to resolve pending historical issues.
Recent actions by East Asian leaders may call such an assumption into question. While
European nations were preparing in the first few months of 2004 to celebrate the unity of
virtually an entire continent, in Japan politicians made a formal decision not to construct a
secular monument to the war dead to replace Yasukuni, a relic of the pre-war nationalist cult
of State Shinto even though doing so would have addressed Chinese and Korean objections.
In early January Prime Minister Koizumi made the fourth of his annual pilgrimages to
Yasukuni wearing ceremonial Japanese dress. The visit drew a strong reaction from China,
where senior leaders have taken to publicly lecturing Japanese visitors
i
on the great pain
Prime Minister Koizumi continues to cause the Chinese people by worshipping the souls of
war criminals. Also in early 2004, the Korean National Assembly passed a new law aimed at
exposing “traitors” who had collaborated with Japanese colonial authorities before 1945.
Critics were quick to point out that the collaborators, assuming any could be found, would be
in their 90’s. And in a seeming tit-for-tat for Prime Minister Koizumi’s Yasukuni visits, on
March 24 a group of Beijing-based Chinese activists landed on one of the Senkaku/Diaoyu
Islands, uninhabited rocks held by Japan and claimed by both Beijing and Taipei, and, using a
hand-held satellite telephone, broadcast to Chinese radio audiences their having reclaimed the
territory for the motherland. At a meeting in early April between Chinese and Japanese
foreign ministers, China rebuffed a Japanese request that Beijing try to control such incidents,
leading to speculation in Japan that the landings had the approval of the Chinese government.
i
What accounts for this enormous gap between progress throughout most of Europe at
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achieving historical reconciliation and the rising crescendo of mutual mistrust fuelled by
conflicting versions of the past in East Asia? What hope is there that Chinese, Japanese and
Koreans will one day accept each other’s versions of history – if not as their own, then at least
as the legitimate views of others? As of present writing, prospects for reconciliation look
somewhat dim. Contrasting geopolitical patterns between Europe and East Asia allowed the
nations of the former to seize the chance to break with the past while denying the same
opportunity to the peoples of the latter region.
French historian, Jean-Claude Allain, who participated in meetings of the French-German
History Textbook Commission answered the question why the French, having experienced
German occupation and the ensuing political and racial deportations, nevertheless,
immediately after 1945, made moves to engage Germans in a dialogue on historical questions.
Allain pointed out that the French and the Germans had attempted to coordinate their views of
history once before. The origins of Franco-German historical reconciliation go back to the
early 1920’s when Sorbonne historian Pierre Renouvin published a book concluding that the
Versailles Treaty of 1919 ending World War I had been incorrect in blaming Germany alone
for the outbreak of hostilities. Renouvin argued that both the Triple Entente headed by France
and the Dreibund (Triple Alliance) dominated by Germany, should bear equal responsibility.
Renouvin faced severe criticism for having gone against the French official line of the day.
Inspired by Renouvin’s bravery, academics and teachers from France and Germany held
meetings in the 1930s aimed at removing passages from history textbooks glorifying war.
Dialogues had to be suspended after 1935 because by then, the German delegates were
representatives of the National Socialist government, which had its own ideas on how to settle
historical disputes. At the last meeting 39 proposals were made regarding French-German
relations since 1789 but none could be adopted.i
It is not by accident that the greatest progress in historical reconciliation in the 1950’s took
place between France and West Germany, the two countries, which one year later were to
become key players in the agreement to form the European Coal and Steel Community, the
first step toward the creation of the European Union. To understand the enthusiasm with
which both French and German scholars attended the first Franco-German textbook talks in
1950 in Freiburg (still at that time under French military occupation) one has to see
reconciliation of historical differences as part of a larger vision, driven by shared recent
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negative experiences at the hands of an ideology that encouraged mass murder as a “final
solution” to racial and ethnic hatreds. This vision is clearly spelled out in the European Coal
and Steel Community Treaty, signed in Paris in 1951, the last line of which states as its goal,
to create “by establishing an economic community, the basis for a broader and deeper
community among peoples long divided by bloody conflicts; and to lay the foundations for
institutions which will give direction to a destiny henceforward shared….”
But perhaps the biggest breakthrough in historical dialogue took place in 1976 in talks
between Poland, then a communist country, and West Germany. After four years of difficult
discussions often on the brink of breakdown, the two sides announced agreement, which in
the words of Wlodzimierz Borodziej, then a young Polish delegate to the talks, “offered
teachers and textbook authors a largely new view of German-Polish relations from the Middle
Ages to the present….”i But the bilateral textbook dialogues were to achieve far more than a
momentary breakthrough. By removing much of the historical baggage between the two
countries, the history dialogues paved the way for the present friendly relations between postcommunist Poland and a united Germany.
Borodziej concludes: “[S]ince 1989, as Poland
once again attained its sovereignty and Germany was unified, history does not play a large
role in our relations. It is certainly still in our minds and will always remain so, because our
location as neighbors did not begin in 1989, however, it can no longer be exploited for
political reasons.”i As a statement coming from the citizen of a country that lost three million
people in the gas chambers of Auschwitz, these words show that dialogues on historical issues
are probably the best investment nations can make in their future security.
Simply put, Europeans have succeeded in harmonizing their history because the geopolitical
environment of post World War II Europe created conditions by which historical
reconciliation could be seen as being in the national interest. In the case of East Asia, the cold
war demarcation line – known back in the 1950’s as the “bamboo curtain” – placed Japan and
the People’s Republic of China into different camps, thus making it impossible to carry on
constructive dialogues about the past. In the case of Korea, division and war, followed by
decades of poverty all conspired to delay coming to terms with a complicated relationship
with Japan. As for Japan, the cold war created domestic ideological divisions, which would
make certain that Japan would lack the consensusi on the past necessary to engage former
enemies in constructive dialogue.
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Contrasting geopolitics meant that in Europe de-Nazification of Germany became absolutely
necessary for the harmonious functioning of NATO. In Japan, however, the cold war required
the mobilization of Japan’s pre-war elite – including the rehabilitation of officials who had
overseen colonial policy -- whose cooperation was deemed necessary at the time in order to
turn Japan into a prosperous ally in the war against communism. But, obtaining the help of
Japan’s pre-war elite required officials of the US-led Occupation of Japan (1945-1952) to
drive a Faustian bargain: the Western alliance would get an efficient, prosperous Japan with
an anti-communist government, but dealing with Japan’s negative historical legacy would
have to be shelved. It is in this atmosphere that the San Francisco Peace Treaty was concluded
and claims against Japan by former adversaries quickly settled. Not surprisingly, the three
Asian nations that see themselves as having unresolved historical issues with Japan are South
Korea, North Korea and the People’s Republic of China, none of which are signatories to the
San Francisco Peace Treaty.
One can understand that given the context of the cold war, mobilizing Japan in the effort to
contain communism was absolutely necessary. However, the consequent failure to come to
terms with the past would forever politicize reconciliation, providing both domestic and
foreign opponents of the Japanese government ammunition with which to embarrass the
country and its leaders. It is for this reason that Japan has never been able to adopt high
school history textbooks that deal with Japan’s record of aggression on the Asian mainland in
a manner that has satisfied Chinese, Korean and domestic Japanese constituencies. For
example, the move in 1982 by the Japanese Ministry of Education to substitute the word
shinryaku (aggression) with shinko (advance) to describe Japan’s march into Korea and later
China was enough to trigger massive demonstrations in Seoul and a protest from Beijing. To
this day, Japanese nationalists accuse the domestic left of having instigated the crisis by
asking Chinese leaders to express official displeasure about the change. Although there is
little evidence that China (or Korea) needed to be incited to protest, the fact that one hears
such accusations within Japan is indication of the ill will historical issues can generate
between the two opposing camps inside Japan.
While it is true that the Ministry of Education has in the past glossed over negative aspects of
the country’s recent history, since the early 1980’s most high school history textbooks do
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refer to sensitive issues.
i
The problem at present is not so much the textbooks but the fact
that in the absence of reconciliation – either domestic or international – both critics and
supporters of the government look to the textbooks in search of a definitive statement on how
the Japanese state views the nation’s past. For this reason, every textbook is scrutinized by
opposing camps in search of what they believe are changes in the official position on issues
such as the Rape of Nanking, the comfort women, or colonial rule of Korea, which all
inevitably lead to accusations of having either whitewashed the past or kowtowed to Beijing
and Seoul.
The Japanese government-inspired program to compensate surviving ianfu is a good example
of just how difficult it is to move forward on individual issues in the absence of a shared
perception of the past. Confronted in 1990 with irrefutable evidence of official complicity in
the coercion of Asian (mostly Korean) women to provide sexual services for Japanese troops
during the war, the Japanese government came under pressure from two sides: on the one
hand to accept responsibility, show sincere contrition, and provide condolence money, and on
the other to stick to the position that all pending claims have been fully settled by treaties.
Bureaucrats came up with a plan to obtain contributions from private sources. The idea was
to maintain that the compensation came from not the government but Japanese individuals
struck by feelings of remorse. The result was that the long-suffering ianfu were placed under a
considerable period of public scrutiny and instead of being at long last compensated for past
indignities, their choice – whether or not to accept a letter of apology from the Japanese prime
minister along with $17,000 in compensation – took on both diplomatic and political
significance. But before the program could get underway, the South Korean government
stepped in and offered the equivalent of $25,000 to Korean ianfu who refused the letter and
money from Japan.
South Korea argued that to accept compensation from “private”
Japanese individuals would allow the Japanese government to avoid taking direct
responsibility, a view shared by the Japanese left.
In the end, some ianfu accepted, others
rejected the funds. One thing for sure: the compensation scheme did not serve to bring
Japanese and Koreans closer. This is truly sad because in spite of its flaws, the compensation
plan attracted some of Japan’s most prominent civic leaders including a human rights lawyer,
the wife of a respected former prime minister and a veteran woman journalist.
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If the expression, “justice delayed is justice denied” applies to victims such as the ianfu, the
same can be said for nations. There is no doubt at all that had historical responsibility been
discussed openly throughout the post-World War II period, Japan would now have a much
lighter burden to bear. Although it is difficult to quantify human suffering, it is safe to say that
Imperial Japan was not a carbon copy of Nazi Germany. While the behavior of the Japanese
army on the Asian mainland was brutal, there is no suburb of Tokyo whose name evokes the
same horrors as Wannsee in Berlin, where Nazi leaders gathered in 1942 to work out the
“final solution.” Japan did not have a plan to annihilate members of “inferior races,”
homosexuals, dissidents, the mentally ill, or the physically disabled. In fact, Imperial Japan
had no internal concentration camps and remarkably few political prisoners.
A further complicating factor is that Japan was not only an aggressor, but also a victim.
Critics of Japan’s historical record often point to how “easy” it was for Japanese after World
War II to forget about their nation’s aggressive past “thanks to the atomic bombings of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki.” Such cynics would do well to remember the 64 Japanese cities that
were firebombed in the closing stages of World War II. On March 10, 1945 in Tokyo alone
some 100,000 people were incinerated on a single night. The number is greater than those
initially killed by either of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Is the
Japanese farm wife killed by a stray bomb on the last day of World War II to be less mourned
because her fellow countrymen committed atrocities? Given the huge price Japanese have
paid for their war, is it a wonder that they speak so rarely of their own collective past mistakes.
Although one should hesitate from coming to any culture-based conclusions, perhaps the
reason many Japanese appear to be in a state of what their critics call “collective amnesia,” is
that among Japanese it is considered poor manners to bring up one’s own sufferings.i
The long period during the cold war, when reconciliation with China and Korea was
impossible, positions on historical issues were adopted which have since become frozen. One
might even argue that power elites in China and the two Koreas have come to derive greater
benefit from maintaining historical disputes with Japan than from seeking opportunities for
reconciliation. During much of the 1970’s and 1980’s, when China depended on economic
and technical assistance from Japan, the historical issue came up only rarely. With the
Chinese economy expanding these days by nine percent per annum (compared to Japan’s
recent one percent annual growth rate), what reason might there be for China to resist the
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temptation to use history as a bargaining chip with Japan? Similarly, what benefit is there for
a Korean leader to defend a country hated by so many Korean voters? An even more
pessimistic view might be that the many decades of anti-Japanese history education in both
China and the Koreas have inculcated such deeply felt public antipathy toward Japan that
even for leaders of vision, to reach out to Japan might mean risking denunciation at home. As
for Japan, while there are indications that a number of political leaders are keen to start
constructive dialogues, the historical issue is so divisive few political leaders are brave
enough to make anything more than the vaguest public statements.i
But perhaps the most damaging consequence of delaying historical reconciliation is the
difficulty of ascertaining the facts.
This is most evident in the case of the Rape of Nanking.
Estimates of victims range from “not very many at all” to 80,000 raped and 450,000 killed.
Absence of reliable, scholarly studies has given the exaggerators and deniers every
opportunity to work their skills.i
While historical disputes remain a daily irritant in regional relations and threaten to turn ugly
at any moment,i it would be an exaggeration to suggest that an outbreak of conflict over
historical issues is imminent. One example of positive Sino-Japanese cooperation on issues
stemming from the war is Japan’s willingness to assist in the removal of thousands of poison
gas shells left behind by the Imperial Army throughout North China. Poison, leaking through
deteriorating shell casings, has flowed into local water supplies, causing deaths and injury.
The Japanese government is funding the construction of a detoxification plant in North China
and is cooperating fully with China in the removal of the shells.
In the case of Japan-Korea relations positive feelings in Japan toward South Korea are
probably at an all time high. During the 2002 World Cup soccer games, much was made in
the Japanese media of the fact that thousands of Japanese soccer fans donned the red T-shirts
of the Korean team and joined with Korean fans to root for the South Korean “Red Devils”
after the Japanese national team had been eliminated. In 2003, a Korean soap opera broadcast
on Japanese television, triggered a boom in things Korean in Japan. A dozen publications
have appeared on Japanese bookstands devoted to stories and photographs of Korean actors
and actresses. Tours to Korea for Japanese fans to locations featured in the drama have been
oversubscribed. Language schools in Tokyo report a shortage of teachers of Korean, so many
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Japanese fans are signing up to learn the language. All this in a country where not long ago
Koreans faced discrimination in employment, housing and marriage.
But, in spite of the poison gas treatment facilities in North China, and in spite of some 60
billion dollars worth of aid delivered by Japan to China over the past 30 years (more than
from any other source), in the Chinese city of Xian, mobs beat up Japanese visitors over a
misunderstanding caused by a skit performed at a local university by Japanese exchange
students. In the same year, a Chinese court sentenced to life in prison a Chinese man who
procured prostitutes for Japanese visitors. And this year, Chinese activists burned the
Japanese flag to protest Japan’s continued “occupation of the Diaoyu Islands.”
In the meantime in Korea, press reports continue to focus on Japan’s failure to
address the looting by former colonial administrators of the country’s artistic heritage. In the
same vein, it requires considerable bravery for a Korean economist to state openly in
academic circles that the human and physical infrastructure needed to assure South Korea’s
economic development from the 1970’s to the present was put in place during Japanese
colonial rule, a view commonly accepted outside Korea.i During a recent interview in Seoul,
a Korean professor remarked that anti-Japanese feelings are on the rise among young Koreans.
An unintended consequence of the spread of broadband – South Korea has probably the most
advanced IT culture of any country in Asia today – has been the growth of websites, chat
rooms and bulletin boards, many with heavy anti-Japanese content. In China too, the Internet
is contributing to the spread of anti-Japanese feelings among young people.
In the case of China, too, the Communist Party has a vested interest in the official position
that it alone successfully confronted the Japanese Imperial Army and drove it out of China. At
a time when China is setting new records in economic growth through a market economy, the
party is turning to nationalism to bolster its legitimacy. In China, modern nationalism consists
of the history of resistance against Japan in the first half of the twentieth century. To fan the
flames of nationalism in China means to rekindle the embers of anti-Japanese sentiment.
i
Given the absence at present of domestic constituencies favoring historical reconciliation in
East Asia, one cannot help coming to the conclusion that action by concerned outsiders is
called for. That said, this is not an area where foreign government officials can make open
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statements or even work behind the scenes. Fortunately, one lesson that can be drawn from
the success of reconciliation in Europe is that the breakthroughs have inevitably come about
when non-state actors took a leading role.
As has already been mentioned, in the case of French-German Textbook Commission, the fact
that delegates had no connection with government agencies in their respective countries made
it possible for them to discuss issues freely. The same lesson can be drawn from the PolishWest German talks. A senior German diplomat recalled that the reason the talks succeeded is
“because we weren’t there.” The diplomat argued that if government officials had been
involved, the negotiations on history would inevitably have become linked to other aspects of
bilateral relations thereby complicating discussions needlessly. Government involvement in
the ianfu compensation scheme did not work to the advantage of anyone, least of all the ianfu.
At one stage, progress on compensation had to be slowed down because of a snag in JapanSouth Korea fisheries talks taking place at the same. In the Polish-West German textbook
dialogues, the Catholic Church in the two countries provided strong, positive support for
reconciliation. If there is reason for optimism in the Japan-South Korea historical issue, it can
be found in the recent growth in the civil society movements in the two countries. Clearly, the
history problem should be placed in the hands of respected NGO (non-governmental
organization) leaders, who enjoy the trust of both the government and the general public and
who are given a free hand to engage in long-term discussions on a broad range of unresolved
issues.
A second area where progress might be achieved relatively smoothly is scholarly research.
Here too the German experience offers a positive example. The city of Braunschweig is home
to the International Textbook Research Institute, which has provided much of the intellectual
underpinning for resolution of historical problems. Waseda’s Dr Fujisawa has also called for a
research institute to be set up to facilitate ascertaining historical facts. Under Prime Minister
Tomiichi Murayama, such an institute was to be set up. Regrettably the idea has been shelved.
A third area in which the European experience offers a positive example is in the setting up of
foundations, with the aim of turning the sufferings of victims into opportunities for reflection
and a renewal of a commitment not to repeat the mistakes of the past. The agreement in 2001
to compensate victims of Nazi forced labor in former East bloc countries included the
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establishment of the Foundation for Remembrance, Responsibility and the Future, which is
already at work promoting people-to-people exchanges and seminars on human rights. By
way of contrast, the Japanese government’s foundation set up to compensate ianfu will be
disbanded once its mandate is finished. What a shame that the sufferings of the ianfu cannot
be used to overcome the past by, for example, setting up a joint Japanese government-industry
fund to underwrite the study at Japanese universities by students from Asian countries. Such a
project would serve as a permanent act of atonement, to make up for the sufferings inflicted in
the past by promoting fuller more productive lives in the future.
A fourth area is youth-exchanges. An integral part of the reconciliation movement in Europe
after World War II was the promotion of youth tourism. The Japanese government is at
present in the middle of a campaign to promote inbound tourism, but the goal of the program
is limited to improving the bottom line of the ailing domestic tourism industry. With a little
extra effort, the government’s “Visit Japan” campaign could be turned into an opportunity to
promote Japan-Korea and Japan-China dialogues in a friendly atmosphere at a very basic
level.i
With regard to all the above suggestions, foreign foundations, charitable organizations, think
tanks, universities, religious bodies, even environmental NGOs could play a constructive role
by helping to form trans-national projects and programs that bring people from the three
Northeast Asian countries together to work toward shared goals. After all, the most important
lesson of the European experience is that it is a positive vision of the future that helps people
overcome the negative legacies of their past.
A Tokyo-based correspondent for nearly 30 years, since 1999 Andrew Horvat has been the
representative of The Asia Foundation in Japan. The opinions expressed in this article are
those of the author alone and do not reflect the views of The Asia Foundation.
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