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other graphics that appear in articles are expressly not to be reproduced other than for personal use. All rights reserved. CONTENTS Vol. 30, No. 2: AprilJune 1998 Textbook Nationalism, Citizenship, and War: Comparative Perspectives, Laura Hein and Mark Selden, guest editors Introduction Laura Hein and Mark Selden - Learning Citizenship from the Past: Textbook Nationalism, Global Context, and Social Change Four Dimensions of the Current Debate over Textbooks in Japan Gavan McCormack - The Japanese Movement to Correct History Nakamura Masanori - The History Textbook Controversy and Nationalism Aaron Gerow - Consuming Asia, Consuming Japan: The New Neonational Revisionism in Japan Inokuchi Hiromitsu and Nozaki Yoshiko - Japanese Education, Nationalism, and Ienaga Saburos Court Challenges Problems of Strategy Kimijima Kazuhiko - The Japan-South Korea Joint Study Group on History Textbooks and the Continuing Legacy of Japanese Colonialism International Contexts Yasemin Nuhoglu Soysal - Identity and Transnationalization in German School Textbooks Stevan Harrell and Bamo Ayi - Combining Ethnic Heritage and National Unity: A Paradox of Nuosu (Yi) Language Textbooks in China David Hunt - War Crimes and the Vietnamese People: American Representations and Silences Review Essay Louise Edwards - Gender and Ethnicity: Interventions in China Studies Short Review Sonia Ryang - The Fantastic in Modern Japanese Literature: The Subversion of Modernity, by Susan J. Napier BCAS/Critical AsianStudies www.bcasnet.org CCAS Statement of Purpose Critical Asian Studies continues to be inspired by the statement of purpose formulated in 1969 by its parent organization, the Committee of Concerned Asian Scholars (CCAS). CCAS ceased to exist as an organization in 1979, but the BCAS board decided in 1993 that the CCAS Statement of Purpose should be published in our journal at least once a year. We first came together in opposition to the brutal aggression of the United States in Vietnam and to the complicity or silence of our profession with regard to that policy. Those in the field of Asian studies bear responsibility for the consequences of their research and the political posture of their profession. We are concerned about the present unwillingness of specialists to speak out against the implications of an Asian policy committed to en- suring American domination of much of Asia. We reject the le- gitimacy of this aim, and attempt to change this policy. We recognize that the present structure of the profession has often perverted scholarship and alienated many people in the field. The Committee of Concerned Asian Scholars seeks to develop a humane and knowledgeable understanding of Asian societies and their efforts to maintain cultural integrity and to confront such problems as poverty, oppression, and imperialism. We real- ize that to be students of other peoples, we must first understand our relations to them. CCAS wishes to create alternatives to the prevailing trends in scholarship on Asia, which too often spring from a parochial cultural perspective and serve selfish interests and expansion- ism. Our organization is designed to function as a catalyst, a communications network for both Asian and Western scholars, a provider of central resources for local chapters, and a commu- nity for the development of anti-imperialist research. Passed, 2830 March 1969 Boston, Massachusetts Volume30,Number21 April- June1998 TextbookNationalism,Citizenship,andWar ComparativePerspectives Guest editors: Laura Hein and Mark Selden Laura Hein and Mark Selden Gavan McCormack Nakamura Masanori translated by Kristine Dennehy Aaron Gerow Inokuchi Hiromitsu and Nozaki Yoshiko Kimijima Kazuhiko translated by Inokuchi Hiromitsu Yasemin Nuhoglu Soysal Stevan Harrell and BamoAyi David Hunt Louise Edwards Sonia Ryang
3 16 24 30 37 47 53 62 72 83 87 Introduction LearningCitizenshipfromthePast: TextbookNationalism,GlobalContext,andSocialChange FourDimensionsoftheCurrentllebate overTextbooksin Japan TheJapaneseMovementto"Correct"History TheHistoryTextbookControversyandNationalism ConsumingAsia,ConsumingJapan: TheNewNeonationalistRevisionisminJapan JapaneseEducation,Nationalism,and IenagaSaburo'sCourtChallenges ProblemsofStrategy TheJapan-SouthKoreaJointStudyGroupon HistoryTextbooksandtheContinuingLegacy ofJapaneseColonialism InternationalContexts IdentityandTransnationalizationin GeImanSchoolTextbooks CombiningEthnicHeritageandNationalUnity: AParadoxof Nuosu(Yi)LanguageTextbooksinChina WarCrimesandtheVietnamesePeople: AmericanRepresentationsandSilences BookReviews GenderandEthnicity: InterventionsinChinaStudies. Engendering the Chinese Revolution: Radical Women, Communist Politics andMaas Movements in the 1920s, by ChristinaKellyGilmartin;Changing Identities ofChinese Women: Rhetoric, Experience and Self-Perception in Twentieth Century China, byElisabethCroll;Sex, Death and Hierarchy in a Chinese City: An Anthropological Account, byWilliamR.Jankowiak The Fantastic in Modern Japanese Literature: The Subversion ofModernity, bySusan1.Napier BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org Contributors BarnoAyiisAssociateProfessorintheDepartmentofPhilosophy and theInstituteforResearchonReligionatCentralNationalitiesUniversity inBeijing,anddirectoroftheBamoSisters'YiStudiesResearchGroup. AnativeofLiangshan, shehasconductedextensivefieldresearchon Nuosureligionandsociety. LouiseEdwards isSeniorLectureratAustralianCatholic University, Queensland,Australia.HercurrentresearchinterestisgenderinChina. Hermostrecentbook(jointlyeditedandtranslatedwithKam Louie)is CensoredbyConfucius: GhostStoriesbyYuanMei(1996). Aaron Gerow is an associate professor in the International Student CenterofYokohamaNationalUniversityandhaspublishedwidely in EnglishandJapaneseonearlyandcontemporaryJapanesecinema. StevanHarrellisProfessorandChairoftheDepartmentofAnthropol- ogyattheUniversityofWashington.Hehasbeenconductingfieldwork onethnicity and ethnic relations inLiangshan and surrounding areas since1988,andhasjustcompletedamonogmphstudyentitledWaysof BeingEthnicinSouthwestChina. Laura Hein teaches Japanese history at Northwestern University. In 1997sheandMark SeldenpublishedLivingwith theBomb:Japanese andAmericanCulturaiConflictsintheNuclearAge(M.E. Sharpe).Her mostrecentwork is"InterwarJapaneseEconomists-HowDidThey PickTheirQuestions?"inJournalofEconomicIssues, June 1998. InokuchiHiromitsu receivedhisPh.D. fromtheDepartmentofEduca- tional Policy Studies, University ofWisconsin-Madison. Hisdisserta- tion,"U.S. MiddleSchoolStudents'DiscoursesonJapan: AStudy of PoliticsofRepresentation,"analyzesthelanguagesandimagesusedby U.S. studentswhenwritingandtalkingaboutJapan. DavidHuntisaprofessorof historyattheUniversityofMassachusetts at Boston. He has beenteaching andwriting about Vietnam andthe VietnamWarsincearrivingonthecampusin 1969. Kimi.iimaKazuhikoiscurrentlyaprofessorofmodernJapanesehistory atTokyoGalaIgeiUniversity(TokyoUniversityof LiberalArts).Heis theauthorofsevernlbooks,includingKyokashonoShiso(Thoughtsin thetextbook)andChoseniKankokuwaNihonnoKyokashonidoKaka- Wearegmtefulto guesteditorsLauraHeinandMark Seldenandtoall thecontributorsto this specialissueoftheBulletin for theirgenerous andprofessionaleffortsintheproductionofVol. 30,No.2(1998). Effective1March1998all editorialandadministrativecorrespondence for BCAS and theBulletin should nowbe sentto our new office in Oakland: BCAS, 1515WebsterStreet,Oakland,CA94612,USA.Tel: 1-510-451-1742.Fax: 1-510-835-9631.E-mail: <tfenton@igc.org>. Photocreditsandcaptions:Unlessotherwiseindicated,allphotogmphs andphotocaptionsusedintheBulletinarecreditedto theauthor(s)of thearticleinwhichtheyappear.Frontcovercredit:InokuchiHiromitsu andNozakiYoshiko. Backcovercredit:StevanHarrell. TheBulletin ofConcernedAsianScholors is indexedorabstractedin theAlternativePressIndex; America:HistoryandLifo;Bibliography ofAsianStudies;HistoricalAbstracts;IBR(InternationalBibliography ofBookReviews); IBZ (InternationalBibliographiederZeitschriften Literatur);InternationalDevelopmentAbstracts;InternationalDevel- opmentIndex; LeftIndex; Periodica Islamica; PoliticalScienceAb- stracts;SageAbstracts;andtheSocialScienceCitationIndex. Bookstoredistributor: UbiquityDistributors,607DeGrawSt.,Brook- lyn,NY11230,USA. Tel: 1-718-875-5491.Fax: 1-718-875-8047. Backissuesand photocopies ofout-of-printbackissues areavailable fromBCAS. Writeforaflyerlistingalloftheavailableissuesorvisit the BCAS Web site (see below). Microfilms ofback issues ofthe reteiru/ca(HowJapanesetextbooksrepresentKorea)(co-authoredwith Sakai Toshiki). His major academic interesthas been the history of Japanese colonial rule ofKorea. He is also a long-time activist and supporteroflenagaSaburo'stextbooklawsuits. GavanMcConnack is ProfessorofJapanese History in the Research School ofPacific andAsian Studies,AustmlianNationalUniversity. His mostrecentbooksareTheEmptinessofJapaneseAffluence(M.E. Sharpe,1996)andthejointlyeditedvolumeJapaneseMulticulturalism: FromPalaeolithictoPost-Modern(CambridgeUniversityPress,1996). NakamuraMasanoriisprofessorofmodernJapanesehistoryatHitot- subashiUniversityinTokyo.Hiswritingsinclude:EconomicDevelopment andDemocracy(IwanamiShoten, 1993),ShowaPanic inJapan(Shou- gaku-kan, 1982),andFermentandFascination inHistory(Chikuma- shobo,1992). NozakiYoshikoisaPh. D.candidateintheDepartmentofEducational Policy Studies, University ofWisconsin-Madison. She has taught a courseongenderandeducationandhas writtenseveralarticlesinthe areaofsocialscience,feministtheory,andeducation. Shewas asocial studiesteacherinJapan,specializinginJapanesehistory. SoniaRyang,aJapan-bornKorean,studiedanthropologyattheUniver- sityof Cambridge.Sheisnowanassistantprofessorof anthropologyat JohnsHopkinsUniversity.SheistheauthorofNorthKoreansinJapan: Language,Ideology, andIdentity(Westview,1997). MarkSelden teachessociologyandhistoryatBinghamtonUniversity. His mostrecentbooksareLivingwiththeBomb:JapaneseandAmeri- canCulturalConflictsintheNuclearAge(withLauraHein)andChina inRevolution:The Yenan WayRevisited.Heis theeditorof aseriesat RoutledgeonAsia'sTransfonnationsandofaseriesonSocialismand SocialMovementsatM.E.Sharpe.E-mail:ms44@comell.edu. YaseminNuhogluSoysalisAssociateProfessorofSociologyatHarvard University.Herresearchfocusesonhistoricaloriginsandcontempomry reconfigurationsofcitizenshipandthenation-state.Sheis theauthorof Limits ofCitizenship: Migrants and Postnational Membership in Europe(UniversityofChicagoPress,1994). BulletinareavailablefromUniversityMicrofilmsInternational,300N. ZeebRd.,Ann Arbor,MI 48106,USA. Tel: 1-800-521-0600. Booksforreview: Alist ofbooksreceivedforreviewconsiderationis availableattheBCASWebsite: <htlp:llcsfcolorado.edulbcasl>.Con- tactBCAS bookrevieweditorPeter Zarrowif you are interested in reviewingoneormoreofthebooksonthelist p.zarrow@unsw.edu.au. TheBulletinprefersreviewessaysratherthanreviewsofsinglebooks. The BulletinofConcernedAsianScholors(ISSN0007-4810)ispublished quarterly.Copyright1998bythe BulletinofConcemedAsianScholars, Inc.All rightsresaved. BCASWebsite:http://csf.colorado.edulbcasl Publisher/managingeditor: ThomasP.Fenton. Copyeditingandproofreading: MaryHeffron,NancyGruber, andThomasP. Fenton. SUBSCRIPTIONRATES-1998 1 year 2 years 3 yean Regular(USA) $25.00 $45.00 $62.00 OutsidetheUnitedStates $26.00 $47.00 $65.00 IndividualslivingintheThirdWorld $18.00 Students/unemployed $18.00 Institutionsllibraries $55.00($56.00,outsideUSA) Overseasainnail $18.00additionalper year BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org Bulletin ofConcerned Asian Scholars, Vol. 30,No.2(1998):3-1S ISSN0007-4810 C 1998BCAS(Oakland,California) LearningCitizenshipfrom thePast: TextbookNationalism,GlobalContext,andSocialChange Thisintroductionto thespecialissueframes theessaysthatfonowinbothinternationalanddomesticpoliticalcontexts. Treating textbooks as a key form ofnationalist narrative, we analyze textbooks in fwe nations and controversies surroundingthemforinsightsintoongoingbattlesovernationandcitizenship.Weargue,tint,thatchangesintheglobal context, theendofthecold putnewpressures. nationalnarratives.Internationalcontroversyeruptswhen those narratives do not mesh wen With the newly envIsioned future. Secondly, domestic social change also forces reevaluationofestablishedstoriesofthenationalpastbecauseformerlysubordinatedgroupsdemandinclusionoftheir perspectives, transforming the overan story in crucial ways. Sometimes, as when the "military comfort women" are mentionedinJapanesetextbooks,thosetwoforcescombinetoformaprofoundchanengetoolderversionsoftheJapanese nationalstory,provokingfurthercontroversy. by LauraHeinandMarkSelden'" WhyFightOverTextbooks? Japan, China, SouthKorea, Germany, andthe United States- and controversies over their content and adoption-all reveal Textbooksprovideoneofthemostimportantwaysinwhich competing and shifting definitions ofthe nation, nationalism, nation, citizenship,the idealized past, and the promisedfuture andcitizenship.I are articulatedanddisseminatedincontemporarysocieties. No History and civicstextbookstypicallyfunction asnation- wonder,then,thattextbookcontent is atthecenterofpolitical alist primers that selectively highlight elements ofthe pastto controversy in somany countries at atimewhenrationalesfor limn an "official" story and etch the lineages and myths of nationalunityandinternationalalliancesarebeingrenegotiated. contemporarypatriotism.Educationisintegralto statebuilding, Webeginbyconsideringaparticularlylong-runningandacrimo- theshapingofnationalconsciousness, the articulationofstate- niouscontroversy,whichhasalsospilledacrossnationalbounda- society relations, andclarificationofthe boundaries andterms ries. The Japanese history textbook controversy raises funda- ofcitizenship. The intensity ofdebatesovertextbooksderives mental issues about Japan's place in Asia and in the world, from the fact that education is so obviously about the future, , nationalism,citizenship,thelegaciesofwar,and thepoliticsof reachesso deeply into society, and isdirected by thestate. As memory. Thecontroversyisalsorootedintransformationsasso- Michael Apple and Linda Christian-Smith put it, "Texts are ciated with post-cold warrealignments and domestic change really messages to and about the future....They participate in withinJapan. creatingwhatasociety hasrecognizedaslegitimateandtruth- Japanisbyno meansthe only placewheredefinitionsof ful.,,2 Becausetextbooksarecarriedintoneighborhoodschools nationandregion,andthecelebrationofaputativepast,areunder andhomes, and because (directly orindirectly)they carry the negotiation.Nationalism,warresponsibility,andthere1ationship imprimaturofthe state,they areunusuallyaccessibleandpow- between citizens and their state are contested in the realm of erful symbols of community, and hence potential targets of public memory worldwide. School textbooks are one ofthe criticism.Moresimply,thestakesseemhighbecauseeducation importantbattlegroundsforshapingthesenarrativesof pastand isaimedatchildren. present. Analysis offered here ofcontemporary textbooks in Nationalismisamulti-dimensionalphenomenonexpressed inmanyforms,includingschoolcurricula. SteinTonnessonand HansAntlovsuccinctlydescribenationalismas"anideological . Thanks to Uradyn Bulag, Ellen Hanunond, PeterKatzenstein, Jeff movementfor attainingormaintaining anation-state," butour Kingston,CeceliaLynch,YaseminNuhogluSoysal,YukiTanaka,Mar- ilyn Young, and PeterZarrow for their thoughtful comments on an emphasis here is on two mutually constitutive frameworks in earlierdraftof thisessay. Thanks alsotoKosekiShoichiand Asanwna whichideologicalmovementsarenegotiated-theinternational Shigeruforhelpfuladvice. context and domestic social transformation. 3 Arguments over Vol. 30,No.2(1998) 3 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org school textbooks provide a useful window for comparative analysis of these processes of negotiation, institutionalization, and rene- gotiation of nationalist narratives. Two interrelated themes of nationalism that run through history textbooks everywhere are the focus of the articles gath- ered here. The first is the relationship between citizens and the state, often centering on reco gnition (or denial) ofethnic, linguis- tic, and religious differences. The second is foreign relations, especially the conduct ofone's own nation in war. Textbooks not only model behavior for citizens within their own society, they also chronicle relations with others. In the broadest sense, na- tional subjects are defmed collectively by distinguishing them- selves from others although the rituals marking national identity may consciously emulate ones invented elsewhere, such as the pomp surrounding British royalty or Chinese dynastic ritual. 4 The stories chosen or invented about the national past are also invariably prescriptive-instructing people how they ought to think and act as national subjects. This orientation toward the future means that the process of defming the collective voice of nations is never completed. Various narratives of the nation, including its origins and the paradigmatic events defining nationhood, like textbooks them- selves, are always unfinished projects, requiring revision and reinterpretation if they are to remain relevant in ever-changing times. Such reinterpretation is essential, inevitable, and often controversial. The Japanese experience particularly clearly illus- trates the fact that rapidly changing societies must repeatedly reassess practices (and textbook assessments of them) that only decades earlier raised few eyebrows. Textbooks have been cen- tral to contestation over the meaning of the Japanese nation for over fifty years and they remain crucial for understanding the larger debate. Although the primary audience for national narratives in general, and for textbooks in partiCUlar, is domestic, controversy over them sometimes spills over into the international arena. The connections are particularly sensitive when the subject is an explicitly international event such as war, or when it involves the treatment of racially, ethnically, or religiously distinctive social groups who live both within and beyond national borders. Like domestic conflicts, these international ones are fiercest when the future is at stake. Precisely because Japanese relations with minority peoples and neighboring nations are currently under negotiation, Asians have stepped up their attention to Japanese textbook treatments of the history of Japanese colonialism and war in Asia. Debates among Japanese over textbook narratives of the nation have been especially sharp in part because Japanese have disagreed so passionately among themselves about how to re- member the recent past. Immediately after World War II both Japanese and Americans defined textbooks as a central site of the battle over Japan's future political orientation; they have remained a powder keg ever since. 5 As Nozaki Yoshiko and Inokuchi Hiromitsu point out in this issue, historian Ienaga Saburo, who wrote part of the first postwar history text, has kept textbook nationalism and government control of textbooks on the public agenda for the last thirty-five years through a series of constitutional challenges to textbook censorship. Many other Japanese historians, social critics, and teachers have demanded that textbooks present a more democratic vision of the relation- ship of the citizen to the state and a more critical view of Japan's Historian Ienaga Saburo, who wrote part of the first postwar history text, has kept textbook nationalism and government control oftext- books on the public agenda for the last thirty-five years through a series of constitutional challenges to textbook censorship. (Professor Ienaga Saburo at the university in the 19608. Photo courtesy of Inokuchi Hi- romitsu and Nozaki Yoshiko.) past international conduct. Foreigners soon added their voices to the domestic debate. One reason for the unusual level of international scrutiny of Japanese texts is that the Occupation authorities made eradi- cation of nationalism in textbooks a key policy, thereby interna- tionalizing the issue and allowing Japanese critics of pre-surrender dogma to join the debate from the start. 6 International controversy also persists because Asian grievances have yet to be effectively addressed. Despite several public apologies by Japanese prime ministers in the 1990s, many Asians who suffered under Japa- nese colonial rule believe that Japan has neither satisfactorily apologized nor paid appropriate recompense for its wartime behavior. Thus, Asians have monitored Japanese textbook treat- ments of World War II at least since 1982 when press reports revealed that the government had ordered Ienaga Saburo and other authors to change the wording of their accounts of the war, most famously by altering the term "invasion" of China to "advance into" China. The Japanese Government, stung by the intensity of Asian official and popular criticism, has sought to implement damage control and regain lost diplomatic ground. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs treats textbook controversies as an important aspect of Japan's international relations. It staffs a large Tokyo office, which prepares dual-language versions of widely used Japanese textbooks, maintains a library of older textbooks, pro- vides curriculum materials about Japan in languages such as English, Chinese, Thai, and Malay, and fields questions from overseas teachers who wish to develop their own curricula about Japan. This is an unusual activity for diplomats; no other gov- ernment sustains a textbook center of comparable scale and scope. 7 Bulletin a/Concerned Asian Scholars 4 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org Indeed, textbook decisions in Japan are unique in having generated far more sustained international conflict than in any other case. The fiercest battles have concerned depictions of World War II. Other nations experience comparable internation- ally inflected fights over public policy and official commemora- tion, but often the most public and contested bouts have been waged over museum exhibits, war memorials, and other public art, rather than textbooks. In the United States, the 1995 Smithsonian Institution's Enola Gay exhibit, commemorating the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the end of World War II, produced far more international controversy thanhas any American textbook issue. Yet American textbook authors and historians disagree vehemently among themselves on many issues such as the Viet- nam War, the decision to drop the atomic bombs, and depictions of race and gender relations and religion. 8 Similarly, public monuments to the Holocaust in Poland, Germany, and Austria have been far more bitterly contested, both locally and interna- tionally, than have textbook descriptions of that event in those countries. 9 Local institutions affect the site of controversy, too. The intensity of Japanese textbook controversies is rooted in part in the fact that the government has directly supervised and censored textbooks since the late nineteenth century, creating a public perception that textbooks are authoritative statements ofnational policy and ideology. In the United States, where state review boards determine adoptions in some states, and local school boards, principals, or individual teachers choose books in others, textbooks do not have the same close association with national authority as in countries in which national agencies authorize texts (as inJapan and Gennany) orin which govemmentofficialsactually write them (as in China, Taiwan, and the Republic ofKorea). 10 We explore the effects of two kinds of change in the next two sections and then end bynoting the increasing interconnec- tions between foreign and domestic pressures. The first isglobal realignments marlcing the end ofthe cold war. The new pressures on cold-war-era nationalist narratives in Japan are similar to those experienced elsewhere, especially in Gennany. Battles over historical memory became international news so often in the 1990s because internal and international relationships have changed so rapidly, requiring reassessments of the idealized nation and its boundaries nearly everywhere. Indeed, even the lack ofovert international conflict in some places may well mean a problem deferred rather than resolved, as we suggest regarding both American and Chinese textbooks. The second is domestic social change, particularly evident in the rising aspirations of women and ethnic minorities. Social movements demanding equality, compensatory benefits, and an end to discriminatory practices have transfonned nationalist narratives over the last frlly years in many parts of the globe. We use the debate on Japan's wartime impressment of "comfort women" to spotlight changing concepts of citizenship but, in all places, whenever any group wins a larger measure ofcivic rights or even themost basic recognition as human beings, accepted notions ofthecitizenand/ornational subject areforced to change. As Nozaki andInokuchi remind us, contestationisa crucial process of democ- racyitself. In Japan, publicly acknowledging the human dignity of the ex-comfort women constituted tacit criticism of wartime leaders who saw nothing wrong with enslaving them. This acknowledgement, in turn, forced reevaluation of the wartime national narrative. Nevertheless, refusal by some to recognize Vol. 30, No.2 (1998) the humanity of these women and so the legitimacy of their claims on the Japanese state risks a more visceral rejection ofthe official narrative-and thus of Japanese authority today. This is because the need for comfort women to sacrifice so much no longer makes intuitive sense to younger generations ofJapanese, particularly women. Furthermore, the insistence by fonner com- fort women that they have been stigmatized for having engaged in sexual relations (as well as having been forced into them) constitutes a fundamental critique of the Confucian gender hierar- chy, which many younger Japanese women have already ques- tioned and rejected. In important ways, then, the standard vision of Japanese nationalism of the early 1940s has lost authority. Coming to terms with that huge social transfonnation is the heart of the current controversy. After the Cold War: Nationalism, Regionalism, and War Memories Inthe 1990s The end of the cold war and its bi-polar logic of global organization has focused widespread attention on historical mem- oryin the 1990s. The collapse of the cold war system opened up possibilities for new political, economic, and security alignments at the regional level in both Europe and Asia. The reunification of Germany, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the uncon- tested handover of Hong Kong to China all exemplify the shifts that marked the end ofthe cold war system and that now require a reconceptualization ofpast and present. Those realignments led people everywhere to adapt national narratives to the new ar- rangements-or at least to grapple with the implications of competing versions. The 1990s witnessed regional economic and political rein- tegration across old cold war lines in both Europe and Asia. The new regional configurations had important consequences. Small nations and semi-sovereign states were able to command greater international attention and exercise greater leverage than was possible during the era of the two superpowers. Places once on the frontlines ofthe cold war could now afford to act with greater autonomy. This held true for clients ofthe United States, such as Taiwan and South Korea, and for those of the Soviet Union, notably Eastern Europe and Vietnam. 1I The waning of the cold war also created opportunities for domestic critics of authoritar- ian regimes in many places, including Taiwan and South Korea, to demand political concessions and more democratic practices. By laying bare or even dismantling arrangements that had been in place since the late 1940s, the collapse of cold war structures and ideology also turned world attention to earlier patterns. Suddenly old conflicts and antagonisms born of colo- nialism and war-suppressed but not forgotten-took on new urgency. This was particularly pertinent for the fonner Axis powers, which brought to international negotiations both the long-neglected baggage they had accumulated during World War II and that of the cold war. As Germany and Japan moved out from under decades of political subordination to the United States (or, in the case ofEast Germany, to the Soviet Union), they lost the protection they had enjoyed from accepting full responsibility for their wartime acts. Grievances once swept under the rug by expensive American brooms in the name of anti-communist unity were exposed to public view. The ebbing of cold war tensions and the expansion of international economic and cultural contacts meant that countries 5 ( BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org once on the other side of the barricades, notably the People's Japan is not alone in this predicament. Particularly since the Republic of China, could exert greater pressure on Japan to collapse ofthe Soviet Union, other Axis powers have been forced reflect on its wartime behavior. This new bargaining power may to reflect on and apologize for their wartime behavior. Japan, grow far stronger in the future. To date, competition for international Austria, and Germany have had to confront their wartime rela- recognition between the People's Republic ofChina (PRC) and the tions with other nations as a precondition for negotiating a Republic of China (Taiwan), and between North and South common future. (By 1997, Germany had provided $58 billion in Korea, still shields Japan from Chinese and Korean demands for reparations to wartime victims.) Officials of these nations have compensation as each claimant to the mantle of the divided struggled over how far to go: at times leaning toward forthright nation bids for Japanese investment, loans, aid, and trade. Should apology and substantial compensation to the victims of wartime the PRC and Taiwan reach a political accommodation to match atrocities, and at others, approaching victims with begrudging their rapidly expanding economic and cultural interchange, they apologies, evasion of official responsibility, and minimal com- could well muster the joint power to extract reparations from pensation. 13 Japan for the fifteen-year invasion that took tens of millions of Indeed, honest assessments of the war years have crossed Chinese lives. The same logic could apply on a smaller scale to old battle lines. Victors and neutral parties have also had to a unified Korea. re-examine their official narratives and conduct. Most of the In short, during the 1990s, Asians gained new leverage to participants have moved away from their own wartime classifi- insist on a recognition oftheir perspectives in Japanese historical cation of some of their own citizens as unworthy of legal protec- narratives. That leverage extends beyond official government tion. In 1997, France, Switzerland, the French Catholic Church, efforts. Victims of Japanese atrocities told their painful stories and the Red Cross all apologized for their complicity in the mass publicly to sympathetic compatriots and to national and interna- killing of Europe's Jews, after historians and journalists publi- tional media. Women's movements and champions of minority cized information on their wartime stances. Vocal critics de- rights, often working with Japanese and international women's manded a narrative that acknowledged ubiquitous European organizations, took up their causes. Meanwhile, NGOs and in- anti-Semitism in order to pave the way for a less bigoted common ternational organizations, including the United Nations Com- European future. 14 mission on Human Rights, conducted their own investigations Similar shifts in official stories of patriotism and power and helped individuals prepare legal and diplomatic cases for during World War II occurred in North America. A few years apology and restitution. 12 And, as Kimijima Kazuhiko suggests earlier, the federal governments of the United States and Canada in his report (in this issue) on Japanese and South Korean both apologized and began compensating Americans and Cana- educators' discussions of Japan's colonial past, future interna- dians of Japanese ancestry, who were deprived of their land and tional integration is likely to require that Japanese not only accept liberty during World War II. These policy decisions were the demands for apology and compensation, but also revision oftheir result of successful political campaigns by Japanese-Americans nation's imperial past. and Japanese-Canadians that had already contributed to a sea change in public opinion regarding race, citizen- ship, and national honor in both countries. In contrast to the Axis powers, however, the Allied nations have not faced comparable pressures to re-examine their overseas actions during World War II, although international criticism of the atomic destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is Rewriting textbooks means the strongest counter-example. 15 changing the defmition of the Germans have fought over memories of the good Gennan citizen and hislher war as bitterly as have Japanese, but they have relation to the state as well as to moved further toward creating a new vision of the European community. Ger- their future and thus a coherently revised story of many's new place in a united their past. Once it committed to a post-cold war Europe is not defmitively re- international strategy of regional integration in solved, but more of the institu- tional and narrative elements of the European Union, Germany would adopt anew accommodation are in place internationalist narrative appropriate to that strat- there than they are in Japan and egy, one that appears in government statements in the Asia-Pacific region. As Pe- as well as in textbooks. As Yasemin Soy sal shows ter Katzenstein puts it, 'The Ger- here, Germans have created a postwar narrative manization of Europe is ofa nation without enemies. They have done this, indissolubly linked to the not by concealing the history of Nazism and the Europeanization of Gennany." Second World War, but by accepting the need to Ibis is one important reason publicize and critically assess that history both why political integration has de- domestically and internationally, in orderto make veloped so much more in the European Union than in Asia. a clean break with the Nazi legacy. One official (European Unity tree. Source: Soysal interviewed made the links between those Geschicte. vol. 4 [Munich: Bayeris- two changes very clear: "You cannot preach a cher Schulbuchverlag, 1986]. p. 202.) European Union and at the same time continue to Bulletin o/Concerned Asian Scholars 6 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org produce textbooks with all the national prejudices of the nine- teenth century." Rewriting textbooks means changing the defi- nition of the good German citizen and histher relation to the state as well as to the European community. Germany's new place in a united Europe is not definitively resolved, but more of the institutional and narrative elements of accommodation are in place there than they are in the Asia-Pacific region. As Peter Katzenstein puts it, "The Germanization of Europe is indissol- ubly linked to the Europeanization of Germany.,,16 German leaders have adopted a "tamed" national identity that celebrates both regional diversity within Germany and inte- gration within the European union. This new narrative, while still contested, is being institutionalized in various ways. In the realm of textbooks, German officials participate in a cross-national discussion process sponsored by UNESCO and other interna- tional organizations to develop common European Union text- books. German texts now shazply downplay nationalist in favor of internationalist themes. This practice, which creates a shared regional narrative on such contentious issues as the two world wars, Nazism, and colonialism, has helped diminish the antago- nisms of Europeans toward Germans and create a foundation for the European Union. 17 Japanese leaders have had far more difficulty settling on a post-cold war vision of Japan's place in the world. There are no easy solutions, and all the possible ones require both adjusting to demands made by foreigners and directly confronting Japa- nese actions in World War II. Unlike in Germany there is no consensus in favor of regional intetrations in Japan. Frustration with those requirements helps explain much of the intensity of the Japanese debate, not just over imagining the future but also on remembering the past. The old cold war system established in the 1950s channelled nearly all Asian political, economic, and strategic relations through bilateral relationships with the United States. American aid and trade systems served as a hub through which most Asian nations interacted with each other-or were forbidden to do so. For Japan, the central aspect ofthat sy stem was subordination to U. S. policy and power as a strategic foundation for economic growth. In the first decades of the cold war era, the United States was by far the most important Asian economic power. In the last two decades, however, economic growth and intra-regional eco- nomic links in East and Southeast Asia have shifted that power balance. Trade, investment, finance, and technology transfers within the Asian region have transformed East Asia from a minor outpost of the world economy, with 4 percent of world GNP in 1960, to a region comparable in importance to Europe and North America, each with 30 percent of world GNP. Asia, moreover, has grown far more rapidly than other regions. 18 The magnitude of that change alone means that the United States, although still important, is no longer the epicenter of Asian economic power. Despite a deeply felt sense in Japan that the cold war enforced a humiliating subordination to the United States long after the occupation ended, the passing of that era has hardly satisfied nationalist yearnings for a leading Japanese role in international affairs. Many Japanese expressed shock during the Persian Gulf War when Americans derided Japan's enormous $13 billion contribution to the U.S.-led effort against Iraq be- cause Japan (whose constitution prohibits war making) did not also send soldiers. The leading figure in the textbook contro- versy, Fujioka Nobukatsu, has said that this humiliating experi- ence transformed his worldview and political orientation. He has tapped into a sense shared by many Japanese that they were cheated by history: for all the great changes in international relations over the last hundred years, the one constant Fujioka and many other Japanese see is widespread mistrust of Japan. 19 Some Japanese have explored Asian regionalism and an appropriate companion narrative defining Japan's place in Asia to the U.S. alliance. In many ways, Asian regionalism, whether established along the lines of the European Union or as a looser organization, would address Japanese dissatisfaction with the cold war system. Other Asians have called for stronger regional integration as well. The requests by Malaysia's Mahathir Mo- hamad and Singapore's Lee Kwan Yew for a commitment to "Asian values" and for an East Asian Economic Caucus to serve as a unified Asian regional voice, independent of the United States, are important examples. Any such move to regionalism would also require Japanese re-evaluation of their behavior in Asia during World War II. Indeed, the Japanese have made some public gestures compara- ble to the German ones. The 1 990s witnessed an unprecedented level of openness in Japanese discussion of the war, including wide press coverage of such Asian grievances as the comfort women, the Nanjing massacre, and the grisly experiments of biowar Unit 731. In the years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and particularly after the December 1989 death of the Showa Em- peror, Japanese produced huge amounts of testimony, books, documentary films, and archival research on previously sup- pressed or ignored aspects of the war. 20 Politicians too began rethinking the lessons of the war when in 1993 the conservative Liberal Democratic Party lost the exclusive control of the gov- ernment it had held since the early postwar years. Previously, conservative politicians, who built their careers on accepting Japanese subordination within the U.S. alliance, had derided concern for Asian anger at the past as the preserve of socialist dreamers. Yet, these efforts have been checkmated by countervailing ones. Beginning in 1993 government leaders took significant steps toward apology and restitution to some wartime victims, but they also hedged and prevaricated. They explicitly rejected the UNESCO model of government-to-government negotiation over textbook content used by Germany and Poland, for exam- ple. Moreover, Japanese compensation to victims of its wartime rule was, through 1997, only a tiny fraction of that provided by Germany to its victims. Few Japanese politicians have been willing to stake out clear new positions on the Pacific War and colonialism for fear of losing the most passionately nationalist segments of their constituency. Dissension among Japanese thus translated into political stalemate. Asian regionalism poses huge contemporary problems for Japan as well. In contrast to Europe, integration has not meant institutional unification, security alliance, orpolitical union. This is in part the continuing legacy of the cold war in Asia, most clearly symbolized by the divisions into two Chinas and two Koreas. But other factors are equally decisive. Social as well as geographic distances are far greater in Asia than in Europe. Europeans can travel freely and work anywhere in the Union, they can entrust governance issues to a European Parliament, and plans are moving quickly toward a common currency. That level of institutional cooperation is not even on the horizon for Asia despite eased cold war tensions and substantial economic integration. VoL 30, No.2 (1998) 7 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org Despite economic growth throughout East and Southeast Asia, economic inequality is still enonnous within the region. Japan enjoys two-thirds of Asia's GNP and the distance between rich and poor nations is vastly greater in Asia than in Europe. That disparity is a powerlul disincentive to regional integration. Japanese and other prosperous Asians are uneasy at the prospect that Chinese or Vietnamese workers-with incomes less than one-tenth their own-could move freely through the region. The decision to preserve barriers to the flow of labor after Hong Kong reverted to China in 1997 is indicative of the divisions that continue to undergird the emerging Asian regional economy. Japan would have to share leadership ofan integrated Asian region with China. Neither the Japanese nor the Chinese govern- ments have been willing to make this commitment. German government and business leaders support European integration partly because they expect to dominate within it. Neither Japa- nese nor Chinese can anticipate wielding comparable political leadership in Asia and each fears domination by the other. Economically, too, Japanese- and Chinese-centered business networks have competed to build and connect the Asian econo- mies. Mutual suspicion between Japan and China helps explain why Asian regionalism has not emerged, despite much talk about it. Instead, Japanese are still working within a modified ver- sion of the old u.S.-centered Pacific alliance, despite its dimin- ished value to them. The 1997 U.S.-Japan security agreement reaffinned the cold war alliance by extending the scope of joint military exercises, targeting China as the most dangerous enemy, and thus undercutting possibilities for regional alliance in Asia. The United States continues to be a major market, investor, and economic arbiter for Asia, as demonstrated in the collapse of the South Korean, Indonesian, and Thai currencies in December 1997. Nonetheless, in the newer Pacific alliance, the United States can no longer fully protect Japan from Asian criticism nor do Japanese value that protection as much as they once did. Many Japanese are uncomfortably aware of the need for both a new strategy and anew narrative of their international future, but they are uncertain as to what fonn these should take. 21 The United States and China, in sharp contrast to Gennany and Japan, have never revisited their triwnphal official narratives of World War II. National narratives in both countries, as ex- pressed in textbooks and official statements, reiterate official assessments at the moment of victory: the Second World War for both nations remains a moment of triumphal national unity in a just cause. Moreover, neither Americans nor Chinese have had to confront international challenges to their celebratory national narratives. Nor has either articulated a clear vision of an interna- tional strategy in the 1990s to replace the bipolar divisions of the cold war. Chinese and Americans have modified their victory stories to recognize the contributions of domestic groups omitted from earlier heroic narratives. In the United States this involved not only representing the efforts of African-Americans and Japa- nese-Americans, but also apologizing for their treatment as second-class citizens during the war. Those changes responded to demands for inclusion by domestic critics and, as Frances FitzGerald and others have documented, one of the major sites of those battles over American citizenship was textbook con- tent. 22 In China, the revisions have been less dramatic, but have resulted in a re-evaluation of the roles of both the Guomindang and minority nationalities in the resistance. Chinese commitment to their story of anti -Japanese resis- tance as the founding impulse of the new nation has implications for the regional future as does Japanese recalcitrance on the war. Chinese officials continue to portray Japanese as monolithically unrepentant about the war, appropriately taking note ofultra-na- tionalist pronouncements but ignoring the sharp debate over war responsibility and war crimes that has been taking place in Japan. PRC leaders have a strong stake in their vision of an ultranation- alist and unrepentant Japan; it allows them to reenact-in text- books and elsewhere-the great victory that originally legiti- mized their rule. 23 They must imagine a shared future with Japan before they will be willing to recognize the possibility of Japa- nese repentance-a transfonnation not yet at hand. Because textbooks define and disseminate national narra- tives, controversies over their content signal the existence and The 1990s witnessed an unprecedented level of openness in Japanese discussion ofthe war, including wide press coverage of such Asian grievances as the comfort women, the Nanjing massacre, and the grisly experiments of biowar Unit 731. (Headquarters ofUnit 731. Source: Truth in Textbooks. Freedom In EducatIOn and Peace for Children: The Struggle against Censorship ofSchool Textbooks in Japan [To- kyo: National League for Support of the School Textbook Screening Suit, 1995], p. 2). Bulletin o/Concerned Asian Scholars 8 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org thenatureofcontemporaryassumptionsaboutinternationalre- alignment. They presentvariouscompetingmodelsfornation- hoodinnewly imaginedcommunities,beitaunifiedGennany subordinatedtoEurope,theUnitedStatesastheWorld'sPolice- man,Chinainequallyrighteousisolation,orJapanincontinued juniorpartnershiptoAmerica,orleaderoftheAsianregion,or, perhaps,partofamutuallyrespectfulAsia-Pacific. CitizenshipandHistory In JapaneseTextbookControvenies In 1997 two ofJapan's top ten bestsellers were Fujioka Nobukatsu's edited books, Japanese History Not Taught in School Texts, volumes 1and2. Chargingthatcurrenttextbooks demean the nation, Fujioka and his colleagues demand more positiveviewsofJapanesehistoryandsociety,particularlywith respect to treatments ofWorld War II. In July 1996, Fujioka organized a small group ofpublic figures and intellectuals, notably Nishio Kanji, a specialist on Gennany and author of books onNietzsche, Gennaneducation, andthe guest worker policy, and Hata Ikuhiko, a prominent military historian of modernJapan,intheJiyushugi shikan kenkyukai (LiberalView ofHistoryGroup).Thegroupaimedtoeliminatefromtextbooks allcriticismofofficialJapanesepolicyandactions. Sixmonths later,respondingtocriticismsthattheirmovementwasentirely negative,theyorganizedtheAtarashii rekishi kyokasho 0 tsukuru kai towritetheirowntextbook.Althoughaliteraltranslationof thiswouldbeCommitteeto WriteNewHistoryTextbooks,the official English name is the Japanese Institute for Orthodox HistoryEducation,(hereafterOrthodoxHistoryGroUp).24 Themovementmay beunderstoodasadefensivereaction to several actions: apologies in the 1990s by several prime ministers for Japan's war crimes and atrocities; government attempts to establish a "private" fund to compensate former comfort women; and official approval ofbriefmention ofthe comfortwomeninjuniorhighschooltexts.Moregenerally,itis arejectionofthemassivesocialdistanceJapanhastravelledover thelastfiftyyears,particularly inattitudestowardthedutiesof national subjects and women's seXUality. Those changes were dramatizedforall Japaneseby thereflectionsonrecenthistory promptedby the deathofthe ShowaEmperorin 1989 andthe fifty-yearcommemorationsofWorldWarII in 1990-1995. The OrthodoxHistory Groupbitterly rejected any needforofficial acknowledgment ofJapanese wartime atrocities, let alone for apology or reparations. Distinctive features ofthe campaign include intense expressions ofresentment about Japan's low prestigeintheworld,insistencethatanyexpressionofalienation from thestateby Japanese is asignofpsychologicalsickness, and afocusontextbooks as acriticalbattlegroundforcreating the new Japan. Fujioka baldly states that educational goals shouldbedefmedby theneedsof thestateandthatif"Japanese arenotproudoftheirowncountry,theywillnotberespectedin theworld."2.5 ThecontentoftheOrthodoxHistoryGroup'scriticismof textbooksishardlynew. Themostwidelyreadof theirworksare Fujioka'sthree editedvolumescomposedofshortarticlesfJrst serializedinthebusinessdailySankei Shinbun andthenpublish- edby Sankei Press. These coversuch topics as (1) nineteenth centuryheros,Meijipolitics,andstateformation;(2)thecomfort womenandwartime"incidents"suchastheNanjingmassacre; (3)thepostwarConstitution,theAlliedOccupation,Japan-U.S. Vol. 30,No.2(1998) DESCRIPTIONOFUNIT731 An example oftextbook-screening concerning Unit 731: Descriptionin thetextbookmanuscript Aunit specializing inbacteriologicalwarfare calledthe 731st UnitwasstationedontheoutskirtsofHarbin[China] andWltil the Soviet Union entered the war, this unit engaged in such atrociousactsasmurderingseveralthousandChineseandother non-Japaneseby usingtheminbiologicalexperiments. Screeningexaminer'scomment(suggestedrevision) Deleteentirepassage.Nocrediblescholarlyresearchexistscon- cerningUnit731.It is still premature,therefore,to takeupthis matterinaschooltextbook. ProfessorlenagaSaburo'sassertion ThehistoricalfactsconcerningUnit731 havebeen collaborated byinnumerablerecordsand docwnents.Bydemandingthedele- tion ofthis passage the government is 1Iying to conceal, in academicstudies,thetruthaboutcriminal activities. Oukomeofthescreening Thetextbookwasapprovedafter allreferencesto Unit731 were deleted Source: Truth in Textbooks, Freedom in Education andPeace for Chil- dren: The Struggle against Censorship of School Textbooks in Japan (Tokyo: NationalLeaguefor SupportoftheSchoolTextbookScreening Suit, 1995),p. 13. relations and the Tokyo War Crimes Trials; and (4) postwar economicgrowth.Inshort,theyrecapitulatethegreatscholarly- political debates ofthe last fifty years: was there something fundamentally wrong with the Meiji-era state-formation that explainsthedisasterofWorldWarII?didtheJapanesemilitary behaveabominablyinAsiaduringthewarand, ifso,why?was postwarreconstruction and democratization the creature ofan alienneo-colonialUnitedStates?andwhatarethelargerimpli- cations ofpostwarhigh-speed economic growth? The articles presenttheMeijileadersasheros,findnothingreprehensiblein Japan's wartime behavior, hold that Japan has been unfairly singledoutforcriticism,andfeel thattheOccupationmeddled withtoomany elementsofJapanesesociety,leadingtomostof the problems Japan faces today. They reiterate, in short, the oft-repeatedlitany ofJapaneserightwingnationalism. Yetthey have succeeded in attracting public attention to theirmessage boththroughitscontent,as GavanMcCormackargues, andits fonn,asAaronGerowsuggests. TheOrthodoxHistoryGroupattemptstocontrolthedebate by defmingitasonewithonly twopointsofview: the"Tokyo Trialsviewof history,"whichblamesJapanforallaspectsof the Pacific War and glorifies the victor, and a"Japaneseperspec- tive,"whichtakesprideinthenationandtheJapanesestate.The membersrejectthepossibilitythatany Japanesecouldadoptan alternativeperspective,forexample,onebasedonhumanistor internationalistprinciples. SuchperspectivesonthewartimeJapa- nesestatearelikelytobedamning,asFujiokatacitlyacknowledges, when he argues that incorporating information about wartime 9 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org Japanese atrocities in textbooks will "destroy a ~ a n as a state for the twenty-first century. This is the real battle." 6 The intensity of emotion, the blurring of the difference between the psychological and the sociological, and the frenzied style of debate represented by Fujioka in particular are all new. Fujioka rejects the prevailing codes of academic discussion in Japan. He has an extremely aggressive debating style (and a very loud voice) and revels in the use of passionate, inflammatory language, exemplified in his critique of"Japan-hating Japanese," whose views of their own history amount to "masochism" and "mind-control." Fujioka dismisses Japanese criticism ofwartime policy and praxis as "self-flagellation" (jigyaku), that is, not just psychological sickness but also treason.27 Fujioka and the others in the group seem to deliberately rej ect traditional standards of argument (verifiable documentation, logical consistency, moral coherence, etc.) because they know perfectly well they cannot win ifthey accept those as the standards on which their ideas will be judged. This approach is highly unusual in Japanese academe, where a logical argument, calm demeanor, and well-developed codes of civility are prized above dramatic presentation. Many academics, such as historian Nakamura Masanori, fmd Fujioka's emotionalism not only vulgar and distasteful but potentially dangerous. His assessment cuts directly to the heart ofthe subj ect they debate-if, as Nakamura and many others believe, Japan threw itself into World War II by following an aggressive and emotional logic, unsupported by rational calculation ofrisk, Fujioka's appeals to passion can only replicate the same tragic pattern. 28 The Orthodox History Group is innovative in its use of popular media and its appreciation of the power of spectacle to distract people from the content of the discussion, as Aaron Gerow observes. Drawing on an analysis of film and literary forms, particularly the melodrama, Gerow examines the packag- ing of Japanese history by the Orthodox History Group as a means of attracting a wide audience. Fujioka's most dangerous move (entirely intended) is then to turn the debate into a spectacle in which emotion rather than verifiability and reason rule. At one level, this invokes contemporary postmodem theories that knowl- edge is always situated and SUbjective. At the same time, it echoes the "thinking" of the ultranationalist assassins of the 1930s. The real threat posed by the Orthodox History Group is that it may succeed in legitimizing this kind of frenzied, emotional attack and intimidate those who would question ultra-nationalist ortho- doxy. Members of the g roup are unlikely to prevail on the specific points they debate since more careful scholars will inevitably disprove most oftheir assertions (indeed, already have done so). Yet if mastery of spectacle is to be the battlefield, the careful fact-based rebuttals prepared by scholars such as Nakamura and Kimijima are unlikely to speak to the emotions whipped up by the over-the-top rhetoric of Fujioka, Nishio, and their colleagues. Thoughtful analysis ofthe issue that the Orthodox History Group singles out for attention-the military comfort women- hows that this rejection of reasoned debate is essential to their refusal to consider any criticism of official Japanese treatment of individuals. The Group reserves special venom for textbook acknowledgment of the system of institutionalized rape and military sexual slave labor established during the Asia-Pacific War and euphemistically called the "comfort woman" system. Until the 1990s, there was official silence on this subject. Since the first few elderly Korean and Filipina women bravely came forward in 1991 and 1992 to testify about their personal experi- ences as slaves, the Japanese government has been forced, little- by-little, to acknowledge that the wartime government was the chief architect of their misery. 29 In 1996 the government permitted textbook writers to add one or two bland sentences noting the existence of the military comfort women to middle-school social studies textbooks. One text reads: "Many young Korean women and others were sent to the frontlines as 'comfort women.'" Another states that "there were also some women from Korea and Taiwan and other places who were made to work in battlefront comfort facilities."30 Critics sympathetic to the comfort women have censured these descriptions as inadequate for their failure to discuss, still less condemn, the system. But the Orthodox History Group decried even these modest mentions of the comfort women as a danger- ous precedent likely to weaken Japan morally and politically. The Orthodox History Group asserts, in the face of abundant contra- dictory evidence, the original Japanese government position that the comfort women were ordinary licensed prostitutes who were paid for their services and that their conditions ofwork were not so different from those encountered by Japanese prostitutes at home. Thus, although controversies over textbook depictions of Japanese wartime atrocities have erupted many times before, the current flashpoint is new. We argue that the Orthodox History Group is right to treat discussion of the military comfon: women as a crucial issue in defining Japanese nationalism and citizenship. This sordid story, more than most, is central to current textbook controversies because the treatment of these women, if actually discussed in classrooms or in society, forces citizens of all ages to reexamine their own relationship to the state, gender relations among citi- zens, and relations between Japan and Asia. It falsifies precisely the assumptions that the Orthodox History Group strives to protect: the identity of interests between Japanese citizens and the state (both in the 1 940s and since) and the claim that there is nothing to criticize in wartime Japan's treatment of others. Care- ful attention to stories of the comfort women undermines the celebratory narrative oftwentieth-century Japan in important ways. The misery of the military comfort women was ignored at the Tokyo War Crimes Trials. Later, in a revealing exception, Japanese who had been stationed in the Netherlands East Indies were charged in B and C Class tribunals with interning Dutch women in "comfort stations," but not for impressing the many Javanese and Sumatran women who labored there as well. Rather than exemplifying "victor's justice," the experience of the com- fort women suggests that the War Crimes Trials may have been insuffiCiently harsh in their treatment of some Japanese crimes. Far from preventing Japan from taking its rightful place at the head of the Asian table, the "Tokyo Trials view of history" has not only protected Japan from facing these long-standing Asian grievances but has also implicated Japan in a global racial hierarchy that considered the suffering of dark-skinned people less important than that of light-skinned ones. 31 The legacy of their wartime rampage still colors Japanese relations with all ofAsia, but the story ofthe comfort women has particular resonance in Korea Korean women may have ac- counted for as much as 80 percent: of the estimated one hundred to two hundred thousand wartime comfort women. Their legal status as colonial subjects of Japan, and (until 1952) as Japanese citizens rather than enemy nationals, is one reason why this fact Bull/!M ofConcemed Aaian Scholars 10 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org is such an emotionally charged issue for Koreans. Japanese military planners saw Koreans as ideal candidates for sexual slavery precisely because they thought of them as both half-as- similated and racially inferior. They assumed that unmarried Korean women would be free of venereal disease because of the Confucian emphasis on female chastity. Since the Japanese colonial masters had forced Korean schools to teach only in the Japanese language, they knew that most Korean women would be able to understand orders given in Japanese. Japanese leaders thought that, as colonial subjects, Koreans owed allegiance to the emperor and also that, unlike foreigners, harsh treatment of them was not covered by international law. Koreans clearly ranked below Japanese in the comfort women hierarchy; Japanese women were reserved for officers. 32 The story of the comfort women thus raises the issue of Japanese racism toward other Asians, with clear implications for Asians resident in Japan today, including Okinawans, Ainu, Burakumin, Koreans, and Chinese. All these groups have endured a long history offorced assimilation into Japanese society (although in interestingly different ways) accompanied by racist differentia- tion. Ethnic solidarity movements have emerged among all these groups, and they are likely to draw comparisons between Japa- nese discriminatory attitudes toward the comfort women and toward themselves. 33 Reflection on the experience of the comfort women also calls attention to the fact that hundreds of thousands of Japanese soldiers participated in their torment. Unlike some other recently publicized stories, such as those of the secret Unit 731 which conducted "medical" experiments on human victims, or the Nanjing massacre, which involved one particular Army unit, the entire military was implicated in the exploitation of the comfort women. Most attention has focused on the issue of recruitment, particularly on whether women and young girls had agreed to be prostitutes or were kidnapped or deceived. But the military's strategies for keeping the comfort women at their posts is at least as revealing as are the recruitment practices, which varied. Women who tried to escape were brutally punished, often tor- tured, and sometimes murdered. Nor does the assertion hold that all armies acted with equal violence toward women. The Allied forces also encouraged and regulated prostitution on a large scale, but they did not system- atically enslave women for this purpose. Chinese Communist forces during the anti -Japanese resistance not only did not en- courage or support prostitution, but acted vigorously to curb it. Guomindang forces also seem not to have established systems of military prostitution, perhaps because the private sector in the areas under their control provided sufficient services. The Japa- nese military was not alone in organizing and maintaining pros- titution in order to keep the morale of soldiers up and the incidence of venereal disease down, but the Japanese govern- ment stood out for its systematic brutality. The military comfort woman system was part of the larger story of quotidian abuse of Asians by the Japanese military and, as such, it was widely accepted by the Japanese population in general and by millions of men in uniform who took advantage of the women's services.34 Finally, the comfort women's story undermines the nation- alist claim that the interests of the state are identical with those of its citizens, especially Japan's female citizens. The Orthodox History Group argues, in startlingly contemptuous language, the now-abandoned Japanese government position that the comfort Vol. 30, No.2 (1998) women were ordinary prostitutes who were paid for their serv- ices like prostitutes serving other armies. The Group insists further that the conditions of work for the comfort women, albeit primitive, closely resembled legal prostitution at home. The problem for proponents ofthis view is that the last point contains important elements of truth. Prewar Japanese women were fre- quently sold into sexual servitude by their impoverished fami- lies-and those transactions were enforced by state power. Their working conditions were frequently based on coercion, debt-pe- onage, wretched physical circumstances, and the general social and legal assumption that sexual servitude is both a natural and an appropriate service that women owe men. Like the comfort women, many endured lifelong stigmatization because of this labor. War and racism meant that Asian comfort women endured even more onerous conditions than Japanese prostitutes, but the commonality of their experience is hard to ignore-and has been highlighted by Japanese feminists. Careful attention to the comfort women thus undercuts ultra-nationalist assertions about the national subject, the state, and the proper relationship between them. When the Japanese government allowed mention of the comfort women in text- books, even though limited to just two short lines, it undermined the heroic narrative of the war and potentially institutionalized a dissenting voice. Japanese textbooks, as is true in most countries, are written in a single, omniscient voice. Breaks in that voice are few and far between; they usually reflect deep social and political divisions when they appear. In this case, the very mention of the comfort women leads the reader to consider two separate dual perspectives: Japanese vs. colonial subject and (male) soldiervs. comfort woman. It reminds Japanese that their national borders not long ago included Koreans, Taiwanese, and other colonized people who were treated as racially inferior, and that many residents of those regions remain angry half a century after the end of colonial rule. It also reminds readers that some wartime atrocities were committed by ordinary Japanese and cannot be blamed on a few long-dead generals, prime ministers, or an emperor. The comfort woman saga evokes the rigid gender hierarchy and sexual double standard of pre-surrender Japan in which women's happiness and health were routinely sacrificed for men. Thus, both as colonial subjects and as women, the appearance ofcomfort women in Japanese textbooks disrupts the dominant narrative ofone hundred million hearts beating as one. This is why nationalists who want Japanese to unquestion- ingly identify their own interests with those of the state are so upset by this brief mention of comfort women in school texts. Nonetheless, the bland references to comfort women or to the Nanjing massacre in school texts will not alter the celebratory narrative of the national patrimony unless they are actively discussed in schools and society. Teaching the contested past is no easy task even for teachers who have worked out their own stance toward it, as Kimijima thoughtfully explains in his article below. International Citizenship in the Global Village Mention of the comfort women in officially sanctioned textbooks represents a breakthrough in another way as well. That breakthrough came about as a direct response to foreign as well as domestic critics of Japan's war. It not only implies official recognition that the charges of Japanese atrocities are true, but also implicitly institutionalizes a dialogue with the Asian region. 11 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org Moreover, thedialogueoverthecomfortwomenisasmuchor morewith groupsadvocatingcontemporary women's andfor- eignworkers'rightsasitiswithAsiangovernments,sincesocial activistsdenouncedbothwartimeandpostwarcoerciveprosti- tutionofAsianwomenfarearlierandmorepowerfullythandid government officials. 35 Norma Field points out that dialogue constitutesoneofthetwocomponentsofasuccessfulapology, alongwithactsconvincingly demonstratingremorse. An apol- ogyassumesavisionof acommunitybeyondthatdefinedbythe nationandatleastanimplicitpledgetoworktowardthatvision. "Apologiesaremadeto thevictimsofpastwrongdoingbut/or thesharedpresentofvictimsandapologizers,"Fieldwrites,"and mostofall,forthesakeofacommonfuture.,,36 Thisvisionofasharedfutureis,ofcourse,preciselywhat theOrthodoxHistory Grouprejectswhenitsproponents argue that textbooks are for domestic consumption only, that each nationhasandmusthaveitsowndistinctive,evenbiased,views, andthatJapaneseoughtnotheedwhatothersthink.Atstakeis whethertheJapanesestateshouldseemproperlyimperviousor properlysensitivetoforeigncriticism. JapanesewhowishonlytocelebrateJapanesenationalism haveresortedtoaworldviewthattakesasitsthemeopposition toarrogantWestern(neo)imperialism.Inthatcontext,national- ist defiance both speaksto a widespread sense ofresentment within Japan and has a certain contemporary logic, based on Japan'sfiftyyearsofsubordinationtotheUnitedStates. Onthe otherhand, nationalists do notwant to encourage nationalism elsewhereinAsiaorto lookclosely at thehistory ofJapanese imperialism. Thestrategy, mostrecently articulatedby theOr- thodoxHistory Group,has beento rely onavisionofJapan's tiestotheoutsideworldthatemphasizesthebilateralU.S.-Japan relationship-boththewartimeanimositybetweenJapaneseand Americans and the postwar alliance. That stance allows the Group to paint Japan as perennially beleaguered, defensively protectingthenationalessencefromforeignattack.(Eventhisis askewedportrayal,giventhemany waystheallianceprotected Japan during the cold war.) However, it locks Japanese into wilful ignoranceabouttheirtreatmentofothersduringthePa- cificWarand,morecrucially,itpaintsallcriticism-internalas wellasexternal-ofJapaneseactionsasanattackonthenation itselfandsothwartsanytransnationalvisionofthefuture. Japanesewho seekwaysto integratetheirnationintothe fast-changinginternationalworldmustultimately acceptadia- loguewithAsians abouttheirshared past. Moreover, thatdia- logue will have to extend beyond government officials. The SouthKoreangovernment, whosefounding membersincluded many collaboratorswithJapaneseimperialism,haslittledesire to discuss that past. From the 1960s to the 1990s the Seoul government repeatedly statedthatitwouldmakenoclaimson Japanfor monetary restitution. However, individuals andnon- governmentalorganizations(NGOs)basedinSouthKoreathink differently. Notonlyhavethey pressuredJapanforreparations inthe1990s,theyhavealsodemandedthattheirowngovernment insistonaJapaneseapologyandreparations.ActivistsinChina, Taiwan, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, and elsewhere havemadesimilardemandsontheirgovernments. Thegrowinginfluenceoftheserestitutionmovementsand amorehuman-rights-basedconceptofinternationalcitizenship hasbeenfacilitated by the end ofthecoldwar. Americancold warriorsinsistedfordecadesthattheirAsian allies andclients not only mute official demands for restitution from Japan in exchangeforU.S. economic assistance, butalsothatthey sup- press private attempts to claim restitution. For example, the AssociationofVictimsofthePacific WarinSouthKoreawas foundedin1973,butitsdemandsforrestitutionfromJapanwere suppressedbytheKoreanCentralIntelligenceAgencyuntilthelate 1980s,whenneithertheUnitedStatesnortheKoreangovernment couldusethecoldwarasanexcusetovetodemocraticrights. 37 Theseeffortstowardrestitutionhavemany Japanesesup- porterstoo, someofwhomdrawondecadesofsocialactivism directed against the U.S.-Japan security alliance, the Vietnam War,nuclearweapons,environmentaldestruction,andviolations of women'srightsandhumanrights. Theytoodrawonauniver- salistic ideal ofcivic community (although this ideal is often compromisedinpracticeinJapanaselsewhere). Yet,theyhave not, todate, articulateda generally acceptedvisionofashared international future for Japan (embodiedintextbooksor else- where). On the contrary, as Gerow notes, cultural signs &'UggestthatmanyJapaneseto- "DoNotPainttheWarinaBadLight" dayfearclosertiestoAsia. The United States has ProfessorIenagaSaburoattemptedto includeinhistextbook thusfaravoidedany sustained thisphotograph(seeleft)ofanex-soldierwhowasinjuredin response to foreign criticism battle.TheJapanesesoldierhad written: foritsconductduringitsmany "TheHorrorofWar: Eventhoughthewar cametoanend, twentieth-century wars. Sig- eventuallytheannsandlegsofsoldierslostinbattlewill nificantly,theAsianswhohave neverreturn.This1mgicsighteloquentlyconveysto usthe mobilizedtoprotestpastJapa- poignantmeaningofthephrasefromtheprefaceto theConsti- nese military occupationhave tution,whichreads: '...[we] resolvedthat neveragainshall we notmountedasimilarly effec- bevisitedwiththehorrorsofWIU' throughthe actionof the tive critique of U.S. military government....,,, occupationbecauseoftheleg- IiCY ofWorld WarII alliances, (Soumz: Truth in Textbooks. Freedom in Education and P,ace for Chil- ()Old War politics, and, above dren: The Struggle against Censorship ofSchool Textbooks in Japan all, U.S. power. China, North [Tokyo:NationalLeagueforSupportoftheSchoolTextbookScreen- ingSuit, 1995],p.3.) Korea, and Vietnam were iso- lated behind the Iron Curtain Bulletin a/Concerned Asian Scholars 12 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org until the 1970s. Since then, all three nations have struggled for international legitimacy, a course that has led them to seek U.S. assistance. Likewise, continued Japanese subordination to U.s. strategic designs, together with Japanese vulnerability to coun- tercharges about its activities during the Pacific War, have muted official Japanese criticism of the United States. I American conduct abroad during the Vietnam War is the only partial exception to date. During the war, the U.S. govern- ment faced enormous criticism of its conduct abroad-officially from Vietnam and its communist allies, but also from its own I principal European allies. Many Japanese citizens also protested the war despite their government's support of it, just as did many Americans. That legacy of conflict, as well as of military defeat, has meant that the Vietnam War has required fuller explanation and a deeper understanding of the enemy than has any other American war, as David Hunt explains in his article below. Nonetheless, although American textbooks grapple with that mandate, most skirt issues that are sensitive for Americans, particularly atrocities such as the My Lai massacre, the tiger cages, the saturation bombing, and the environmental devasta- tion of much of North and South Vietnam. More fundamentally, as Hunt shows, most American histories-with significant ex- ceptions-avoid drawing the conclusion that" 'war crimes' were in the logic of the Vietnam War." The issues of apology and reparations have not (yet?) become a subject ofsustained international debate, although both domestic and foreign critics of U.S. conduct in the Vietnam War have raised them sporadically. During the war years, the U.S. "winter soldiers" publicly testified to American war crimes in an act of patriotism and courage. They eloquently argued that in denying humanity to the Vietnamese and tolerating war crimes against them, Americans debased their own nation's fmest tradi- tions. Their perspective was not institutionalized in national memory until March 1998, when the U.S. Army awarded the Soldier's Medal, its highest honor for bravery not involving conflict, to three soldiers who had rescued Vietnamese civilians at My Lai from other American soldiers. 38 However, in striking contrast to pressures mounted on Japan in recent decades by Chinese, Koreans, and other victims of Japan's wartime aggres- sion, the Vietnamese have not pushed Americans to apologize or provide compensation for the war, nor have American activists pressed the issue. The reasons on the Vietnamese side have everything to do with the still considerable power of the United States to shape postwar economic, political, and strategic out- comes in the Pacific, and the perception by Vietnamese leaders that their nation's future hinges on the international market, a realm in which the United States holds the keys to entry and prosperity. Americans have only just begun to face their history of war crimes and state-led aggression in Vietnam. These are precisely the kinds of issues at the heart of the Japanese debate on its regional and global future. Japan has faced greater international as well as domestic pressure to atone for its wartime behavior than has the United States. The American example-although not the German one-suggests that Japa- nese nationalists have a point when they complain that other nations gloss over their own dark chapters while Japan is singled out for attack. Reunified Germany gives the impression of having moved toward a coherent stance for the twenty-first century through reiteration of its European identity. It has emerged at the center Vol. 30, No.2 (1998) of the European Community after having addressed directly some of the deepest antagonisms created first by the Junkers and then by the Nazis. The ability to create a new narrative of the German nation that convincingly rejects Nazism and celebrates a European defmition of citizenship is surely a key factor in that change. The problem of virulent nationalism, however, has hardly been laid to rest. Some Germans still harbor older versions of the ideal nation, as indicated by continued racist attacks on guest- workers and the resurgence of neo-Nazi groups. Serbia and Croatia, and some of the states of the former Soviet Union, too, are powelful reminders that Europe is in no way immune to the reemergence of racist and exterminist national narratives. In China, the most sensitive issues pertain to the citizenship of ethnic minorities rather than to the history of anti-Japanese resistance. As Stevan Harrell and Bamo Ayi show, one of the most sensitive issues defIning both China's domestic and inter- national posture is the treatment of minority nationalities in the state's officially prepared and certified textbooks. Despite the existence of an extensive afirrmative action program and an institutionally embodied concept of autonomous regions, China is far from resolving its future as a muItiethnic nation. If, as Ernest Gellner insists, nationalism is "the striving to make cul- ture and polity congruent," the issues remain contentious indeed for Tibetans, Mongols, Uighurs, and other nationalities seeking autonomous space, cultural recognition, and resources. 39 With the Chinese state fIrmly in control of all textbook preparation. these issues have not been publicly contested at the level of curriculum but are widely recognized as major sources of ten- sion. Harrell and Bamo show this in the case of textbooks for the Nuosu (Yi) people of Yunnan. Moreover, Chinese textbook depictions ofcitizenship and ethnic identity are likely to develop an international dimension as time passes, particularly as minor- ity groups spill across borders as in Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia. The campaign mounted by Chinese-in-exile against Chinese oppression of dissidents has the potential to internationalize this as it already has other debates. From this perspective. Chinese leaders have barely begun to clarify a vision of their nation's place in Asia and the contemporary world. Current Japanese, Chinese, German, and American debates over how to envision their respective places in the global future have wide-ranging implications. In the service of that task, past actions are continually reinterpreted, making old justifications obsolete. One key issue is how to imagine links with other nations. A second involves managing the relationship between citizen and state in the context of growing demands for civic rights. Governments have no choice but to reevaluate past be- havior in ways that constantly incorporate social change. Finally, governments must take into consideration the views of the citi- zens of other nations. as well as those of foreign governments. The ferocity of the debate in Japan can instruct the rest of us: the issues Japanese wrestle with-nationalism, citizenship, regional and global cooperation. and social change-are ones faced by all citizens ofthe contemporary world. Textbooks are oneofthe key fronts where those battles will be fought. Indeed, the battles are already under way. Nota 1. John Meyer, David Kamens, and Aaron Benavot, with Yun-Kyung ChaandSuk-Ymg Wong, show convincingly the broad common ground and global standardization among primary school textbooks, cunicula, 13 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org and educational systems across nations that differ in wealth, political and economic systems, and culture. Standardization is surely greater at the high-school level. School Knowledgefor the Masses: World Models and National Primary Curricular Categories in the Twentieth Century (London: The Falmer Press, 1992). 2. Michael Apple and Linda Christian-Smith., The Politics ofthe Text- book (London: Routledge, 1991), p. 4. We would add that textbooks may also clarify what is illegitimate and threatening to a state and people. 3. Stein Tonnesson and Hans Antlov, Asian Fonns of the Nation (Surrey, England: Curzon Press, 1996), p. 2. We also follow Benedict Anderson's emphasis on the style in which a nation is imagined. Imag- ined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread ofNationalism (London: Verso, 1983). 4. Takashi Fujitani, Splendid Monarchy: Power and Pageantry in ModemJapan (Berkeley: University ofCalifornia Press, 1996);Prasen- jit Duara, "De-Constructing the Chinese Nation," in Chinese National- ism, ed Jonathan Unger (Armonk, N. Y.: M. E. ShaIpe, 1996), pp. 31-55; Pamela Crossley, "Manzhou yuanliu leao and the Formalization of the Manchu Heritage," Journal ofAsian Studies 46, no. 4 (1987). 5. Ministry ofEducation review, censorship, and certification processes are described in detail by Lawrence Beer, Freedom ofExpression in Japan: A Study in Comparative Law, Politics and Society (New York: Harper and Row, 1984), pp. 260-62. See also Yue-him Tam, "To Bury the Unhappy Past: The Problem of Textbook Revision in Japan," East Asian Library Journal 7, no. 1 (1994): 7-42; Horio Teruhisa, Educa- tional Thought and Ideology in Modem Japan: State Authority and Intellectual Freedom, ed. and trans. Steven Platzer (Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1988); Ienaga Saburo, The Pacific War (New York: Pantheon, 1978). 6. Toshio Nishi, Unconditional Democracy and Politics in Occupied Japan, 1945-1952 (Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Institution Press, 1982); YokoThakur, "Textbook Reform inAllied Occupied Japan, 1945-1952" (phD. diss., University of Maryland College Park, 1990). 7. The International Society for Educational Information, an arm ofthe Foreign Ministry, also collects foreign textbooks about Japan. 8. Major conflicts in the United States concern such issues as multicul- turalism and evolution theory. For a powerful critique of U.S. history textbooks, see James Loewen, Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995). For a historical account of earlier controversies, see Frances FitzGerald, America Revised: History Schoolbooks in the Twentieth Century (Boston: Little Brown, 1979). 9. LauraHein and Mark Selden, eds.,Living With the Bomb: Ameriam and Japanese Cultural Conflicts in the Nuclear Age (Armonk, N.Y.: M E. ShaIpe, 1996); Edward Linenthal and Thomas Engelhardt, eds., History Wars: The Enola Gay Controversy and Other Battlesfor the Ameriam Past (New York: Metropolitan Books, 1996); JamesE. Young, The Texture of Memory: Holocaust Memorials and Meaning (New Haven: Yale Uni- versity Press, 1993); G. Kurt Piehler, Remembering War the American Way (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1995); Diane Barthel, Historic Preservation: Collective Memory and Historical Identity (New Bnmswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1996). 10. In 1997, a textbook debate that began in Taiwan quickly moved across the Taiwan Strait. It centered on the treatment of Japanese colonialism in a social studies textbook used in alljunior high schools. See Julian Baum, "Schools ofThought: Long Overdue Textbook Recast Runs Into Controversy," Far Eastern Economic Review, 14 August 1997. Critics of the text, including Yang Yizhou, writing in People s Daily, 27 October 1997, attacked the text for negating Taiwan's close historical relationship to China and the Chinese people as well as for whitewashing the record of Japanese colonialism. The richly illiustrated social studies text, Renshi Taiwan (Understand Taiwan), which is being test-taught in 1997-98, is an introduction to historical and contemporary Taiwan that is attentive to aboriginal life and the mix of peoples that comprise the Taiwan popUlation. It also addresses a range of social problems such as income inequality and gender, and, for the fust time in a school text, grasps the biggest nettie, by introducing the 28 February 1947 Guomindang massacre of Taiwanese. 11. Mark Selden, "China, Japan and the Regional Political Economy of East Asia, 1945-1995," in Network Power: Japan and Asia, ed. Peter Katzenstein and Takashi Shiraishi (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997), pp. 306-40. 12. RadhikaCoomaraswamy, "Violem:eagainstWomen: Its Causes and Consequences. A Prelimiruuy Report Submitted by the UN Special Rapporteur in accordance with the Commission on Human Rights Resolution 1994/45," The Thatched Patio 7, no. 6 (1994), International Centre for Ethnic Studies, Colombo, Sri Lanka; Tanaka Hiroshi, Zai- nichi Gaikokujin (Foreigners in Japan) (Tokyo: Iwanami, 1995). 13. Forthe $58 billion figure, see AlanCowell, "Gennany the Unloved Just Wants to Be Normal," New York Times, 23 November 1997; Claudia Koonz, "BetweenMemory and Oblivion: ConcentrationCamps in German Memory," in Commemorations: The Politics ofNational Identity, ed. John R. Gillis (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), pp. 258- 280; Ian Bununa, The Wages ofGuilt: Memories of War in Gennany and Japan (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1994); R. J. R. Bosworth, Explaining Auschwitz and Hiroshima: History Writing and the Second World War (London: Routledge, 1993). 14. Daniel Singer, "France on Trial," The Nation, 19 November 1997, p. 5; Alan Cowell, ''Swiss Bank Reports Finding $11 Million More in Unclaimed Accounts from Wartime," New York Times, 24 July 1997; "Red Cross Admits Failing to Condernn Holocaust," New York Times, 8 October 1997. 15. Gary Okihiro, Whispered Silences: Japanese-Americans and World War II (Seattle: University ofWashington Press, 1996). Japanese from all points on the political spectrum have argued that the U.S. wartime saturation bombing, atomic bombing, and other wartime attacks on Japan were comparable to Nazi barbarism, with, as yet, only small impact on the U.S. or international discussion. One of the most active figures in the current Japanese textbook debate has made this argument, using it to justify a rejection of Japanese reconsideration of their own wartime conduct. Nishio Kanji, "Acknowledge U.S. War Crimes," Sankei Shinbun, 9 August 1997, translated inJapan Times, 26 August 1997. 16. Peter Katzenstein, ed., Tamed Power: Gennany in Europe (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997), p. xiii. 17. An exemplar of the new pan-European approach to a common history is Frederic Delouche, ed., Illustrated History of Europe: A Unique Portrait ofEurope sCommon History, trans. Richard Moyne (New York: Henry Holt, 1992). Not all western European nations have responded to the prospect ofregional integration with equal enthusiasm. In particular, Britain's 1988 Education Reform Act instituted a ''national curriculum" to stave off any loss of British identity and sovereignty. British historical textbook trends and I;onflicts are briefly surveyed in Stephan Shakespeare, ''Old Britain, New History," The Spectator, 11 October 1997, pp. 11-12. In other parts: ofEurope, moreover, including within and outside the Union, nationalism is currently a fighting matter. These include the former Yugoslavia and the former Soviet Union, as well as areas claimed by Basque separatists and Irish nationalists. 18. Peter Katzenstein, "Introduction: A!>ian Regionalism in Comparative Perspective," inKatzenstein and h i r i s h ~ eds.,NetworkPower, p. 12. This World Bank calculation is based on multiplying China's GDP by three on the basis ofpurchasing power parity indexes. 19. Fujioka Nobukatsu in "Koko ga okashii: Rekishi kyokasho ronso" (This is strange: The history textbook debate), debates with Yoshida Yutaka, This Is Yomiuri, March 1997, lip. 34-73. 20. As the reference to the death of the emperor suggests, the roots of change in ideology and consciousness lie partly in domestic factors. On the breaking ofearlier taboos on public discussion ofwar responsibility, see Norma Field, ''The Devastating Absence of Surprise," Bulletin of ConcernedAsian Scholars 27, no. 3 (1995): 18-19; Gavan McCormack, The Emptiness ofJapanese Affluence (Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1996), pp. 244-77; and Herbert Bix, "Japan's Delayed Surrender: A Reinterpretation," in Hiroshima in History and Memory, ed Michael Hogan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 80-115. Bulletin ofConcerned Asian Scholars 14 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org I 21. For more on the Asia debate and its relation to the u.s. alliance in Japanese thinking, see Laura Hein and Ellen Hammond, "Homing in on I Asia: Renovating Identity in Contemporary Japan," Bulletin ofCon- cerned Asian Scholars 27, no. 3 (1995): 3-17; Michael Yahuda, The International Politics ofthe Asia-Pacific, 1945-1995 (London: Rout- ledge, 1996), pp. 229-54; Katzenstein and Shiraishi, eds., Network Power. j I 22. See Elliot Converse II et al., The Exclusion ofBlack Soldiers from the Medal ofHonor in World War II: The Study Commissioned by the United States Anny to Investigate Racial Bias in the AwanJing ofthe Nation s Highest Military Decoration (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1997); Okihiro, Whispered Silences; Gordon Chang, ed. Morning Glory 'I or Evening Shadow: Yarnato Ichihashi and His Internment Writings, j 1942-1945 (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1997). For belated attention to the contributions of women, see Judy Litoff and David Smith, eds., American Women in a World at War. Contemporary Accounts from World War II (Wilmington, Del.: Scholarly Resources, 1997). For the debate on multiculturalism, see Arthur M Schlesinger Jr., The Disuniting ofAmerica (New York: W. W. Norton, 1992); Henry Louis Gates, Loose Canons: Notes on the Culture Wars (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992); Joan Scott, "The Campaign against Political Correctness: What's Really at Stake?" and other contributions toRadicaIHistoryReview5,no.4(1992);FitzGerald,AmericaRevised. 23. While the dominant heroic text limning the rise of the Chinese Communist movement in the course ofthe anti-Japanese resistance and civil war has remained intact, the contribution of individual leaders has been subject to large swings contingent on their subsequent rise and fall. See Jonathan Unger, ed., Using the Past to Serve the Present: Histori- ography and Politics in Contemporary China (Annonk, N.Y.: M E. Sharpe, 1993), especially David Holm, "The Strange Case of Liu Zhidan," pp. 104-23, and Susanne Weigelin-Schwiec:hzik, "Party His- toriography,"pp.151-53. 24. Fujioka Nobukatsu and Jiyushugi Shikan Kenkyukai, eds., Kyo- kasho ga oshienai rekishi, (The history that textbooks do not teach) (Tokyo: Sankei Shinbun Nyusu Sabisu, vo1s. 1 and 2, 1996; vol. 3, 1997). Fujioka Nobukatsu, Ojoku no kin-gendai shi: Ima, kokufoku no toki (Shameful modem history) (Tokyo: Tokuma Shoten, 1996). Also see Atarashii Rekishi Kyokasho 0 tsuk.uru kai, ed, Atarashii Nihon no rekishi ga hajimaru (A new Japanese history is beginning) (Tokyo: Gen- tosha, 1997). 25. Fujioka Nobukatsu, Kyokasho ga oshienai rekishi, vol. 2, p. 11. 26. Fujioka Nobukatsu, ''Nihonjin wa joshiki ni okure," in Atarashii rekishi kyokasho 0 tsukuru kai, p. 122. 27. Fujioka Nobukatsu, ''Hi-nichi rekishi kyoiku 0 haisu" (Expelling anti-Japanese history education) in Fujioka, Ojoku no kin-gendai shi, pp. 81-84. Also Kyokasho ga oshienai rekishi, vol. 2, p. 11. 28. See Nakamura in this issue. See also Yoshida YUtaka, ''Heisoku SUlU nasbionarizumu" (Blockaded nationalism), Sekai, April 1997, pp. 74-82. 29. Yoshimi Yoshiaki, Jugun Ianfo (Military comfort women) (Tokyo: lwanami Shoten, 1995). We have benefited from Yuki Tanaka's work in progress on the comfort women and Japanese policy. See also the special issue ofpositions. east asia cultures critique 5, no.1 (1997): "The Comfort Women: Colonialism, War, and Sex"; Maria Rosa Henson, Com- fort Woman: Slave ofDesti1Q1 (Manila: Philippine Center for Investigative Joumalism, 1996); Keith Howard, ed., True Stories ofthe Korean Com- fort Women, trans. Young Joo Lee (London: Cassell, 1995); Watanabe Kazuko, "Militarism, Colonialism, and the Tmfficking of Women: 'Comfort Women' Forced into Sexual Labor for Japanese Soldiers," Bulletin ofConcerned Asian Scholars 26, no. 4 (1994): 3-16. 30. Fujioka Nobukatsu, "'Jugun ianfu' 0 chugakusei ni oshieru na" (Don't teach middle school students about the military comfort women), in Atarashii Rekishi Kyokasho 0 tsukuru kai, ed., Atarashii Nihon no rekishi ga hojimaru, p. 78, quotes seven textbooks. 31. Dutch prosecutors presented evidence ofthe rape ofDutch civilians at the Tokyo Tribunal, but not of"enforced prostitution," reserving that for subsequentB- and C-Class tribunals. Personal communication, Yuki Tanaka, 29 January 1998. A Batavia tribunal convicted thirteen Japa- Vol. 30, No.2 (1998) nese for the enslavement and rape of Dutch women and executed three. The tribunal ignored the far larger number of Sumatran and Javanese women who were often held at the same "comfort stations." Chin Sung Chung, ''The Origins and Development of the Military Sexual Slavery Problem inImperial Japan," positions. east asia cultures critique 5, no. 1 (1997): 232-33. See also Yuki Tanaka, "Comfort Women in the Dutch East Indies," manuscript, 1997. Similarly, Japan was held accountable at the trials for the several thousand Western POWs forced to work on the Burma-Thai railroad, but not for the vastly larger number ofSouth- east Asian forced laborers. Gavan McConnack and Hank Nelson, eds., The Bunna-Thailand Railway: Memory and History (St. Leonard's, New South Wales: Allen and Unwin, 1993). 32. See Chin Sung Chung, ''The Originsand Development," pp. 219-54; Watanabe, ''Militarism, Colonialism. and the Trafficking of Women"; and Henson, Comfort Woman. Also George Hicks, The Comfort Women: Japan sBrutal Regime ofEnforr:ed Prostitution in the Second World War (New York: Norton, 1994), p. 225 on international law. 33. For a statement by Korean-Japanese tying their solidarity movement to textbook nationalism, see "Appeal by Concerned Koreans in Japan concerning the Activities of the Committee to Create A New History Textbook and the Liberal Historiography Study Group," Ampo: Japan- Asia Quarterly Review 27, no. 4 (1996): 26-27; Michael Weiner, ed., Japan sMinorities: The Illusion ofHomogeneity (London: Routledge, 1996) for general discussion. 34. For discussion of attitudes among Japanese soldiers, see Kano Mikiyo, "The Problem with the 'Comfort Women Problem,'" Ampo: Japan-Asia Quarterly Review 24, no. 2 (1993): 40-43. For more ex- tended discussion of Japanese destruction in China, see Mark Selden, China in Revolution: The Yenan Way Revisited (Annonk, N.Y: M E. Sharpe, 1995). 35. Hyun Sook Kim notes that a 1992 South Korean junior high school text discusses the comfort women much as do the Japanese ones, including them in a list of Japan.ese colonial practices such as forcing Koreans to worship at Japanese shrines, to adopt Japanese names, and engage in forced labor: "[E]ven women became the object of sacrifice for the war under the name chongsindae (teishintai in Japanese)." Kim argues that this bland approach reflects the interest of the Korean state inreinforcing patriarchy. "History and Memory: The 'Comfort Woman' Controversy," positions. east asia cultures critique 5, no. 1 (1997): 91. Some critics ofthe introduction ofthe comfort women theme in school texts also described 1997 Japanese legislation that permitted married women to use their maiden names in household registers as a compam- ble example of a break with tradition and morality. 36. Nonna Field, "War and Apology: Japan, Asia, the Fiftieth, and After," pOSitions. east asia cultures critique 5, no. 1 (1997): 37. 37. Hiroshi Tanaka, "Why Is Asia Demanding Postwar Compensation Now?" HitotsubashiJoumal ofSocial Studies 28 (1996): 1-14. These questions necessarily implicate the United States as well: in particular, they highlight the U.S. government's willingness to protect the perpe- trators of such injustices as the human experiments of Unit 731 in exchange for access to their research results. Sheldon Harris, Factories of Death: Japanese Biological Waifare 1935-45, andtheAmerican Cover-up (London: Routledge, 1993). See also John Powell's review of1he book in Bulletin ofConcernedAsian Scholars 27, no. 2 (1995): 27-28. 38. Themedalswere awarded to Hugh C. Thompson Jr., LawrmceColbum, and, postlmmously, to GlennAndIwtta. SeeLos Angeles TImes, 19 March 1998, Metro Part B, p. 8. 39. Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (Ithaca: Come11 University Press, 1993),p. 43. o Selected articles from this special issue of the Bulletin ofConcernedAsian Scholars are available at the BeAS Website: http://c.f.C91orado.edulbcas/ 15 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org Bulletin ofConcerned Asian Scholars, Vol. 30, No.2 (1998): 16-23 ISSN 0007-4810 C 1998 BCAS (Oakland, California) The Japanese Movement to "Correct" History Why is it that in Japan the question ofwar responsibiHty seems to have become more acute as time passes? Following the end ofthe cold war globally and ofLiberal Democratic Party hegemony in the Diet domestically, a particularly sharp debate ensued in the media, Diet, courts, and in the national community in general As the 1995 commemoration of the fiftieth annivenary of the war approached, a national consensus in favor of apology, admission of the aggressive and colonial character of the war, and compensation to the victims, gradually took shape. In reaction, a counterforce, repudiating apology and reconciliation and insisting on the absolute purity of the national cause, also emerged. The treatment of the wartime "comfort women" issue became centraL This paper considen con.iden the evolution of the Liberal View ofHistory Study Group and the Society for the Making ofNew School Textbooks in History. What does it mean that these groups represent themselves as "liberal" and what support do they enjoy? The paper concludes that the movement these organizations represent may be inteUectually incoherent, but it possesses a considerable emotional force as the voice of a repressed nationalism, and as such deserves close attention. by Gavan McCormack "Nothing is more idiotic than to deny today the truth ofwhat one did yesterday." -Ooka Shohei, Horyoki (l948i "It is precisely its way of teaching its modem history that is the crucial detenninant of the constitution of a people as a nation. The people which does not have a history to beproud ofcannot constitute itself as a nation." -Fujioka Nobukatsu, Ojoku no kin-gendaishi "Liberal Historiography" and ''Correct History" The question of responsibility for the war that ended a half century ago becomes more pressing for Japan as the war itself recedes in memory. Social and political rifts over the issue deepen, and the international ramifications grow more serious. Since the beginning of the 1990s dozens of lawsuits claiming apology and compensation have been lodged with Tokyo courts on behalf of the many victims of Japan's colonialism and aggres- sion, including the former "comfort women," the victims of the Nanking and other massacres, survivors of wartime forced labor programs, and the victims of bacteriological (plague) or chemi- cal attacks on wartime China. Ofall the issues, that ofthe comfort women may be the most intractable. The Geneva-based International Commission of Jurists issued a report on the comfort women in 1994 that referred to large numbers of women and girls having been held captive, beaten, tortured, and repeatedly raped in wartime Japanese mili- tary installations. In February 1996, a report for the Human Rights Committee of the United Nations described the "comfort women" as "sex slaves" and their treatment as a "crime against humanity." It called upon Japan to compensate victims, punish those responsible without regard to limitation oftime, and ensure that educational curricula included the historical facts. In Seoul, Manila, Jakarta, and the other cities of the old "Co-Prosperity Sphere" large numbers of angry women began to speak about what had happened to them fifty years ago. By early 1997, some 23,000 women in Korea (North and South), the Philippines, China, Thailand, Indonesia and elsewhere had come forward by name to give either silent or vocal testimony to their experience. The focus of war reflections has therefore shifted. Where men-politicians, soldiers, scholars-had always de- fined and debated the issues, from the early 1990s, and after fIfty years of silence, women began to intervene, confronting Japan with immense moral, political, and cultural questions. In December 1996 the U.S. Justice Department's Criminal Division announced that it had drawn up an immigration "ban list" of Japanese believed to be responsible for war crimes; three of the twelve (unidentified) people on that list were thought to be associated with the "comfort women" system, the others being former members of the Harbin-based Unit 731 responsible for bacteriolo!cal warfare in China and many horrific crimes against prisoners. In other words, fifty years after the event, Washington had decided to place Japanese on the same level as Nazi war crimes, so uniquely heinous that suspected perpetrators should not enjoy any protection because of the lapse of time. 4 Within Japan, after decades of official procrastination and intense effort by various popular organizations, from the early 1990s serious efforts began to made at an official level to grapple with these problems. In 1993, when the long Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) hegemoJilY over Japanese politics was o/ConcernedAsian Scholars 16 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org broken for the first time, the war was described by the prime minister as aggressive and colonial, and in 1995 the Diet adopted a resolution expressing formal regret over it. Official involve- ment in establishing and managing "comfort houses" for Japa- nese soldiers was admitted, and the government has conceded that many of the women working in them had been forced to do so (sojite kyosei datta). A fund, nominally private but with strong official backing, was established to compensate surviving com- fort women and specific letters of apology from the prime minister, accompanying solatium payments, were issued to the first of the former victims during 1996. However, these modest advances also served to excite fierce opposition. Inside the national Diet, LDP members who insisted on the justice of the war's cause and firmly opposed any apologies formed a "Dietmembers League for the 50th Anniver- sary of the End of the War" (headed by former minister of education, Okuno Seisuke) in December 1994. Under this name various events were conducted in August 1995, including the "CelebrationofAsian Togetherness," which invited representatives of various Asian countries to "thank the war dead and praise Japan for its contribution to the independence of Asian coun- tries."s In April 1996 the group changed its name to the "Diet- members League for a Bright Japan." A corresponding group of opposition Shinshinto party members (conservatives, led by Ozawa Ichiro, who had been in the LDP till the split occurred in 1993) in February 1995 formed another group under the title "Dietmembers League for the Passing on of a Correct History" (headed by Ozawa Tatsuo). Outside the Diet, both of these groups were closely linked to the "Citizens' Association for the Defence ofJapan," founded in 1981 and headed in the 19908 by the composer Mayuzumi Toshiro. Nationalist organizations inside and outside of the na- tional Diet could usually draw also on the support of a range of other more-or-less traditional rightist or nationalist groups: in- cluding the National Shrine Association (Jinja honcho), War Bereaved Families Association (Nihon izokuleai), the Unification Church (the "Moonies") and its "Professors for Peace Acad- emy," the World Anti-Communist League, and religious groups such as Seicho no ie. 6 What are new in the mid-l 990s, however, are the national organizations formed in 1995 and 1996 by the Tokyo University professor, Fujioka Nobukatsu: the "Liberal View of History Study Group" (Jiyushugi shilean kenkyuleai) and the "Society for the Making of New School Textbooks in History" (Atarashii rekishi kyokasho 0 tsukuru leai). They are new both in content and in orientation; formerly rightist and nationalist ideas are for the first time presented as "liberal," and directed in partiCUlar at the constituency of students, teachers and academics. If these elements were to be successfully integrated in a front alongside the established parliamentary and extra-parliamentary forces of right-wing nationalism, the significance would be considerable. While Fujioka (on whom see below) is the central figure, he and his cause are supported by a wide-ranging group of literary, media, academic, and business personalities, with a particularly prominent role being played by the cartoonist Ko- bayashi Yoshinori and the German literature scholar Nishio Kanji (of Electro-Communications University). Their move- ment is committed to a far-reaching reappraisal of national history, and in particular to securing the deletion of all reference to "comfort women" from middle school history texts. They have The front cover of a book published in Japan by an organization documenting Japanese wartime aggression toward Asia and wartime propaganda. The illustration shows an idealized image ofvarious Asian nations as children united under Japanese command in Pan- Asian battle against the evil West." (SOIIrr:e: Norio Kuboi. Nihon no shin- ryaku SemllOII to Ajia no kodomo. Tokyo; Akoshi Shoten, 1996) already issued a series of books, with titles such as Kyokasho ga oshienai rekishi (The history the textbooks do not teachf and Ojoku no kin-gendaishi (Shameful modern history),8 which have become best-sellers, and they intend to produce and promote their own textbooks. Popular magazines regularly feature their analysis and activities, and the national daily Sankei shimbun vig- orously promotes them. Kobayashi Yoshinori's cartoons, published in the magazine Sapio, are widely read among youth. An all-night debate on the issues of war memory, textbooks, and especially "comfort women," on Asahi Television on 1 February 1997, pitted Fujioka and his associates against prominent historians and representatives ofthe many groups struggling for causes that these new nationalists oppose, and it became one ofthe outstand- ing media events of the time. By choosing the term "liberal," Fujioka and his colleagues seek to represent their position as a breakthrough out ofthe stale and unresolved polarities of post-war discourse into something fresh and new. Some might argue that precisely such a break- through was occurring anyway in the mid-1990s, and that Fu- jioka's intervention was either unnecessary or obstructive. They would point to a national consensus slowly taking shape around the acceptance of responsibility and commitment to appropriate compensation, the position stated by Prime Minister Hosokawa in 1993 and maintained since then in its essentials even by the current LDP Prime Minister Hashimoto. But Fujioka will have nothing of this. For him, historical thinking is still locked within left-right dualism, and only his "liberalism" can resolve it. Using an expression borrowed from the popular novelist Shiba Ryo- Vol. 30, No.2 (1998) 17 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org taro,hedescribesthedualismintennsof"zendama"f'akudama" ("goodies" and "baddies"). On the one hand is the so-called "TokyoTrialsViewofHistory,"theorthodoxyimposedonJapan by the Occupation which saw prewar and wartime Japan as akudama totheUnitedStates'szendama. Fujiokabelievesthis viewthenbecameinternalizedinJapanesesociety-thankspri- marily totheeffortsofleft-winghistorians and educators-to theextentthateventuallyeventheLDPitselfbecamesubverted and the fundamentally misguided 1990s politics of apology becameestablished. The opposing view is theonecommonly knownasthe"Affinnationof theGreaterEastAsianWar"view, oneperhapsmostfamouslyexpressedintheworkofthehistorian HayashiFusaoin 1969whichinsistedaboveallontheprimacy oftheJapaneseroleinachievingtheliberationofAsia. While Fujioka announced his rejection ofboth ofthese views,however,inpracticehisfITehasbeenconcentratedexclu- sivelyonthefonner,andheandhiscolleagueshavemovedever closerto precisely thesortofaffinnationthatHayashi almost thirtyyearsagoproclaimed.In movingtotry toappropriatethe word"liberal"tohiscause,Fujiokawasimplicitlyrecognizing that his cause would not go far ifseen purely in traditional nationalisttenns.Howeverthepromiseofa"liberalism"asitis commonly understood, involvingacommitmentto highlevels ofobjectivityandtheexplorationofarelativistic,multiplecausal framework,hasnotinpracticebeenhonoured. Yet thelevel ofsupportthat greetedtheFujiokamessage suggeststhatinsomesensehewasright:manypeoplearefedup with whatthey perceivetobe a fIfty-year-long stalematethat showsnosignofresolution,andaretiredofongoingdiscussions ofresponsibility and compensation for things that happened morethana halfcentury ago. Many seemalso tobeseeking a positiveidentity androleintheworldappropriatetotheglobal economicsuperpowerJapanhasbecome. Setting aside the "liberal" label and claims to superior objectivity,attheactual coreofFujiokaandhiscolleagues'message is a view ofhistory centered upon the lament for the loss ofa "distinctiveJapanese historical consciousness" (Nihon jishin no rekishi ishiki). What they describe as the postwar, orthodox, "masochistic"(jigyakuteki) viewof historyistoblameforthiS.IO Whileclaimingobjectivityandopen-mindedcommitmenttomul- tiplecausality,inpracticetheyarecommittedto"inculcateasense ofprideinthehistoryofournation."llForthem,historylacksthose intrinsicstandards(oftruthorevidence)whichmightmakepossible theresolutionof conflictinginterpretations;instead,itissubject totheultimatemoral imperativeofwhetherornotitservesto inculcateasenseof prideinbeingJapanese.12 Theytakeparticu- larly strongexceptiontoschoolhistory texts approvedforuse from April 1997thatrefertothe''forcibleabductionofcomfort women"(butalsotoaccountsoftheNankingmassacreandother atrocities). To include suchmaterial in school texts amounts, they believe,tothelossof"our own"(dokuji no) historical sense;instead, textbooksshouldrestore"correct history' (emphasisadded:seishl).13 Itisamarkof howoutofsyncwiththeoutsideworldisthe discourseinJapanthatFujiokashouldmakehiscaseforpolitical "correctness" under the banner ofits opposite-post-modem relativism,apparentlyoblivioustothecontradiction,andthathe shouldbeacclaimed,atleastbythenationalmedia,asaserious andimportantthinkerfordoingso. By afIrrming theideaofa "correct history," to be given official status and promotion, Fujiokaclearly impliesthatthere isalso an"incorrecthistory" which should be suppressed. He thereby reinstates the very "zendamal akudama" dualismthatheclaimstooppose, andhe locateshimselfwithinthelineageof thoseguardiansof political correctnesswhoknowthetruthand areintolerantofallelse.By thesestandards,thepre-warbureaucratsdedicatedtotherooting outof"dangerousthoughts" andtheimpositionofthetrueand glorioushistoryof theJapaneseempirewereall"liberals." TheChallengeoftheComfortWomen: Japanas"GrotesqueSexCrimeState" Inpractice,nothingisnegatedbythe"liberals"withmore vehemencethanthecomfortwomen-theirexistence,theirser- vilestatusundertheImperialJapaneseArmy,theirsuffering,and theirentitlementtoanyapologyorcompensationfromtheJapa- nese state. Because the story they tell does not functiontoincreasethesenseof"prideinthehis- toryofournation,"itshouldnotbetold,andthose whotellitarebad,akudama, fordoingso.Further- more,thebasisofthenegationappearstobeessen- tially a priori ratherthan empiricist, inthesense thatitrestsonthepassionatebeliefthattheJapa- nesestatecould not possibly have been involvedin thecrimeofabductionandslaveryonalargescale; thereforethatclaimisutterlyfalseandabhorrent, andtherecounting ofthematerial inschooltext- booksamountsto"anti-Japanese"and"masochis- tic" behavior, which can only serve to "corrode, pulverize,meltanddisintegrate" Japan. 13 Schools that teach ''false history" ofcomfort women be- come like a giant "Kamikuishikimura [the head- quarters ofthe Aum sect], a mindcontrol centre stainingtheentirenationwithanti-Japaneseideol- ogy.,, 14 For Fujioka,thecomfortwomenissueis"an unfounded scandal created in the 1990s for the politicalpurposeofbashingJapan."ISItis even"a grand conspiracy for the destruction of Japan, in collaboration with foreign elements.,,16 If such a Bulletin o/ConcemedAsian Scholars Thisgraphic,whichencoumgesschoolchildnmto seeImperial Japanexpandingout from thecenterof the world,isreproducedfrom a1941 children'stextbookentitledYo; Kodama (Goodchildnm).(Source: Norto Ku.bat. Nthon /10 shtmyaku. sennsou toAjta no ko- damo. Tokyo: Akashi Shoten. 1996.p. 15.ISBN 4-7503-0842-0.) 18 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org falsehood were to be included in school texts Japan would come to be seen as "a lewd, foolish and rabid race without peer in the world."17 However emotional the deep commitment indicated by such fonnulations of its position, the "Liberal View of History" group does also try to cast its appeal in scientific and empiricist tenns, and for this it relies heavily on the services of a profes- sional historian well-known and respected for his work on war history, Hata Ikuhiko. In addressing the complex issues of the wartime comfort women, the case as constructed by Hata and Fujioka is that the "comfort women" were professional prosti- tutes, earning more then a general in the Imperial Japanese Army, or as much as one hundred times the pay of their soldier custom- ers. 18 Hata describes the work as "high risk, high return.,,19 In launching their suits for compensation now, the women are described as motivated by greed and desire for money, seeing their suits as a chance to "win the lottery."2o Hata and Fujioka insist there is no documentary evidence ofcompulsion or official responsibility, and they reject the evidence of the women them- selves as not on oath or subject to constraints of perjury laws. They propose an analogy to illustrate the relationship between the private contractor-run "comfort stations" and the Imperial Japanese Army, seeing the "comfort stations" (ianjo) as akin to the restaurants within the Ministry of Education building, physi- cally within the premises and subject to certain constraints of payment of rent, he.alth controls, and the like, but fundamentally independent in tenns of management and in treatment of their staff. As the Ministry of Education is not responsible for the services or the labor relations in restaurants housed within its building, so they argue the Japanese Anny cannot be held respon- sible for the conduct ofthe sex business in the old Japanese empire, at a time when, anyway, prostitution was legal and standards and values were very different from what they are today. 21 Hata also advances an argument on financial grounds: that if responsibility to compensate the women were officially recog- nized, meeting the claims might cripple the Japanese state. At a figure of, say, 3 million for each act of rape to which they were subjected, and taking account of the number of such acts of rape over the years, he estimates that each woman could be entitled to payments of up to 70 billion, in which case the overall claim would soon rival the Japanese national debt. 22 It is bizarre that the argument should here shift ground from principle and truth to financial considerations and convenience, but such shifts are characteristic of a discourse only thinly grounded in logic or moral principle. Underlying these protestations about the women is the question ofhow to characterize the Japanese state. Fujioka-and his colleague Nishio Kanji in particular-argue that, while Japan may be compared with other modem states, all of which have committed various crimes or excesses, it is fundamentally dif- ferent from Nazi Gennany.23 Nishio goes to great 'lengths to protest that, while what he describes as "Japan's theocratic state under the emperor as high priest" may have fought "a slightly high-handed patriotic war" (sukoshi omoiagatta aikoku senso), it certainly did not commit "crimes against humanity" such as would warrant its inclusion with Nazi Gennany in the categOlY of "historically unprecedented terror state."24 Fujioka adds that it was neither terror state nor a "grotesque sex crime state."25 The difficulty with this is that, although genocidal intent as such was unique to the Nazis, the casualties and destruction in the Asian war overall matched, and even exceeded, those on the Vol. 30, No.2 (1998) European front. The crimes were also as abhorrent-particularly in regard to the comfort women, but also to the crimes of the Japanese medical and scientific elites (most shockingly known from the record of Unit 731), and there were similarities in racial ideology and the "science" of "eugenics,,,26 and more generally in relation to the wartime "forced labor" (kyosei renko). In many respects Nazi and Japanese ideology and practice were similar, and indeed in some respects Japan was guilty of crimes that even the Nazis did not commit-bacteriological and gas warfare, trading in opium to finance the activities of its puppet govern- ments, and (also in China) the forced evacuation of vast areas of all population (mujin chitaika).27 However, unlike the former Nazi and present Gennan governments, which are divided by a historical chasm, the pre- sent Japanese state enjoys a high measure of continuity with its war-time predecessor; and its wartime head of state, all sugges- tion of possible war crimes charges against him having been dismissed on political grounds, continued in office till 1989. If the analogy is pursued, it becomes clear that the sort of views upheld by Fujioka and his colleagues-denying the comfort women, denying Nanking, and denying other atrocities associ- ated with Unit 73 I-are generically one with those that in the German (and French) case would be proscribed under the legis- lation forbidding "Holocaust denial." Man and Movement Who, then, is Fujioka? And in what context is his movrnent and its lineage to be understood? Born in 1943, Fujioka was given the personal name "Nobukatsu," literally "Faith in Victory," at just that moment when the tides of war were turning towards defeat. As a young man he was, by his own account, a believer in "one coun1Iy pacifism," associated with leftist groUpS28 and, as ajunior academic in Hokkaido University, enjoyed a modest reputation as a scholar specializing in educational teaching methodology.29 He moved to Tokyo University early in the 1 980s, but remained relatively unknown till he returned in 1992 from a one-year period studying cultural anthropology at Rutgers University.30 During that year he underwent the sort of crisis that is commonly referred to as a "tenko." He experienced a sense of humiliation at the Japanese response to the Gulf War, and was profoundly influenced by reading books such as Michael Walzer's Just and Unjust Wars 31 and Richard Minear's Victor sJustice. 32 "The scales fell from my eyes," he said, after reading Minear. 33 He came to see Japan as lacking in the "will as state to protect its security"; to view the "Greater East Asian" War as a "just war," and the post-war Japanese peace constitution as a fetter on the Japanese state and an inhibition preventing the emergence of a proper Japanese sense of nationalism. Since it is as much an emotional (or even "religious") experience he describes as an intellectual one, there is no neces- sary logical consistency to it. Indeed eclecticism is characteristic. Of the influences upon him he attaches greatest importance to Ishibashi Tanzan (1884-1973, newspaper editor, politician, and renowned interwar liberal) and Shiba Ryotaro (1923-1995, post- war novelist specializing in historical themes). What Fujioka does not recognize is that Ishibashi's "liberalism" made him in the 1920s a profound critic of the state, an advocate of complete Japanese withdrawal from its colonial possessions, and a propo- nent of "small Japan-ism," while Shiba, for all his vivid evoca- tion of the drama of the Meiji period, even in the book which 19 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org Fujioka professes most to admire, "Cloud over the Hill" (Saka no ue no kumo), was withering in his portrayal of the great nationalist hero of the Russo-Japanese War, General Nogi. He had no sympathy at all for twentieth-century imperialist Japan, especially for the war of the 1930s with China, which he de- nounced as "unjust and meaningless,,,34 and an "aggressive war" or a colonial war fought for oil and resources. 3S It would seem to be in some abstract, spiritual sense that he wishes to appropriate Ishibashi and Shiba, not the actual ideas or politics they espoused. The left-right trajectory Fujioka describes is a common enough historical pattern, but what is unusual is his repre- sentation of the switch in terms of a transcendence of the histori- cal stalemate of left-right opposition. In practice, he is uncritical in his affmnation of the wars of the prewar Japanese state. Save in his use of the label "liberal," it is difficult to distinguish his views form those of traditional rightists. Despite the theoretical incoherence, it is no new liberal view of history that he propa- gates but the old imperial one, the "kokoku shikan."36 What is most puzzling and paradoxical, however, is the curious reticence of Fujioka and his colleagues to address the question of the emperor himself, or the imperial institution around which the imperial view of history traditionally has cohered. Furthermore, like earlier "tenkosha," Fujioka retains much ofthe structure and "agitprop" style of his "leftist" days in his rightist reborn state. The same priority to structure that once inclined him to seek solace in the formulas of the Japan Communist Party appears to have survived his conversion intact, and to be driving him to construct a new, no less dogmatic and even more self-righteous, version of "correctness." While the "intellectual" foundations of the new "liberal- ism" were thus constructed by Fujioka, Nishio, and others, the campaign in the provinces and in the streets also kept pace. It was characterized by the sort of intimidation and violence famil- iar from pre- and post-war rightist and ultra-nationalist groups rather than by anything distinctively "liberal." Demands were issued to publishers oftextbooks, accompanied by threats, while convoys of rightist trucks blaring martial music and uttering intimidatory slogans circled the offending publishing company offices. The names ofpublishers and the authors ofthe offending texts have featured prominently in the "Liberal View" books and pamphlets, and blown-up photographs of the private homes of the textbook authors have been circulated, with obviously threat- ening intent. Leaflets praising as a patriotic hero the right-wing fanatic who assassinated Socialist Party leader Asanuma Inejiro in 1960 are pointedly delivered to publishing offices, and violent and fascist organizations, such as the "Sekihotai," which was responsible for the 1987 attack on the office of Asahi shim bun (which left one journalist dead), come to lend Fujioka their SUpport?1 In all of this, it is hard to detect anything new, harder to detect anything liberal. However, although Fujioka and his colleagues blitzed the media with their exhortations and protestations and applied direct political pressure to the minister of education, their cam- paign has been signally unsuccessful. After intensive efforts to get local governing bodies to bombard Tokyo with requests to revise the textbooks, one prefecture (Okayama) and eleven lesser local government bodies did submit various resolutions to To- kyo, but many others simply shelved the draft resolutions. 38 Furthermore, the Okayama outcome so surprised and shocked local residents, especially women, that a nationwide movement intent on blocking the attempted campaign elsewhere quickly emerged. 39 Apart from pursuing the immediate war- and memOly-re- lated causes, other issues on which this new front is active include opposition to sex education in schools (stressing chaste education or junketsu kyoiku), opposition to the retention of family name by married women, and other "family" causes. It has yet to declare its hand on the fundamental question of constitutional reform. In sum, Fujioka'S movement rests upon a formidable social base, and his successful coalition around com- fort women issues, moral and family issues, and the project to create a "bright" history and national identity, point to the emer- gence of a new configuration. with unpredictable consequences. Towards Understanding and Interpretation The movement at whose head Fujioka has emerged in the past couple of years may be seen as fmnly rooted in the fabric of postwar Japanese nationalism. but revised and reformulated to accommodate to the changed circumstances of the post-cold war period and to Japan's emergence as a global economic superpower with aspirations to becoming a supetpower tout court. Fujioka's personal experience of revelation during his Gulf War sojourn in the United States, and his overwhelming sense of shame at Japan's inability to project its power and image to the world may be representative ofhis generation, ignorant of and scarcely interested in history. humiliated by what seems to be constant harping on Japan's supposed crimes and its dark history and the farcical "diplomacy of apology" conducted by those who have spoken for the Japanese government in recent years (while distributing "hard-earned" Japanese yen to an un- grateful world), and irritated by the low posture constantly required by the cold war incotporation within the U.S. sphere (and under its umbrella) and with what is seen as a mixture of condescension and bashing on the American part. The clarion call for construction of a proud, pure, and honorable history seems to call forth a strong emotional re- sponse. The sense ofresentment may be seen as a kind of "victim complex" (higaisha ishih). Because of the way the Fujioka movement moves to appropriate this sense, especial resentment has to be directed at the claim of others to be victims, and they find it especially galling that old women should be rising up in accusation throughout the region. So seriously are their allegations taken and so gross the slur on Japan's honor, that even the telling of their stories is judged to be a threat to the very survival of Japan, even (as noted above) nothing short of "a grand conspiracy for the destruction of Japan." In this grim role reversal the women victims are turned into assailants, who conspire to cast violent and threat- ening slurs on the honor and virtue of Japan.40 The parallels with European revisionism are plain. The dismissal of the comfort women issue or of the Nanking massa- cre as myth parallels the dismissal of the Holocaust, and in both cases the victims are recast as aggressors. Thus, for example, the 1980 words of the French literary scholar, Robert Faurisson, could be easily rewritten by changing only the context of the remarks from Europe to East Asia: "The alleged Hitlerian gas chambers and the so-called genocide of the Jews form a single historical lie whose principal historical beneficiaries are the state of Israel and international Zionism and whose principal victims are the German people ...... 41 Bulletin a/Concerned Asian Scholars 20 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org i I The conundrum at the heart ofprosperous and atlluent ' Japanis the strengthofthese sentimentsofresentment, victim complex, andlongingforpurity,innocenceandsolace, andthe . scaleofcommitmenttotheconstructionofa"historyinwhich peoplecantakepride," as ifthat were the function of history.42 i Pollution is apowerful theme in this discourse, as ifahistory I mightbecomepollutedmore by therevelationoftheshameful I than by the denial oftruth. This group can sweep aside the I researchesofagenerationofhistorians, andinsomecases(on I television) even proclaim proudly that they have not read the . workand that itwouldtake akind ofpervertto undertakethe .. sortofintensiveresearchoncomfortwomenthathasbeendone by thehistorianYoshimi (Yoshiaki).43 Theissuesraisedby thephenomenonare treatedwiththe utmost seriousness by critics and intellectuals in Japan. The historianNakamuraMasanoriseestheFujiokaphenomenonin thecontextofanoscillationthroughoutmodernhistorybetween nationalismand internationalism, Westernization and chauvin- ism. MerfIfty years,heseesthedesireforanewandpositive Japaneseidentityreachingapeak,especially onthepartofthe presentyouthandstudentgenerationwhohavebeenbroughtup inignoranceofhistory,surroundedbyimages,andlackinginthe capacity forindependentthought.44 ForSato Manabu (likeFu- jioka,aTokyoUniversityprofessorofeducation),Fujiokaand hiscolleaguesrepresent a"post-bubble, post-Aum" phenome- nonof"eccentric,egocentricnationalism,"anationalismthatis curiously deformed in that it has (at least as yet) no outward expressionbutonly itsinward-lookingdimension. 4s Thepoliti- calscientistIshidaTakeshiseesinthephenomenonevidenceof a general crisis ofJapanese intellectuals, especially at Tokyo University (where he himselfspent his careertill retirement). Althoughhesupportstheideaofa"liberal"viewofhistory,he pointsoutthatthatshouldmeaninpracticeamovementbeyond the common postwarperspectiveinwhichthe world has been seenonly throughthe lens ofthe U.S.-Japanrelationship, and whichincorporatesayearningto see,think, andfeelfrommul- tiple Asian and multiple"Zainichi" identities, especially from the perspective of the socially weak, the victims, and those neglected inthedecadence ofoffIcialacademicism. 46 This isa "liberalism"directlyopposedtoFujioka'sinsistenceonfInding andimposingthe"correct"view. Ishida'scriticismisechoedby SohKyong-sik, theKorean-in-Japancritic, who notesthatthe spaces within Japanese society forminorities such as hisown Zainichi community are bound to shrinkto the'extentthatFu- jioka'scauseadvances. 47 Theapprehensionandastonishmentof largenumbersofJapaneseintellectualsattheFujiokaphenome- noniscapturedbyKunihiroMasao,whospeaksofbeingunable to set aside the fear that what heis witnessing is "therush of Japanese-stylefascism.,,48 Conclusion WhileFujiokaseesthe"Tokyo TrialsViewofHistory"as something imposed by the United States inthe course ofthe occupationandtherootofsubsequentJapanesehumiliation,that isahighlyambiguousassessment."Leftists,"asamatteroffact, havebeen as criticalas rightistsofthetrials, arguingthatthey weredistorted,notonlybytheassumptionthatguiltwasexclu- sivetothedefeated-acritiquelongagoacceptedwidelyoutside Japan-butalsobecauseofthedecisiononpoliticalgroundsto remove from theirpurview all consideration ofcertain crucial VoL 30,No.2(1998) matters: the emperor, Unit 731, and the comfort women. The more the spotlight is directed, after half a century, onto the f problemoftheTokyoTrials,themoreobviousthismustbecome, t andthemorelikelythatthedebatewillevolveindirectionsthat true "liberals" will welcome but which Fujioka and his col- leagueswillfinddifficulttocontrol.tntimately,theproblemof thetrials isnotonlythatofwhereresponsibilitywas assigned, butofwhereitwasconcealedandevadedoften,by asemi-con- spiratorialjointAmerican-Japaneseagreement. Thelamentoverthelossofthesenseofstateinanincreas- inglyborderlessworld,andoverthelossofconservativecontrol overthe levers ofpowerwithinthat state, iscommon enough throughoutthe world, butthe passion with which Fujiokaand others address these matters is extraordinary. Their fear and vulnerability isdifficulttocomprehendgiventhattheJapanof which they speak is a global economic giant, claimant to a permanentseatontheUnitedNationsSecurityCouncil,andthe "successstory"ofthetwentiethcentury. Whatexactlyisitthat theyfear? Analogiesmaybedrawnwiththesortof"politicsof resentment" that spreads across the industrial world as urban massesfmd themselvesbecomingvictimofanonymousglobal forces, butinthe Japanesecaseeconomicfactorsseemto play only a slight role. Instead Fujioka is driven by fear ofthe shrinking of the authority of the state, the degradation and dissolutionofitsauthorityandsymbols. The Fujioka phenomenon highlights the dilemmafacing Japaneseconservativeandnationalistideologuesas they strug- gletocometo termswiththechangedglobalcircumstancesof thepost-coldwarworld. Whilemoderateelements,withstrong links to the political and business elites, have concluded that maintenance ofa "hard" line on questions ofthe history of JapaneseimperialismandmilitarisminAsiaisblockingthepath toafuture great-powerorevenhegemonicroleforJapaninthe twenty-fIrstcenturyandtherefore-whetherforreasonsofprin- cipleortactics,oroftenacombinationofboth-havechosenthe pathofapologyandreconciliation,otherslikeFujiokainsiston thenationalvirtueandpurity,atwhateverthecost. Onemay go onto suggestthatFujioka'sarticulationoftheJapanesenation- alist aspiration is peculiarlyvehementbecauseitexpressesthe senseofdesperationofthosewhoseethemselvesasashrinking andembattledminority,withthepoliticalmainstream,including thecorefactionsoftheLDP,havingalreadyshiftedground.Itis thatshiftthatshouldbeseenasmoresignifIcantthanthefrenzied opposition it has occasioned, although the latter, a powerful blend ofintellectual incoherence and emotional force, is cer- tainlynottobeignored. FujiokaandhisgroupmaintainthatthegapbetweenJapan anditsneighborcountriesoverhistoryandmemoryisunbridge- able, that the depth ofanti-Japanese sentiment on the part of countriessuchasChinaandKoreaissogreatthat"ifwewereto trytogetamutualhistoricalsensewithourAsianneighboursit would be bound to lead to surrenderonourpart."49 To quote Fujiokaagain,"Becauseweare Japanese,itisonlynaturalthat weshouldthinkofthingsfIrstfromtheperspectiveofJapanand itsnationalinterests."soItseemshardtodenythatFujioka'Splans forapositiveviewofJapanesehistory,andthepoliciesheurges on the Japanese government, would, ifeveradopted, set back immeasurablytheprocessofrapprochementwithJapan'sAsian neighborcountries.If Japanchosetospeaktotheregioninshrill tones ofcorrectness and narrow Japanese pride, and to adopt 21 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org textbooks that would substitute for historical education the in- culcation of an eclectic set of edifying stories designed to pro- mote traditional virtues and nationalist fervour, closely akin to prewar ethics textbooks, it would also have to confront its neighbors, rejecting their histories (insofar as they chose to recount their memory of Japanese imperialism, aggression and war) as "incorrect." The regional consequences would be unpre- dictable but inevitably disturbing. Yet this late twentieth-century articulation of the Japanese nationalist aspiration neglects two key dimensions of Japanese nationalism: the emperor on the one hand and the United States on the other, the inner and outer axes of national identity, both of them subject to taboos that prevent free or open discussion. The Fujioka blend of considerations of national pride, honor and purity suggests a rootedness in the historically privileged repre- sentations of Japanese identity built around the quintessential Japanese self-the unsullied, sublime, imperial essence. For such an essence to be sullied by the representation of Japan as a terrorist state, or a "rapist state," is utterly abhorrent. The other crucial question for Japanese nationalists is also one that they fear to express and can only repress and articulate in distorted form: the resentment over the long-continuing military and stra- tegic dependence on the United States. One may well wonder how this new attempt to articulate a positive, pure Japanese identity will in due course address these two questions. Fujioka and his colleagues have launched the debate into new waters by the way that they have constructed and attempted to confer respectability upon a new notion of Japan as unfettered good, de-linked (so far) from traditional formulations of Japa- nese identity centered upon the emperor and under the cloak of liberalism. The ideological mix looks unstable and its prospects unpredictable. Sooner or later, the nationalist forces currently supporting Fujioka in his distorted and limited evocation of nationalist themes are bound to turn to confront the contradic- tions and inconsistencies in it. When that happens, we will see what lies beneath the thin veneer of liberalism that cloaks Japa- nese right-wing nationalism in this, its newest guise. It is not necessarily worrying that post-cold war Japan should show such evidence of a strong desire to articulate a Japanese identity in which past, present, and future could be meaningfully integrated around a core that could command the loyalty of its own people and the respect of the world, for that desire is universal. What is really disturbing is rather the fact that liberalism and rationalism are used as a cloak for a mode of reasoning that is both antiliberal and antirational, and that a mode of politics, which has disturbing echoes of the violent and intolerant 1930s and which chooses to label as "antinational" or "masochistic" that with which it disagrees and to victimize those very same women who were among the most abject victims of the militarism of a half-century ago, should have emerged as a significant national movement in late twentieth-century Japan. Notes 1. Ooka Shoheishu, Chikuma gendai bungaku taikei, Vol. 69 (Tokyo: Chikuma Shobo, 1975), p. 50. 2. Fujioka Nobukatsu, Ojoku no kin-gendaishi (Tokyo: Tokwna Shoten, 1996), p. 30. 3. Even the fonner Governor of Tokyo, Suzuki Shoo'ichi, was rumored to be on this list (Hasegawa Hiroshi, "Suzuki zen to-chiji mo risuto koho," Aero, 30 December 1996 to 6 January 1997,pp. 10-11. See also Joji Shingo, "Kyu Nihon-gWl kankeisha Bei e nyukoku kinshi," Asahi shimbun, 23 December 1996. 4. The question of Washington's motives is complex. Suffice it to say here that concern for the human rights of the women was unlikely to have figured high among its priorities. 5. See my The Emptiness ofJapanese Affluence (Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 1996), p. 275. 6. For discussion of these details see: Inoue Sumio, "Chiho gikai 0 arasou 'kusanone de hoshuha' no shitsooen,"Shukan kinyobi, 28 March 1997, pp. 22-25; Suzuki Yuko, '"Jiyushugi shikan' tonaeru yokaita- chi," Shukan kinyobi, 31 January 1997, p. 11; Nakamura Seiji, "Rekishi kyokasho kaizan ha to uyoku jimuyaku," Shukan kinyobi, 14 March 1997, pp. 22-25 7. Fujioka Nobukatsu, Kyokasho ga oshienai rekishi (History not taught in textbooks), 3 vols. (Tokyo: Fusosha and Sankei Shimbun, 1996-97). 8. Fujioka Nobukatsu, Ojoku no kin-gendaishi. 9. See Takahashi Shiro inSapio, 15 January 1997, p. 97. 10. Tomoko Otake, "Row over Denial ofSex Slaves Rages," The Japan Times, 28 December 1996. 11. Kobayashi Hideo, "Ajia to kyocho shite koso han'ei ha aru," Sekai, May 1997, pp. 200-205, at p. 205. 12. From a report of the fmUlding meeting ofthe group on2 December 1996: Kajimum Taichiro, "Yurushigatai 'Nihon yuetsu shikan'," Shu- kan kinyobi, 13 December 1996, pp. 16-17. 13. Fujioka Nobukatsu, Ojoku no kin-gendaishi, p. 30. 14. Fujioka Nobukatsu, ''Han-Nichi kyoiku Satian dasshutsu no ki," Shincho. July 1996, quoted in Hayashi Miyayuki, '"Jiyushugi shikan' tojo no haikei to sono keifu," Tsukuru, March 1997, pp. 90-99, at p. 90. 15. Fujioka Nobukatsu, "Sex Slave Issue Is a Scandal Invented to Bash Japan," Asahi Evening News, 26 January 1997. 16. Fujioka Nobukatsu, ''Ianfu kyosei renko kyoko no shomei," Part 1, Gendai kyoikugaku, November 1996, quoted in Suzuki, '" Jiyushugi shikan' tonaeru yokaitachi," p. 11. 17. Fujioka Nobukatsu, "Sex Slave Issue." The adjectives he uses repeatedly in his Japanese texts are: "koshoku, inmn, guretsu," more directly translated as "lascivious, depraved, idiotic." Fujioka Nobu- katsu, Ojoku no kin-gendaishi, p. 27. 18. Hata lkuhiko, ''Iwayuru 'sampa' ha ikanishite ianfu 0 seiiki to kashita no ka?" Sapio, 15 January 1997, pp. 87-89. 19. Hata Ikuhiko, "JUgWl ianfu mondai de kuni no hoteki sekinin ha toenai," in Sekai, May 1997, pp. 322-25, at p. 325. Hata, like Fujioka, seems to have oodergone a transformation in his thinking, because he is on record in 1985 as holding the view that 70 to 80 percent of the women were "called up" in a way "approximating to forced labour, but without written records because they were supernumeraries." (Nihon rikungun no han: Ssokaisetsu, quoted in Tawara Yoshiftuni, ''Fujioka Nobukatsu shi no kyokasho kogeki no sajutsu 0 abaku."Shukan kinyobi, 9 May 1997, pp. 30-33, at p. 31. 20. Fujioka Nobukatsu, "Ajia no ianfu mondai no kyoko: Indonesia genchi chosa hoka kara aburidasu," Sapio, 11 December 1996, pp. 102-105, at p. 104. 21. Fujioka, Ojoku, pp. 25-26; also his ''Mombu daijin e no !rokai shokan," Voice, October 1996, pp. 72-81, at p. 76. The analogy is repeated in Hata Ikuhiko, ''Ianfu 'minouebanashi' 0 tettei kensho sum," inShokun, December 1996, pp. 54-69, at p. 55. 22. Rata, ''IwaylUU 'sampa' ha ikanishite ianfu 0 seiiki to kashita no ka?" 23. Nishio Kanji and Fujioka Nobukatsu, Kokumin no yudan (Tokyo: PHP, 1996), p. 150. 24. Nishio a n j ~ 'Waitsuzekka wa seija janai," Ronza, Novanber 1995, and ''K.otonaru higeki,"Bunge; shunju, 1994, quoted inKajimum Taichiro, "Rekishi kaizanshugi ha chisei e no botoku de aru," Sekai, July 1997, pp. 72-84, at p. 80. 25. Fujioka Nobukatsu in Sankei shimbun, 27 September 1996, quoted in Suzuki, '" Jiyushugi shikan' tonaeru yokaitachi," p. 11. 26. On the eugenics, see Kaneko-Martin, ''Nazi Doitsu to tennosei Nihon ga kokuji suru chi no shinwa to kokka shiso," Shukan kinyobi, 14 February 1997, pp. 26-29. Bulletin ofConcemedAsian Scholars 22 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org 27. Kajimura, ''Rekishi kaizanshugi ha chisei e no botoku de aru," p. 80. 28. The Communist Party-affiliated "Minsei," not the "New Left." See Fujioka, Ojoku, p. 91. 29. Fujioka Nobukatsu, "Ikkoku heiwashugi no moto de sodatta watashi ga... genba no tondemonai kiki ni ki ga shimasu," Sapio, 9 October 1996, pp. 104-107. 30. For interesting comments on Fujioka's career by his Tokyo Univer- sity sempai and by Horio Teruhisa, current president of the Nihon Kyoiku Gakkai, see the interview with Horio in Shukan kinyobi, 31 January 1997, pp. 15-19. 31. Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars (London: Allen Lane, 1978). 32. Richard Minear, Victor sJustice (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univer- sity Press, 1971). 33. Fujioka, Ojoku, pp. 96-97, and, for his brief discussion with Minear, pp. 101-107. 34. Ishibashi in his journal Toyo Keizai, 1921 (quoted in Sakamoto Tatsuhiko, "Meiji Taisho no shimbun ni arawareta 'shinryaku' ," Shukan kinyobi, 4 April 1997, pp. 24-27, at p. 26); on Shiba, see Kunihiro Masao, "Nihon kareobana ron no naka de saku 'jiyushugi shikan' to iu adabana," Shukan kinyobi, 14 February 1997, pp. 22-24, at p. 23 (and sources cited there). 35. Nakamura Masanori, Kin gendaishi 0 do miruka: Shiba shikan 0 tou (Tokyo: Iwanami, 1997), Iwanami Bukkuretto, no. 427, p. 51. 36. Horio's assessment in Shukan kinyobi, 31 January 1997, p. 18. 37. Sato Akira, "Kore ga uyoku no kogeki to kyohaku no itoguchi da," Shukan kinyobi, 21 March 1997, pp. 26-29, at p. 26. 38. "Okayama kengikai ga saitaku,"Asahi shimbun, 18 December 1996. 39. Inoue, "Chiho gikai 0 arasou 'kusanone de hoshuha' no shitsunen," pp.22-25. 40. Suzuki, '''Jiyushugi shikan' tonaeru yokaitacbi," p. 11. 41. Quoted inPierreVidal-Naquel,A&Ytmins qfMemory: Essays antheDenial qftheHolocaust (New Yorlc Columbia University Press, 1992), p. xiii. 42. See the interesting discussion by the social psychologist Miyaji Shinji, "Seijuku shakai ni shinkuro dekizu kyoko no rekishi ni sugaru oyaji," Asahi shimbun, 27 March 1997. 43. Nishio Kanji, on "Asamade" late-night television, TV Asahi, 1 February 1997. (See comments by Nakamura Seiji, "Rekishi kyokasho kaizanha to uyoku jinmyaku," Shukan kinyobi, 14 March 1997, pp. 22-25, at p. 25.) 44. Nakamura Masanori, "'Nihon kaiki' yondome no nami," Mainichi shimbun, 4 February 1997. (English translation by John Morris, on "H-Japan" [Internet], 14 February 1997). 45. Sato Manabu, "Taiwa no kairo 0 tozasbita rekishikan 0 do kokufuku suru ka" (Zadandai discussion with various others), Sekai, May 1997, pp.185-199,atp.186 46. Ishida Takeshi, interviewed by Utsumi Aiko, "Ishitsu na tasha no shiteno fumaeterekishio miru,"Gekkan 011lta, March 1997, pp. 15-19. (English translation as ''Looking at History through the Eyes of the Other,"inAmpo: Japan-Asia Quarlerly Review 27, no. 4 [1997]: 32-37). 47. Soh Kyong-sik, "Jiyushugishi gurupu ni hangeki suru," Shukan kinyobi, 7 February 1997, p. 26. 48. Kunihiro, "Nihon kareobana ron no nakade saku 'jiyushugi shikan' to iu adabana," p. 23. 49. Foundation statement of the "Society for 1lJe Making of New School Textbooks in History," 2 December 1996. See Nishio Kanji, "Atarashii rekishikyokasho no amsoi," Voice, February 1997,pp. 108-27, atpp. 110-11. 50. Quoted in John Vachon, "Text Uses Whitewash to TurnHistory into Propaganda," Asahi Evening News, 8 December 1996. o In the Name of the Emperor The Rape of Nanjing Produced by ChrIstine Choy and Nancy Tong (producer and co-producer of Who Killed Vlncent Chin) " ... bears witness to humanity's seemingly unlim- ited capacityJor inhuman behavior. " -New York TImes " ... incisive, crttically important documentary." -Film Journal International "It is hoped 'In the Name oj the Emperor' will be seen by as many people as possible. " -The AsIan Wall Street Journal SpecIal Jury Award, San Francisco International Film Festival, 1995 Human RIghts Watch International Film Festival, 1995 AsIan AmerIcan International Film Festival. 1995 Hong Kong International Film Festival, 1995 52 mInutes Sale $295. Rental $75. Available now from Filmakers LIbrary, 124 East 40th Street, New York. NY 10016 USA Call or wrIte for 1998 catalog: 1-212-808-4980. E-mail: info@ftlmakers.com Vol. 30, No.2 (1998) 23 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org Bulletin ofConcerned Asian Scholars. Vol. 30, No.2 (1998): 24-29 ISSN 0007-4810 C 1998 BCAS (Oakland, California) The History Textbook Controversy and Nationalism This article examines the origins of critics' claims that history textbooks in middle schools and high schools in Japan do nothing but slander Japan and present a gloomy, "self-tormenting historical perspective. " The study is set against the backdrop of a new version ofthe "Return to Japan" phenomenon, which began as a reaction to the Civilization and Enlightenment movement at the start of the Meiji period. The author focuses attention on the arguments of the "Liberal Historiography Study Group," observing that they are highly ideological and present a distorted view of both contemporary Japan and modem p n e s e history. "What is the role of historians and teachers in all ofthis?" The author answers that "we must face up to the facts of history and openly communicate past successes and failures to students .... [T]here is no shame in failure itself. Rather, it is shameful not to study past failures or to falsify them and so distort the historical consciousness of the Japanese people. " by Nakamura Masanori, translated by Kristine Dennehy" Over the past several years, there have been increasingly vocal demands to revise modem and contemporary Japanese history education. Critics claim that middle- and high-school history textbooks do nothing but slander Japan and present a gloomy, "self-tonnenting historical perspective" ("jigyaku shi- kan "). Such an education, they say, prohibits Japanese children from taking pride in their country's history and does not allow them to foster a sound nationalism. They add, "Citizens who do not have a sense of pride in their own country will not gain world respect." Why have such assertions emerged? There are many reasons; however, I believe the basic cause is that the desire for a stronger Japanese identity and nationalism has increased after a half century in the postwar era. Historically, since the Meiji period (1868-1912), there has been a cycle every three decades or so moving from Western- ization to provincialism, internationalism to nationalism, and back again. It has been over thirty years now since philosopher Miyakawa Toro called attention to this "Return to Japan" phe- nomenon. According to Miyakawa, the first wave of provincial- ism and nationalism came in 1890-1900 as a reaction to the Civilization and Enlightenment movement at the start of the Meiji period. Representative thinkers of that period included Kuga Katsunan, Miyake Setsurei, Shiga Shigetaka, and Taka- yama Chogyu. The second wave responded to the cosmopolitan- ism and democratic mood that bridged the end of the Taisho period (1912-1926) and the beginning of Showa (1926-1989). Watsuji Tetsuro, Nishida Kitaro, Suzuki Daisetsu, and the ideas Thanks to John Morris for translating the frrst section of this essay and for bringing it to our attention via the Internet discussion group H-Asia. and arguments of the Japan Romantic School and the Kyoto School represent these nationalistic currents ofthe 1930s. The third wave of the "Return to Japan" movement arose in the 1950s and 1960s 1 as a backlash against the internationalism and Americanism following the Second World War, exemplified by Kuwabara Takeo and Takeyama Michio's revisionist theories of Japanese culture, and Hayashi Fusao's "Afftnnation of the Greater East Asia War." The poet Hagiwara Sakutaro coined the term "Return to Japan" at that time. Here I will mention only Ishihara Shin- taro's The Japan that Can Say "No" and the recent diatribes of Nishio Kanji and Fujioka Nobukatsu. Common to all four waves of this "Return to Japan" phe- nomenon are a re-evaluation of tradition, a belief in the supe- riority of the Japanese race (minzoku), and a call to revive the role of the Japanese State. In some ways, this cycle of national- ism is like a "law of motion" distinctive to modem Japan. I believe that in a few more years things will calm down; however, even so, we cannot ignore this current trend. In partiCUlar these most recent tendencies have started to exert a great influence in the realm of history education for middle and high school students. What is different about today's "Returnto Japan"? First and foremost is the collapse of socialism and a decline in the influ- ence of Marxist ideology. Postwar historiography was domi- nated by Marxist interpretations and the influence of scholars such as Otsuka Hisao and Maruyama Masao who studied the relationships among the individual, society, and the state. Many early postwar historians also faulted the Emperor-centered view ofhistory for contributing to the Asia-Pacific War. Their assump- tions are now being questioned. Second, not only are today's students a "generation igno- rant of war," more significantly they are a "generation ignorant Bulletin o/Concerned Asian Scholars 24 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org This illus1Jation, taken from a 1941 children's picture book, shows the signers of the Tripartite Pact Mussolini, Hitler, and Konoe Fwni- mam, Japan's Prime Minister in 1940. (Source: Nor/oKuboi, Nihon no shinryaku sennsou toAjia no kodomo, Tokyo: Akashi Shoten, 1996, p. 81.) of poverty." All they have ever known is a life of abundance and they believe that Japan is a good country. Even after the burst of the economic bubble, students still think that Japan is better off than other countries. Furthennore, this is a generation raised on television and comic books, to whom concepts such as "struc- ture" and the "laws of history" no longer appeal. There has also been a generational shift among middle- and high-school teach- ers. The majority were born after the period of high-speed economic growth and have experienced neither war nor postwar poverty. Teachers and students are becoming increasingly simi- lar in this regard. This change in the educational environment is so great as to be beyond my powers of imagination. Third, postwar Japanese history has been called a history of Americanization due to the OVerwhelmingly strong ties with the United States. In recent years, Americans have grown more critical ofJapan and the Japanese more resentful of this criticism. For over half a century, the Japanese government and business i" world have been at the beck and call of the United States. t Whenever trade friction intensifies, there is a rise in "Japan I bashing" and threats are made to invoke Super 301 sanctions. ' During the Persian Gulf War, despite Japan's contribution of $13 ' billion, President Bush and the Sultan of Kuwait made no men- , tion of Japan in their declarations of appreciation. The cancella- } tion of the Enola Gay exhibit at the Smithsonian Museum in 1995 under pressure from u.s. veterans' organizations only added to the feelings among the Japanese people that they were being treated unfairly. It seems to me that these underlying feelings of unfair treatment are behind the rapid increase in statements by I Vol. 30, No.2 (1998) some conservative politicians and scholars, saying that they reject a view of World War II that the Axis powers-Japan, Gennany, and Italy-were 100 percent wrong and the Allied powers (particularly the United States) were 100 percent right. The recent controversies over bases in Okinawa have also high- lighted feelings of injustice following consistent discrimination against Okinawans by the U.S. and Japanese governments in the postwar period. Recent calls for a revision of history education thus have deep roots, and an inquiry into such calls must include an analysis of the changing national sentiment of the Japanese people and their assumptions about Japanese history. Discussion must di- rectly confront hard issues and also occur where many people will read or hear about it. I learned this lesson from a commen- tator at a symposium in Yokohama in December 1996, on "Con- sidering the Tokyo Trials-What Wasn't Judged." After I gave a presentation entitled "The Tokyo Trials and Contemporary Japanese History," and criticized Fujioka Nobukatsu (Fujioka was also a panelist, and was seated next to me), I received about twenty comments from the audience. One read as follows: At this stage, Fujioka is no longer simply a troublemaker. Rather the problem is that most people, and the YOlmger generation in particu- lar, are influenced by his opinions. Given your responsibility as an historian, if you limit yourself simply to writing good essays and books, youcan't oppose the influence ofFujiokaand otherslike him. Their recent actions are not just a passjng fad. Certainly, just to criticize Fujioka is not the end of the matter. If we do not also seriously question the substance of contemporary and modern Japanese history along with history education, we will make no progress. "Liberal Historiography Study Group" Attention to the arguments of the "Liberal Historiography Study Group" shows that they are highly ideological and insist on a distorted view of both contemporary Japan and modem Japanese history. A good example ofthis is Fujioka Nobukatsu's Shameful Modem History.2 In this book, Fujioka says that "cur- rent history textbooks are filled with a self-tonnenting and anti-Japanese view of history." But this is a warped, one-sided assertion. As is common knowledge, the Ministry of Education must first certify elementary, middle, and high school history textbooks before they are adopted for use in Japanese schools. If all history textbooks were laden with this self-tonnenting anti- Japanese view of history, they would not be authorized by the Ministry of Education. Anyone who knows the details of the Ienaga Saburo textbook trials understands this. However, because descriptions of the "comfort women" appeared simultaneously in all middle school history textbooks slated for use in April 1997, Fujioka became enraged and met directly with the Minister of Education (it is said that fonner prime minister Nakasone Yasuhiro facilitated the meeting), and petitioned for the removal of mention of the comfort women from the textbooks. Once a textbook has been authorized, dele- tions are never made and so, as expected, the petition was denied on the grounds that the descriptions were accurate. Ifthe Ministry of Education had accepted Fujioka's request, there would have been a stonn ofprotest domestically, which probably would have escalated into an international problem. Fujioka is fighting a battle in which the mainstream of the chief conservative political party, the LOP, has already conceded 25 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org alltheimportantterritory. Inarecent interviewwithareporter fromtheAsahi Shinbun, formerSecretary-GeneralKonoYohei, whilenotnamingany names,disputedtheclaimsofFujiokain detail. 3 Kono pointedtoextant public documents whichprove thatthe Japanese army participated inthe round-up, transport, and movementofthecomfortwomenand clearly demonstrate thevalidityoftheex-comfortwomen'stestimony. AsKonoput it, these are "facts which could only be spokenabout by vici- tims."Thesamedocumentsshowthateventhoughmostofthe womenmay nothavebeen literally hunteddownandcaptured as slaves, an analysisoftherecrutimentproceduresshowsthat (1)therecruiterscontrolledthewomenwithloanmoneyupfront, (2) they tricked them by promising them goodjobs, (3) they threatened thewomenwith armedforce, and (4) somewomen were kidnapped andabductedby force. Thiscorrespondswith the results ofinvestigation by distinguished scholars such as YoshimiYoshiaki.4 Indefianceofthis,the"Committeeto Write NewHistory Textbooks"setupinDecember1996andrepresentedbyFujioka andNishioKanji,declaredthatinthetextbooktheywillproduce, there will not be one line about the comfort women, and no attempttowrite aboutthe Nanjing massacreorUnit731. Fur- thermore, Fujiokaargues that the GreaterEast Asia War was partlyawarofself-defenseand,intheend,ithelpedliberateAsia from Westernimperialism. Inshort,theirstanceismalechauvinistic,ethnocentric,and showsacompletedisregardforhumanrights.Moreover,itisnot liberal. Recently, in an essay called "'Strong State' 'Weak State'," I wrotethat"regardlessofEastorWest, theessence ofliberalismisthedesirefora 'weakstate.,5Ifstateinterven- tion is called upon to accomplish one's task, use ofthe term liberalismismeaningless."Itcanbesaidwithoutreservationthat theLiberalHistoriographyStudyGrouphasturnedintoanationalist group. Whatis ShibaRyotaro'sViewofHistory? Why,then,doesanyonelistentothisgroup?Onereasonis Fujioka'sclaimtobeextendingtheworkofShibaRyotaro,who passedawayin 1996.Fujiokahaswrittenthat"ifIhadn'tcome across theworksofShibaRyotaro, Ithink itwouldhavebeen difficulttoremovemyselffromthespellbindingpowerofpost- warhistory education.,,6 Shiba'sworksofhistoricalfiction and criticism have had unparalled influence onthe historical con- sciousness ofthe Japanese people. 7 Fujioka wants to capture someofShiba'spopularity. However,thisepigonehastakenup thewiseman'sgoodpoints, and distorted andexaggeratedthe badpoints. Fujioka'smainargumentis nothingmorethansec- ondhandknowledgeofShibaRyotaro. FujiokaisrighttoseeShibaascrucialinshapingJapanese people's views ofhistory. Following the advice I received in Yokohama,IdecidedtoanalyzeShiba'sviewsinordertounder- standhowmostJapanesethinkaboutJapanesehistory. Inbrief, Shiba'sviewofhistory canbecharacterizedasasimpledichot- omy between "brightMeiji" and "darkShowa." Shibapraised theMeijiperiod(1868-1912)andcriticizedpresurrenderShowa (1926-1945). This view ofmodemhistory restsonhis experi- encesofwaranddefeat.FukudaTeiichi(Shiba'srealname)was twenty-two when the warwas lost. Shiba has said thatat that time he thought, "Whendid the Japanese become so foolish? Whohasmadesuchamessofthisnationandmadethispeople (minzoku) sopitiful?Thiswasthestartingpointofmynovels." Aroundagethirty-five,hestartedreadingdocumentsandgath- eringdata, andthetheme ofhiswritingforthe rest ofhislife became,"WhoaretheJapanesepeople?EvenifShowawasno good,Meiji wasdifferent." Inthisway Shibashowedhissym- pathiestowardthosewhoshapedtheMeijiperiod. AfterShiba wroteRyoma ga yuku (Ryoma steps forth) and Saka no ue no kumo (Reaching for the sky), he said, "IfSakamoto Ryoma 8 hadn'tbeenborn,Japanesehistorywouldhavebeenverydiffer- ent. WhydidJapanwinoverasuperpowerlikeRussiain 1905? Therationalismandrealismof Meiji.TheMeijiStatewasgood. Itwasgoodupuntilthattime."Butthingschangedfortheworse afterJapanwontheRusso-JapaneseWar. "WinningtheRusso- Japanese War brought on the disease ofimperialism and the dreadfulencounterwith militarism. Onalargerscale,the sub- sequentexperiencesanddestructionofthePacificWarwasthe priceoftheRusso-Japanesevictory.,,9 InKono kun; no katachi (Theshapeofthiscountry),Shiba wrotethatthefortyyearsfromthejingoisticHibiyariotsof1905 untilthedefeatin 1945wasatimeof"abnormalgestation"and theArmy General Staffwasthe"devilinthewomb." In short, from the time ofvictory in the Russo-Japanese war, modem Japanesehistoryveeredfromitstruecourseandenteredanage DESCRIPTIONOF THENANJINGATROCITIES An example of textbook screening concerning the Nanjing (Nanking) massacre: Descriptioninthetextbookmanuscript Inunediately after the occupation ofNanking, the Japanese Anny killed numerous Chinese soldiers and citizens. This incidentcametobeknownastheNankingMassacre. Screeningexaminer'scomment(suggestedrevision) Readers might interpretthis description as meaning that the Japanese Anny unilaterally massacredChinese immediately aftertheoccupation. Thispassageshouldberevisedsothatit isnotintetpretedinthatway. ProfessorIenaga'sassertion The facts oftheNanking Massacreby the Japanesemilitary forces weremade knownthrough newsreportsjustafterthe incidentandthroughdocumentssubmittedduring theTokyo WarCrimesTrials. Sincethen, moredetailedfacts havebe- comewidelyknownamongtheJapanesepeople. Outcomeofthescreening ProfessorIenagareluctantlyrevisedtheexpressionasfollows: "While battling the fierce resistance ofthe Chinese armed forces, the JapaneseAnny occupiedNanking andkillednu- merousChinesesoldiersandcitizens.Thisincidentcametobe knownastheNankingMassacre." Source: Truth in Textbooks, Freedom in Education and Peace for Children: The Struggle against Censorship of School Textbooks in Japan (Tokyo: National League forSupport ofthe SchoolTextbook ScreeningSuit, 1995),p. 13. Bulletin ofConcerned Asian Scholars 26 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org of discontinuity. In addition, by calling the General Staff the "devil in the womb," Shiba imagined an evil and different nation from the "good" modem Japan born in the Meiji era-the Su- preme Command nation. The Supreme Command was the high- est military authority and throughout the Meiji era it was appro- priately subordinate to civilian authority. This is in large part due to the wisdom of Meiji-era elder statesmen such as Yamagata Aritomo and Ito Hirobumi. However, in the 1930s, Japan became a "supreme command nation." Many Japanese thought that the 1930 London Naval Treaty violated the "independence of the supreme command," and some ultranationalists even physically attacked domestic critics of the doctrine ofunchallengeable state power, such as Minobe Tatsukichi, who argued that the Emperor was only part of the Japanese state. "From then on, Showa was headed toward ruin," Shiba argued. 10 Shiba also said that Showa was a spiritually unhealthy age that turned into madness. Accordingly, he never made up the age of Showa the subject of his novels. For sixteen years, he com- piled information on the Nomonhan Incident, but never actually wrote about it. Or rather, he could not write about it. As is commonly known, in the 1939 Nomonhan Incident, the Kwan- tung Army used all of its power in a confrontation with the Russian Army but was overwhelmed by the mechanized forces under the command of General Zhukhov. Of the 58,925 men sent into action, there were 19,786 casualties (33.5 percent). During the final battle at the end of August, the 23rd division of 15,140 soldiers suffered 10,297 casualties (68 percent). This casualty rate of seven in ten was an enormous defeat unprecedented in military history. Just before the battle the staff officers from Tokyo and Hsinking (present-day Changchun) had said publicly, "We have known of the stupidity of those Russians since the Russo-Japanese War. If we charge, they will flee."ll To Shiba, the battle of Nomonhan exemplified the irrationality of the Japanese army which ignored technology and relied far too much on a "Japanese fighting spirit." Shiba's criticism of the war was severe in other ways as well. His views on the Pacific War are summed up in "The Japanese People's Twenty-first Century," in The Shape a/This Country: The "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere" was of course a euphemism. To risk destroying one's own country for the sake of other Asian countries, in effect, to kill oneself out of benevolence is a mad national sentiment unheard ofin any country's past, including Japan. The real objective ofthe Southem Advance strategy-that is, the strategic plan for the Greater East Asia War-was to procure oil needed to continue the war in China. The aim was to control the oil fields of Borneo and Swnatra in Dutch-occupied Indonesia. While the intention was not to seize territory, nonetheless Japan caused great hann to many other peoples [minzoku] and conducted a war of aggression. Some say that the war was a catalyst for the inde- pendence of Southeast Asian countries in the postwar period, but even so the true intent was to secure oil. And to protect that acquisition, Japan attacked the United States and Great Britain and went on to set up military bases in many locations. If Japan truly had such virtuous plans to liberate colonized lands, then first they would have had to free Korea and Taiwan. 12 There is a significant gap between Fujioka Nobukatsu's view that the Greater East Asia War was a war of self-defense and Asian liberation and Shiba Ryotaro's view that the Pacific War was a war of aggression. Shiba wrote of a "sense of pain in Showa history" that is missing in Fujioka'S view. The essence of Fujioka's ultranationalism is seen most clearly in the way he deliberately distorts Shiba's views in order to attract a large audience. I do not want to give the impression that I agree with Shiba on all points either. It is readily apparent that while Shiba lauds the Meiji period, he disparages Showa, but cannot precisely grasp the whole structure of modem Japanese history simply by contrasting "bright Meiji" and "dark Showa." Because the main institutions of Taisho and Showa were formed during Meiji, it is too simplistic to posit a great discontinuity and rupture between Meiji and Showa. Also, we should not overlook the huge change in international relations during the 1920s and 1930s. Or, to put it another way, in every age, there are bright and dark sides. There are bright things in Meiji that turned dark in Showa and the reverse is also true. Modem Japanese history is not so simple that it can be grasped merely by a literary contrast of "bright Meiji" and "dark Showa." Thus, Shiba's view of Japanese history con- tains problems too. To give one example, Shiba's view that the Supreme Com- mand expanded from the beginning of the Showa period, creat- ing a qualitative change in the Japanese nation that transformed it into something totally different is not accurate. Actually, the supporting ideology and system of the Supreme Command was formulated during the Meiji period, (with the creation ofthe 1878 independent General Staff, the 1882 Imperial Rescript to Sol- diers and Sailors, the 1893 independent military command, and the 1900 stipulation that the war minister had to be an active-duty officer). Because Shiba's historical view disregards such events, he can say that a sudden dark change came about in the Showa period, but actually the seeds of Showa's failure already were being cultivated in the era of "bright Meiji." Conversely, Shiba claims that when citizens gathered in Hibiya Park to protest the Portsmouth Treaty on 5 September 1905 the Japanese people became "crazed" and from then on history went downhill. But Yoshino Sakuzo, a leader of the Taisho democracy movement, saw things very differently. In his view, this mass gathering of citizens marked the moment when the Japanese people dramatically entered the political stage and so made democracy possible. 13 The high point of Taisho democ- racy is debated among historians and there are many theories, but I side with those who use the period from 1905 until the demise of party politics in 1932 (when Prime Minister Inukai Tsuyoshi was assassinated and no other party politician felt secure enough to form a new Cabinet). In economic terms as well, after the depression following the Russo-Japanese War, the outbreak of World War I resulted in a sudden improvement in Japan's economy, not a downturn. This interpretation would mean a "bright Taisho" sandwiched between darker Meiji and Showaeras. As shown above, even a brief examination reveals a number ofweak points and flaws in Shiba's understanding ofmodem and contemporary Japanese history. Shiba's historical consciousness can be characterized in the following way: he depicts a "bright" Meiji, the brightness of which is necessary to compensate for the bleak image he has constructed of early Showa (1926-1945). Moreover, he dates the "fall" of Japan to the years following the Russo-Japanese War, and accordingly finds little of value in the Taisho period. Fujioka Nobukatsu follows this aspect of Shiba's interpretation of modem Japanese history. He imitates Shiba when he boasts about his theory of "The forty-year cycle of Vol. 30, No.2 (1998) 27 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org modern Japanese histoxy," in which the first forty years ofMeiji are an age of progress and the next forty years are an age of decline. Given this view, the Liberal Historiography Study Group, despite its name, ignores the most liberal age in modern Japanese histoxy, the period of Taisho democracy. Toward tbe Construction of a New National Vision In today 's world, the European Union, NAFTA, APEC, and the like, all indicate the advance of regional integration on a global scale. Yet, as we enter an age of conflict between nation- alism and internationalism, we are faced with the paradox that the waves ofnationalism have gotten stronger. Just as the global economic depression at the end ofthe nineteenth centuxy ushered in an age of global imperialism and nationalism, the end of the twentieth century has brought about the rise of nationalism throughout the world. Groups in England and France call for a "Return to Western Europe," while in Germany some historians argue that Nazi war crimes were not unusually terrible and right- wing thugs regularly attack Turkish and other foreign workers. In China, The China that Can Say "No" was a 1.4 million-copy bestseller and a demand for a "Return to China" has emerged there as well. According to Japanese newspaper reports, Tai- wan's President Lee Teng-hui has stressed the need to overcome the "Guomindang view of history," and has called for education aimed at strengthening the national identity of the Taiwanese people. And Australian Prime Minister John Howard faced protests by historians there when he proclaimed that the coun- try's histoxy should be portrayed in a more positive light. In sum, since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the collapse of socialism, the Pandora's box of nationalism has been opened. The same thing is happening in Japan. The economy has been in a quagmire of recession ever since the bubble economy burst in 1991. Politically as well, with the collapse of the "1955 system" there is clearly a deadlock in the "Japanese-made sys- tem" of power sharing among political parties, bureaucrats, and big business that has operated for half-a-centuxy now. The search for a way out of this quagmire has prompted strident demands for a view ofhistory centered on"national interests" and for a"nationalistic historical perspective" that promotes pride in Japan's history. In other words, the grand tale of Japan as an economic superpower and the world's most stable political system has already lost its power of persuasion over Japanese citizens. While no new tale of equal force has been proposed by the left wing, right wing, or moderates, the right-wing conservative faction has come closest with its reactionary tale that miscon- strues and falsifies the past. At the same time, the Japanese right seeks to construct a political system that would allow for a detrimental revision of Japan's constitution, a stronger national defense, and the overseas dispatch of the Self-Defense Forces. In short, while they claim to be making Japan a "nonnal country," they are seeking to construct an economic and military super- power. In the face of this, Japanese opposition forces paint a vision ofthe nation that would block such constitutional revision, reduce the military, and construct a welfare state. Although nationalistic sentiment is becoming stronger in countries around the world, I do not think such trends will continue for long. My thinking is not based on the ahistorical view that the twenty-first centuxy will inevitably bring about a collision of the' cultures of East and West. Rather, Japan's his- torical experience, as I said at the outset, is one in which ages of cosmopolitanism alternate with ages of ultranationalism. How- ever, this is not inevitable, unlike a law of nature. Thorough criticism is imperative in order to prevent a rise in ultranational- ism. In the 1960s, when Hayashi Fusao proposed the "Theoxy affirming the Greater East Asia War," many historians, politi- cians, and philosophers joined together in protest and the power of their influential critique lasted for several years. The main reason was that Hayashi's statements themselves could not hold up under historical scrutiny. But even so, if there had been no organized counterattack, his theories would have had longer-lasting influence. The same is true for this "Fourth Return to Japan." As we approach the twenty-first century, the competition over history textbooks is a cultural war, not only about Japan's past but also about its future. This is the relevant context for understanding Fujioka'S attacks on the inclusion of descriptions about the comfort women in middle school textbooks. At first, historians, politicians, middle- and high-school teachers were slow to react but gradually denunciations of Fujioka appeared, growing in power in 1997. Academic journals and monthly and weekly magazines such as Rekishi Hyoron (History Criticism), Kyoiku (Education), Sekai (World), Kikan-Senso Sekinin Ken- kyu (Quarterly War Responsibility Research), and Shukan Kin- yohi (Friday Weekly) have been especially critical of the Liberal Historiography Study Group. At first, prefectural and local government assemblies in some areas acceded to the demands of conservative factions to delete descriptions about the comfort women (the Okayama Prefecture assembly and nine others). But since the beginning of 1997, there has been a sharp decrease in the number of assem- blies that have met such demands. For example, in the Aomori prefectural assembly, opposition leaders forcefully challenged and defeated conservatives' attempts to pass a resolution that attacked new middle school textbooks that mentioned the com- fort women and the Nanjing massacre. They rejected the argu- ment that "the government should not recognize and should quickly move to correct textbooks that are infused with a self- tormenting historical perspective and denies there is anything good in prewar Japanese history." Additionally, although similar petitions were submitted to each city council of Kanagawa prefecture, none was adopted. Likewise, many city councils in Kumamoto, Nagasaki, Okayama, and Kagoshima prefectures rej ected similar petitions because of great opposition. According to Japanese press accounts through I August 1997, with 231 petititions to retain discussion of the comfort women in text- books versus a mere twenty-eight advocating removal, the con- servative campaign has ended in complete failure. A notable moment in the midst of all these barrages and counter-offensives was the 1 February 1997 television Asahi broadcast "Live TV 'til dawn" (1 :00-5:00 AM.). The diverse participants included, on one side, Hata Ikuhiko (historian), Nishio Kanji (representative of the Committee to Write New History Textbooks), Fujioka Nobukatsu, and Kobayashi Yoshi- nori (cartoon artist). The other side included Yoshimi Yoshiaki (Chuo University professor), Uesugi Satoshi (Director of the Japan War Responsibility Document Center), and Nishino Rumiko (re- searcher on gender). The most striking element of this program was the way Nishio attacked Yoshimi's character by calling him "sick" and inferring that his behavior was similar to that of the doomsday cult, Aum Shinrikyo. Seeing this made me think "the debate is over." When I saw how calmly Yoshimi dealt with the Bulletin a/Concerned Asian Scholars 28 i BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org ivulgarway inwhichNishioandFujiokadenouncedtheiroppo- I.. nents, sounbecomingofcollegeprofessors,Itrulyfeltthatthis ~ debatewasmorethananythingamatterofhumandignity. l Japanesepublicopinionseemsto haveshiftedaway from I theLiberal Historiography Study Group as well. Infact, inan J audiencesurveytakenduringthebroadcast,afaxmessagefrom oneyoungviewerread,"Idon'twanttotakelessonsfrom such mean-spirited adults." Also, in response to the question of whetheritisrightorwrongtohavedescriptionsaboutcomfort women inhistory textbooks, amongfax respondents, 57.5per- centagreedtheyshouldbeincluded,37.4percentwereopposed, and 5.1 percent gave other responses. The totals among tele- phone respondents were 50.6 percent in favor, 41.3 percent against, and 8.1 percent "other." Altogether about 40 percent opposed passages about comfort women while more than 50 percentthoughttheyshouldbeincludedinmiddleschoolhistory textbooks.Whilethemarginisnotoverwhelming,itisclearthat Nishio andFujiokahavelostthebattleforpublicopinion. 14 PublicopinionaboutFujioka'sgroup is, inpart, basedon thepopularunderstandingoftwentieth-centuryJapanesehistory. InaJanuary 1983 poll by theAsahi Shinbun, thethreereasons respondentsgavetoexplainJapan'sabilitytosafeguardpeacein thenearlyfortyyearssincetheendofthewarweretragicwartime experience,thehardworkoftheJapanesepeople,andthepeace constitution. These attitudes havenotchangedmuchsincethe 1 980s. In short, the lessons the Japanese people learned from theirpresurrenderfailures led to their postwar successes. But sincethe 1990s, someJapanese are gaining dominanceby dis- avowing the lessons ofhistory and reinvoking the disastrous attitudesofthepresurrenderera. Theurgenttaskrightnowisto wardoffthisinfluence. Whatistheroleof historiansandteachersinallof this?We I mustface up to thefacts of history andopenlycommu- nicate past successes and failures to students. As the saying goes, "Failureisthe rootofsuccess."Thereisno shame in failure itself. Rather, itis shamefulnotto studypastfailures ortofal- sify themand so distortthe historical consciousness of theJapanesepeople.Inlittle morethanadecadeafterthe secondWorldWar,theJapa- nese people rose like a phoenix from the ruins of warandachievedahighrate of economic growth. We should celebrate that achievement, not the ruin- i ouswar. "History does not re- peat itself, people do." We can take this adage, attrib- I 1uted to the eighteenth-cen- turyphilosopherVoltaire,as a warning against the hu- manfolly oflearningnoth- ingfromthelessonsof history.Conversely,Voltaire'swordscan beinterpretedasanexpressionoftrustinthewisdomofhuman beingstoattemptto avoidrepeatingthepast. Thesearethetwo pathsweface. Wemustnowdecidewhichonetotake. Notes 1.HagiwaraSakutaro,Nihon Seishinshi Josetsu (Anintroductiontothe historyoftheJapanesementality) (Tokyo:KinokuniyaShoten, 1966). 2.FujiokaNobukatsu,Ojoku no kin-gendaishi (Shamefulmodernhis- tory)(Tokyo: TokumaShoten, 1996). 3.Asahi Shinbun, March31,1997. 4. Jugun Ianfu (Thecomfortwomen)(Tokyo: lwanami,1995). 5. Jihyo, May1997. 6.Fujioka,Shameful Modem History, p. 52. 7. Seemy Kingendaishi 0 do miru ka: Shiba shikan 0 tou (Assessing modernandcontemporaryJapanesehistory:Aninquiryintothehistori- calperspectiveofShibaRyotaro) (Tokyo: lwanami, 1997), lwanami booklet,no. 427. 8. Sakamoto Ryoma(1835-1867)wasan important fIgure inJapan's movefrom feudalism to modernity becauseofhismodernvisionand negotiatingskills. 9.ShibaRyotaro,Sekai no naka no Nihon (Japanintheworld)(Tokyo: ChuoBunko,1996). 10. ShibaRyotaro,Kono kuni no katachi (Theshape ofthiscountry) (Tokyo: BungeiShUl\iu, 1990),p.4. 11.FromSaka no ue no kumo (Reaching forthesky)(Tokyo: Bungei Shunju, 1969-1972). 12.Shiba,The Shape o/This Country, pp.181-86. 13. See translation ofYoshino Sakuzo's essay ''OnDemonstration" (Chua Koron, 1914)inDavidJ.Lu,ed.,Japan. ADocumentaryHistory. Vol. 2. The lAte Tokugawa Period to the Present (Armonk,N.Y.: M E. Sharpe,1997),pp.377-83. 14.UesugiSatoshi,''DebatewiththeAssassinsofMemory," Kikan: Sensa Sekinin Kenkyu (QuarterlyWI1I Respousibili.tyResearch),spring1997. o Whatistheroleofhistoriansandteachersinallof this?Wemustfaceuptothefactsof historyandopenlycom- municatepastsuccessesandfailuresto students.Asthesayinggoes,''Failureistherootofsuccess."Thereisno shameinfailureitself.Rather,itisshamefulnotto studypastfailuresortofalsitY themandsodistortthehistori- calconsciousnessoftheJapanesepeople.(PhotographofahighschoolclassroominJapan.Source: Truth inTextbooks. Freedom inEducation andPeace for Children: The Struggle against Censorship afSchool Textbooks in Japan [Tokyo:Na- tionalLeagueforSupportofthaSchoolTextbookScreeningSuit. 1995].p. 1.) VoL30,No.2(1998) 29 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org Bulletin ofConcernedAsian Scholars. Vol. 30, No.2 (1998): 30-36 ISSN 0007-4810 C 1998 BCAS (Oakland, California) ConsumingAsia,ConsumingJapan: TheNewNeonationalistRevisionisminJapan The of Fujioka Nobukatsu's books and the neo-nationalist historical revisionism they represent should not snnply be analyzed as the return ofthe old rightwing in Japan. Reacting to the threats seemingly posed by various Others-a rising Asia, illegal foreignen in Japan, women, an increasingly "alien" youth culture-Fujioka and his followen have wielded a variety of myths and popular narratives about Japan and Japanese history to make their media-publicized case to reconstruct the Japanese body politic on the basis of a "healthy nationalism." This article shows that it is in the way such different texts as fujioka's books and Iwai Shunji's popular fllm, SwaUowtail Butterfly, commonly participate in a consumption ofthe nation futked to an erasure of the Other that one can fmd something as equally serious as a revival of the old time right: what the author calls a "consumerist nationalism." by Aaron Gerow History and the National Melodrama When I first spotted a copy of Kyokasho ga oshienai rekishi (History not taught in textbooks) prominently displayed in a bookstore, I supposed that this work written by Fujioka Nobu- katsu and the Liberal Historiography Study Group was a critique of the Ministry of Education's textbook examination system. l I was thus surprised to find that this best-selling book is actually a collection of "feel-good" narratives about "great" men and women in modem Japanese history. Existing textbooks, the book assumes, "bad-mouth" Japan, promoting a history of "self- abuse" which, as Fujioka baldly states in the introduction, "origi- nates in the interests of foreign nations.,,2 History education, Fujioka argues, must benefit the Japanese state and should make Japanese of their nation again. It is certainly possible to counter this rose-colored nation- alist history by citing facts it ignores or by correcting its numer- ous errors. The title itself and the presumption that Japanese * Portions of this essay were originally published on the H-Japan internet discussion list on 20 February 1997, as a commentary on an earlier version of Nakamura Masanori's article (above). At !hat time, it benefited from a considerable number of comments and criticisms including ones from Abe Markus Nomes, Laura Hein, and MarkSelden: . I was greatly helped by my colleagues in the WINC (Workshop m Cntical Theory) study group, particularly Ukai Tetsu, Narita Ryuichi, and Ouchi Hirokazu, as well as by two anonymous readers ofmy second draft. The positions expressed herein are ultimately my own, but lowe all of these individuals deep thanks. history textbooks are defined by a "self-abusive" view of Japan seems to warrant this. Anyone familiar with lenaga Saburo's court case, however, is aware that the Ministry of Education has in the past consistently opposed including any discussion of Japanese war atrocities in school texts. The very assertion that the antiseptically cleansed and excised school books have failed to present Japan in a positive light is at best disingenuous and at worst a fabrication. It is the patent absurdity of such a claim, however, that in a sense makes it immune to positivistic counter- argument since it is, from the start, not an assertion of fact but an evocation of certain myths and popular narratives. Consider the title of Fujioka's book in relation to its pack- aging. Next to the title, the largest lettering on the front is the book band (obi), which proclaims, "We really didn't know this country well. Seventy-eight stories we want to engrave into the minds of Japanese.,,3 What is interesting about both of these phrases is that, since their subjects are left unstated in the original Japanese, they could contextually just as possibly be "I" or "we" and refer equally to the readers or the authors. The first sentence most likely designates the readers and the second the authors, but the shift of subject within a general ambiguity of subjectivity helps construct (one could say "interpellate") a community be- tween author and reader conducive to the book's attempt to reconstruct a national subject (wherein "I" and "we" are insepa- rable: "we Japanese"). The book band thus invokes a certain linguistically generated communal/national emotion. The evocation of national community is further enhanced in the black and white photo framed in red that dominates the cover (see p. 31). It is an old photograph (the era is unclear) of a Bulletin o/Concerned Asian Scholars 30 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org youngwomanwithasleepingbabystrappedontoherback.The womancouldbethemother, butgivenherage,more likely an oldersisterornursemaid.Maybehersisthehistory thathasnot been told-thatofwomen (there is a section in the book on "great"women)-orperhapsof thecommonpeople.Yetherface does not accusingly tell anarrative ofoppression andneglect; shedoesnotlookthevictim.Hervisageisremarkablycalmand self-assured,theimageofapoorbuthard-workingwoman,the proudfigurewhosestorymustbetheoneweavingitswayinto the hearts ofthe Japanese. The three sequels to this, thefirst volume, allfeature oldphotographsofboysormen,all signifi- cantinboththeirinnocenceandnationalistself-confidence(one showsaproudyoungmanwithaJapaneseflag). Thetitle, however, tellsusthatthesephotographs are not simply anevocationofinnocence: thesefiguresare supposedly untaught,unknownpeople,whowereplacedonthebackshelves ofthe historical archive and then forgotten. Perhaps Fujioka promiseshisreadersareturntoinnocence,buttherhetoricofthis consumer product's packaging implies that the innocence of thesefiguresissignificantonlytothedegreethatithasbeenlost andsuppressedfromthepagesofschooltextbooks. Whilethey don'tlooklikevictims, perhaps it is theirinnocence itselfthat wassacrificedduringtheintervalbetweenwhenthephotowas snappedandtoday.Onewouldsupposethatthesubsequentloss ofinnocencewasaresultofJapan'smodemhistory ofwar,but theargumentofthebooklaystheblameoncurrentmethodsof teachingandnarratinghistoryandontheauthoritiesthatcontrol thosemethods.It doessobyturningthetitlephrase,whichcould equallybealeftistaccusation againstamilitaristicstate, which didnotteachpasttruthsinitsapprovedtextbooks,intoindigna- tionoveraweakdemocraticsystemthatignoresthegoodheroes ofmodemJapan. ThepackagingofFujioka'sbookengagesusinnarratives thatarenotreducibletothebook'scontents.It issignificant,for instance,thatitisawomanwithachildwhogracesthecoverof the initial volume, and notonly becauseit perhapsprovides a virginalcounterparttothecomfortwomenwhoareelidedinside. Lookingatherface, Iwasremindedofthemelodramatichero- inesof1950s'hahamono,theJapanesefilm genrethatfocuses ontheunrecognizedsacrificesofmothers. Thatgenre,onecan argue,wascentralinthepostwarconstructiononapopularlevel ofthemythofvictimizationthatreconfiguredawarofaggres- sionas oneinwhichitwasthe Japanesewho suffered. 4 While thegirlinthephotomay notbethechild'smotherandsheisfar youngerthanthemiddle-agedheroinesofthosefilms,thatonly gives her the same desexualized status as these, usually wid- owed, womenwho devoted their livesto theirchildren, rather thantofulfillingtheirowndesires.Allbearapurityof heartthatis overruledbyforcesbeyondtheircontrolandwe,asreaders/viewers, aremeanttoidentifywiththeirnarrativeofsuffering. I Fujioka'Sbooktiesintosuchvictimizationnarrativesasthe hahamonothroughthestructuresofreadingandthepleasureit j invitesratherthanthroughitscontent.Eachtalereadslikeafilm I I narrative designed tojerkatearortwo orliftthe spiritsofthe audience, encouraging identification between subject, reader, i andauthor,suchthattheultimatevictimsofthishistoricalsilence about"greatJapanese"becometheJapanesepeoplethemselves. ! That is why this is not a workthat simply wishes to make its readersproudtheyareJapanese;thatwouldmakeitnodifferent thanthe hagiographic biographies ofillustrious Japanese one I I j Vol. 30,No.2(1998) 1 findsinany schoolli- brary in Japan. Its powerlies in the as- sertionthatthesesto- ries are supposedly repressed by educa- tional and state insti- tutions,markedasta- boo for children by bureaucratic authori- ties. The pleasure of reading them, then, lies in boththe thrill of breaking taboos, flaunting a feigned oppositionality, and in identifying with these role models- notjustbecausethey aregreat,butbecause theyhavesufferedby beingrenderedsilent. CoverofKyokashogaoshienairekishi As withthe pleasure (Historynottaughtintextbooks). Repro- of watching melo- ducedwithpennissionfromthepublisher. drama,s the enjoy- mentisfundamentallymasochistic,thedelightinmakingoneself thevictimofinjusticeso astojustifyone'sownexistence.Itis revealingthatFujioka'sfavoriteepithetforhisopponentsisthe chargethatthey aremasochists. Kyokasho ga oshienai rekishi isthus as much concerned withnarrativesofvictimizationandmelodramaas itiswithan evaluationofhistoricalfacts. Assuch,itreliesoncertaindesires and mythicalpatternsthatareimperviousto positivistcounter- argumentandthatcanbestbeexplainedonly by analyzing the book as a cultural, discursive, oreven literary text, one that intersectswithavarietyofothertexts,fromthehistoricaltothe fictional,fromtheprintedtothetelevisual.Onlythencanwesee howthenewtextbookrevisionismoperatesasabroadnarrative structurethatcreatesandinturn iscreatedbycertainconsumerist desiresmoldedbycontemporaryhistoricalconjuncture. NationalThreatsin thePost-ColdWarWorld As a manifestation ofthe narrative ofvictimization, the textbookrevisionistsrely onbroad-basedJapaneseperceptions ofbothrealandless-realvictimizers. WhiletheUnitedStatesis stillevokedasanoppressor,Fujiokahimselfrefrainsfromcriti- cism ofthe United States andthe U.S.-Japan Security Treaty. Moreprominentinhisrhetoric andthatofhiscolleaguesisthe potentialthreatthatotherAsiannationspose. 6 Oneseesfrequent warningsabouttheeconomicriseofAsia,thestrengtheningof the Chinese state as an international player, and Chinese and KoreanaspirationswithregardtoislandsthatJapanalsoclaims. Revisionistsmakeargumentssuchas, "Whymustweteachthe viewofhistorythatChinesehave?"(i.e.,oftheNanjingmassa- cre)-asiftoteachsuchhistorywouldrenderJapan"weak,"in effect betraying the nation in a confrontation with China. Al- though in objective terms the rest ofAsia cannot now rival Japan'seconomicstrength, Japan'sprolongedpost-bubbleeco- nomicslump (evenif itis largelydueto domesticfactors) has bredaninsecurity thatinspiresa searchforexternalvillainsin 31 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org the narrative of Japan's economic suffering. In this context, the rhetoric ofthe neonationalist revisionists describes nothing other than a war with Asia, one that at this stage may only be economic, but that eventually may have the leadership of Asia at stake. Such a confrontation with an external threat would not seem to merit the urgency Fujioka and his followers exhibit if it were not for the fact that there is, simultaneously, a perception that Japan is not ready to meet such an enemy, in part because of Japan's weakness in the world but even more so because of the increasing presence of internal threats and divisions-of the Other making headway on Japanese soil. The formation of the Committee to Write New History Textbooks is first and foremost a reactionary phenomenon. an attempt to prevent changes be- lieved to be damaging to Japan's national strength. Partially as a result of the Ienaga case and of pressure from Asian nations, history school books have gradually introduced references to the darker side of Japanese modern history (though often in an abridged, undeveloped fashion), a change that accelerated after the temporary fall from power of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in 1993. The Committee was thus formed less to create original textbooks than to prevent these new ones from being used by students. Now that the LDP is back (the right wing of which, with elements of the former New Frontier Party, also opposes the new textbooks), the Fujioka phenomenon can be read as one element in the general niood of "getting back to business" after the aberration of a non-LDP government. That mood, however, is difficult to sustain given the sense that the forces that previously unified Japanese have weakened since the end of the Showa era. As a narrativization of this, Aoyama Shinji's 1996 film Helpless, a brilliant evocation of youthful alienation and loss of identity, takes place significantly in 1989, the year of Emperor Hirohito's death, and features a yakuza in a constant search for his "boss" -the authority figure whose death he cannot accept because it was so central to his identity. The loss of narratives about Japanese group identity provided by Hirohito and Showa has been exacerbated by the breakdown of the cold war world structure with its comforting storybook images of good versus evil. As many have pointed out, this is a crucial intertext to the textbook debates: the loss of the East-West binary has undermined Japan's identity as the demo- cratic front against communism in Asia without providing new structures to supplant it. 7 To many Japanese, and Fujioka in particular, the Gulf War exposed this vacuum by presenting a Japan capable only of throwing around money without being adequately appreciated. 8 To this was added the humiliation of perceived Japan bashing and Allied celebrations of the fiftieth anniversary of victory in World War II, particularly the Smith- sonian Enola Gay debacle. That controversy seemed to underline the fear that Japan, in spite ofits role as an economic superpower, has won no respect in the international political arena and thus has no identity among nations. This sense of shame in being Japanese, and especially the inability to take pride in oneself in the face of others, is frequently cited in the writings ofFujioka's group and is the reason they think Japanese make matters worse by repeatedly condemning themselves. Such resentful feelings probably existed before the Gulf War but, without the narrative ofthe cold war that had channelled Japanese into the democratic defense of anti-communism, the new target became postwar democracy itself. The loss of cold war restraints has given the go-ahead for the expression of nationalist thoughts that until now have been repressed as alien to Japan's aspirations to be the model democracy in Asia. War apologists such as Hayashi Fusao and the militarist right existed before, but now "normal" media figures like newscaster Sakurai Yoshiko, novelist Hayashi Mariko, and cartoonist Kobayashi Yoshinori air the topic of revising Japan's wartime past in a way rarely seen before. This new generation has aligned itself with the old right to make this a very public, media- and government- oriented revisionist campaign, quite unlike the guerrilla-like tactics found in neo-Nazi revisionism in Europe, as Ukai Tetsu points out. 9 One of the reasons the campaign is so public, I believe, is because the feelings on which it is based were con- structed in popular media, cinema, television, and literature. While the narratives of the hahamono or mythification of the suffering at Hiroshima and Nagasaki expressed those feelings, they were never before allowed to be released in the form of an articulated nationalism. Repressed by the ideal ofthe "peace-lov- ing democratic nation," these emotions now emerge together with a recognition of that ideal's inability to provide a strong, positive national identity in the new world order. Much ofthe fear about Japan's weakness isdirected at those elements within the country that are seen to be undermining the Japanese sense of themselves as a unified, homogeneous nation. Inthis fantasy, the Other not only encroaches on Japan's borders, but is beginning to tear it apart from within, weakening its very soul. The Other assumes numerous guises in contemporary Japan. One, of course, is the large number of legal and illegal foreign workers in Japan, rendered menacing in tabloid tales of crime by foreigners and illegal immigrant smuggling rings re- putedly run by the Chinese mafia. EvenKoreans bornand legally residing in Japan are seen by conservative groups as potential threats to the state, particularly since some local governments recently eliminated the citizenship requirement for public ser- vants. The fear is that the identity ofJapan itself is at stake when its official agents are not even Japanese. Women too are seen as persistent menaces, represented most recently by a proposal to allow women to keep their own family name after marriage. Conservative politicians successfully rallied to block the pro- posed change in family law, charging that they would undermine the unity of the Japanese family and thus the nation. That this issue is intimately related to the textbook debate is evinced by the fact that local legislatures have combined calls for the elimi- nation of references to comfort women in the new textbooks together with statements protesting the proposed family law revisions as an integrated set of resolutions. 10 Given their focus on education, the textbook debates are most directly concerned with another potential threat: theyoung. Japanese youth do not exhibit the political radicality of their predecessors in the 1960s and 1970s, but in the eyes of many in the media, education, and elsewhere, their apathy and lack of adherence to any metanarratives (Marxism, democracy, or even Japan itself) bodes ill for Japan's future. The large numbers of youngsters who dye their hair blond, watch only American movies, and listen to Japanese bands with English names and lyrics, rarely choose as their role models the Japanese found in Fuj ioka's books. The foreign influence onyouth culture is an old phenomenon. but the recent trend in Japan is to identify with either African-American culture (the dominance of hip-hop or street style in youth fashion. the attempt to look black) or Asian culture (the "ethnic boom," the popularity of Asian idols and Bulletin ofConcemed Asian Scholan 32 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org Hong Kong movies, the proliferation of late-night television shows introducing new trends and fashions in Asian pop culture). These youth culture identities, however, are fluid. For example, a star like Katori Shingo--a member of the male singing group SMAP-plays a Vietnamese in a TV drama and then a Japanese woman in a Chinese dress in a film. He changes hair styles and clothes more often than Madonna. Identity boundaries are being crossed right and left. Many older Japanese are disturbed by the undermining of gender definitions and the possibility that some young people may identify with the Hong Kong gangster star Chow Yun Fat more than with Takakura Ken, the defender of tradition in the 1960s Toei yakuza line. 11 This unstable identity as Japanese reflects real discontent with current culture among younger Japanese. This profound sense of alienation and lack of place among young people is explored in films by Aoyama such as Helpless andAn Obsession (Tsumetai chi, 1997) and in Yamamoto Masashi's Junk Food (1998). The cultural effects of this phenomenon, however, are deeply ambiguous. On the one hand, cynical disillusionment with the postwar democratic nation does bring some young people to sympathize with the neonationalist revisionists, espe- cially when led by a popular manga artist like Kobayashi. Yet, when younger Japanese express their lack of belonging by en- gaging in school-bullying, teenage "compensated dating" (enjo kosai), and random violence like that of the 14-year-old serial killer in Kobe, the youth themselves begin to take on the aura of the non-Japanese Other. The 1997 film Happy People (directed by Suzuki Kosuke and based on the popular manga by Sawa Hidekatsu) looks on the surface like a black-humored parody of the facade ofsocial harmony, showing everyday people commit- ting insane acts in the name of happiness. Nevertheless it clearly places the blame for these acts not on those committing them but on the presence of Others in Japanese society who are forcing "normal" Japanese to become abnormal. The primary Other in this fUm is the young, who are portrayed as nothing more than animals. Educating the Threat and Building the Nation Textbook revisionists are reacting to these threats through the ideological apparatuses ofhistory and education. Fuj ioka and his followers make history a weapon of confrontation, or even the means by which to build proud Japanese who can win the war they imagine is imminent. Japanese are not the only people who treat modern history as booty to be won. Their deformed history in the service of nationalism bears a strong resemblance to the history evoked in the United States through the Smith- sonian Hiroshima exhibition. Yet the New Textbook group cannot fully be explained by its effort to make history subject to the nationalist project. As Narita Ryuichi stresses, Fujioka is in some ways trying to protect the schoolroom from the invasion of historical research, separat- ing education from historiography.12 This is one reason why some of his followers do not deny, for instance, that the war in China was an "invasion" (shinryaku), yet they still profess to support him; to them, such tragedies may be historical truth, but that does not mean they should be taught to children as a part of a national education program. Since Fujioka himself is a profes- sor of education at Tokyo University with no credentials as a historian, and most ofthe members ofthe Liberal Historiography Study Group are school teachers, the textbook movement must be seen primarily as an educational issue. Historians may say Vol 30, No.2 (1998) whatever they want, the reasoning goes, but schools are meant to develop and socialize Japanese citizens and, as such, are not places to impart knowledge that may make children question or feel ashamed oftheir Japanese identity. As an educational theory then, "liberal historiography" tries to solve the nation's serious educational problems by reinterpreting students as receptacles of national ideology, protected from any knowledge that may prompt them to question their status as national subjects whose duty is to serve the state. Schools are seen as ideological state apparatuses devoted to the national interest, which produce citizens/subjects rather than individuals with a capacity for criticism. It is not difficult to seethe similarities to the prewar education system. Education has functioned as a symbol within the narrative of the Japanese nation in other conflicts in the recent past. A few years ago, several school faculty committees released the min- utes oftheir debates over the issue of the "national" flag. Discus- sions raged at the time at many schools over whether to obey the Ministry of Education's decision to require schools to fly the Rising Sun and play "Kimigayo," which the Ministry described as Japan's "national anthem." One of the oft-repeated arguments in favor was that fostering respect for the Rising Sun was a part of the process of internationalization (kokusaika).13 This may seem curious (one would think internationalization implies the toning down of nationalism) but it is logical given two assump- tions: that Japan does not have a robust national identity and that the international arena is, in Hobbesian terms, a mean and brutish place. Without a strong self, Japan would sink under the aggres- sive waves of other nations according to this scenario; only the establishment of a firm national consciousness, as a prelude to entering the international arena, can keep it afloat in the future. History then is to function like the Japanese flag, providing an ideological locus through which Japanese can be defined as .Japanese, in solidarity against the world. History is merely a collection of signs in a set of myths and stories that are necessary to create a Japanese national consciousness. In this sense, the effective interrelation between the discourse of the neonational- ist revisionists and mythical narratives about the nation is only an example of the role they hope historical discourse will play in the school. Another central myth is constructed from Nihonjinron, or ideologies about the essence of the Japanese people that help redefine the boundaries of the national subject. As with much Nihonjinron discourse, Fujioka often uses the term "we": "We are Japanese, and therefore it is natural that we think first from the standpoint ofJapan, ofwhat is in the national interest. ,,14 This assertion of a "natural" logic is profoundly ideological, creating an essence to Japaneseness that not only dictates what Japanese are, but what they must be ifthey want to be called Japanese. The creation of this unacknowledgedly coercive subject position effaces not only all those who are ethnically not Japanese, even if they live in Japan, but also all Japanese who do not subscribe to this logic (those, for instance, who do not side with the "national interest" as Fujioka describes it I5 ). In other words, the coercive "we" not only divides Japanese from all others, but also eliminates differences among Japanese by silencing those who do not agree. Fujioka writes that the question of what Japan must do should always be considered from the point ofview ofJapan and "how that must look from the perspective of others. ,,16 Here he proclaims that his liberal interest takes into account the voices of 33 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org others, but then his view of history and education are clearly meant to reunify the national body by effacing traces of the threatening Other from its midst. If other points of view are to be considered, it will be only as a mirror of recognition for Japan and only when outsiders acknowledge Japan's flag and sover- eignty, and respect its power. If this is internationalism, it is extremely self-centered internationalism. 17 The treatment of the comfort women is the most revealing case of rejecting rather than talking to outsiders. One Korean comfort woman who, when confronted by a Japanese politician who argued that her recollections could not be true, retorted, "In the past on the battle front, you defiled my body, and now you want to defile my soul?,,18 This desire, unfortunately, is the center of the body politics of the New Textbook group. To rebuild the Japanese national body and create a "healthy nationalism" (ken- zenna nashona11lizumu-the revisionists' attractive catch phrase) in this image, the scarred bodies of comfort women themselves must be further violated and then forgotten. The violence against the Asian and female Other again renders the dialogue Fujioka purportedly desires impossible. Discourse denying the existence of comfort women cannot be conceived of as part of a dialogue (no one would make such absurd comments to a Korean, for instance). "Since these are monologic words," to quote Sato Manabu, "communication is impossible." Kang Sangjung also pointed out the fact that the revisionists only "want to reiterate a monologue without an Other.,,19 The ideology of the textbook revision movement is thus in many ways the reproduction ofthe closed society consciousness (sakoku ishiki) of the modern em- peror system, one which denies the existence of the Other. It is a set of platitudes meant for Japanese consumption, a potion to cure the wounded national soul. The Consumption of Asia and the Nation Fujioka and the Liberal Historiography Study Group must also be analyzed as a product to be consumed. I have considered the packaging oftheir first book, but the packaging ofthemselves is also noteworthy. Most members take pains to distance them- selves from old-time rightists who proclaim the glories of the Greater East Asia War, many like Sakurai Yoshiko acknowledge the atrocities committed by Japan. They call themselves "liber- als," and declare themselves bound, as Fujioka writes, neither to the u.s. view ofJapan represented in the Tokyo Trials nor to that of the inventors of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. Ethnologist Otsuki Takahiro, one of the group's younger mem- bers, wrote at length about the bankruptcy of both left and right under the cold war structure; what he declares he wants is a "healthy nationalism," "which is neither 'right' nor 'left,' neither 'conservative,' nor 'reformist,' nor 'liberal',,,2o and which has nothing to do with the central symbol of the old right, the emperor. This is a movement conscious of the post-cold war atmosphere and the reigning disillusionment with established ide- ologies; it thus sells itself over the media airwaves as sweeping the field clean ofold ideological baggage and reconstructing an unbur- dened nation. This attractive and less offensive self-packaging may have cost the movement both clarity and significance. Suga Hidemi, a commentator not unsympathetic to the revisionists, has argued that it is impossible for them to win the textbook debate because their insistence on a liberal image constitutes acceptance of the rhetorical and discursive structures with which the left defines the debate. They cannot succeed in creating an ideology of a strong Japan because, in this age, it is nearly impossible to construct a citizenry willing to die for the nation. 21 Rightist rhetoric has become commonplace on the airwaves in a more palatable form, but as a result it now assumes just about the same valence as the new Tokyo Beauty Center commercial or teen idol Amuro Namie's marriage. Increased exposure for the right has come at the price of its own banality; it lacks power and has been reduced to the flow of floating signifiers that constitutes con- sumer culture. Its ideology enforces homogeneity and service to the state, but those issues must in the end be related to the culture of consumption in which they reside. If textbook revisionism poses a threat, it does not do so of itself, but only as part of a larger text of myths and narratives about Japan that are being consumed everyday. Fujioka's group is different from the old right precisely because its location within contemporary consumerism differs, rendering its nationalism essentially consumerist. To elucidate the problem of consumerist nationalism, I will consider the popular film Swallowtail Butterfly (Suwarotei11l), directed by Iwai Shunji and released in 1996. After the success of Love Letter (1995), Iwai has been proclaimed by some to be the savior of Japanese cinema, and, in particular, the repre- sentative of contemporary youth culture who can fmally bring the young back to theaters for a Japanese movie. Through the use of very current, MTV-like aesthetics and popular music, Swal- lowtail Butterfly sketches less a narrative than a place: a space called Yen Town, somewhere in Japan, which is popUlated by Chinese, Americans, Iranians and every other conceivable eth- nicity. Money rules in Yen Town as part of an international economy that stands in contrast to the "normal" face of the rest of Japan, which is supposedly not penetrated by flows of tran- snational labor. Only a third of the film is in Japanese; the rest of the dialogue is in Chinese and English and the credits are entirely in English. Some Japanese actors are cast as Chinese and actually speak English and Chinese. At first glance, Swallowtail Butterfly appears to be one of a series of films critiquing the myth of a homogeneous Japan by focusing on its ethnic minorities (Otomo Katsuhiro's World Apartment Horror [Warudo apatomento hora, 1992], Sai Yoi- chi'sAll Under the Moon [Tsuki wadotchi ni dete iru, 1994], and Yamamoto's Junk Food are also good examples). It can also be seen to represent the border-crossing, fluid identities of Japanese youth that reactionary educators find so disturbing. There are no model Japanese here, in fact, the purely Japanese characters are mostly villains, and it appears that there is no unified, linguistic "we" with which to unite the nation. Swallowtail Butterfly as a cultural phenomenon seems to embody much of what is threatening about younger Japanese, who the neonationalist revisionists feel need educating. Yet, I would argue, it is due first, to the ambiguity of contemporary Japanese youth culture, and second, to the over- arching nature of a consumerist nationalism able to unite these apparently contradictory positions, that the film and Fujioka's book ultimately share the effort to efface the Other and recon- struct the nation in a postmodern consumer culture. Consider first the crucial scene in which the lead character Ageha, with her friend Huan, ventures off to the opium den to visit the doctor. There the aestheticization of postcolonial brico- lage that reigns throughout the film gives way to a terror directed against the Chinese opium smokers they find there. On the one hand, the young couple's gaze is colonial, unmistakably viewing Bulletin o/Concerned Asian Scholars 34 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org an Other that is both disgusting and inferior. Despite the film's linguistic (and subtitled) polyphony, the words of these Chinese are not given subtitles, something that renders them not only more alien, but also without an internal soul that could raise them above the level of objects of fear. At the same time, the scene, with its distorted camera angles and abrupt cuts, reminds one of a more modem gaze: that of two tourists lost in unfamiliar territory, suddenly confronted with something not (yet) rendered consumable by the discourse of tourism. It is a scenario familiar in film genres ranging from the travelogue to the ethnographic documentary, from the science-fiction film to The Adventures oj Indiana Jones. 22 In a film that reduces everything to the same fetishized, consumable image, here is something not so easily swallowed: the return of the repressed, the Other making itself known. That this Other is Asian is indicative of the film's politics. Asia is cool as long as it is commodified; all that escapes that consumerist process must be a threat, the Other that com- modification itself aims to efface. For all its multicultural celebration of Asian intermixing, for all its polyphony of languages, Swallowtail Butterfly reveals a deep-seated fear of Asia and presents the Japanese subjectivity to conquer it. The film offers less a linguistic 23 than a visual "we" for Japanese spectators, a subject position constructed by shot angles and editing through which the viewer can identify with the terror felt by Ageha and Huan. This visual point of reference is in the end the tourist/consumerist gaze, the new identity offered for young Japanese through which they can simultaneously consume and silence the Asian Other, venture abroad while never being threatened as Japanese. Swallowtail Butterfly dovetails with Fujioka'S pro- ject by constructing a gaze that effaces the Other and covers over the historical past (the socio-historical origin of Yen Town is never explained, for instance). It markets a "liberal" acknowledgement of other voices similar to the one Fujioka proclaims, while at the same time repack- aging those voices for the Japanese consumer, reducing a supposed dialogue into a monologue. The postmodern desire for an exotic Asia shown in Swallowtail may seem far removed from the desires of the textbook group, but Iwai's consumption of Asia must be seen as the reverse side of the coin of Fujioka'S consumption of Japanese history. Both reduce Japan and its Others into images and narratives that can be reshuffled to reconstruct a mythical Japan. Consider the scene towards the end of Swallowtail Butterfly in which F eihong, an illegal Chinese immigrant, is brutally tortured to death by Japanese police who verbally abuse him as a "Yen Towner." His only retort to them is the exclamation: "Your Jurusato [hometown] is Yen Town, too." In narrative terms, this operates as Feihong's attempt to undermine the police's (and thus the Japanese state's) division between JapanljUrnsato and Yen Town. In the ideology ofjUrnsato, anyone may have a hometown, but only Japanese can have a jUrnsato, a rural origin through which to preserve their ties to tradi- tional social and family structures in spite of the modern- ization and urbanization of Japan, allowing them to stay Japanese even while becoming Westemized. 24 Yen Town could thus not be ajUrusato given how closely the con- Vol. 30, No.2 (1998) cept is tied to Japanese identity. Feihong's attempt to locate the police's origins in Yen Town can thus at first glance be consid- ered as part of the film's larger effort to deconstruct Japanese identity, especially given how attempts by other characters in the film (such as Ageha) to name Yen Town as theirjUrusato stretch and distort the original meaning of the term. Neither the film nor the characters, however, ever rejects the concept ofjUrusato or critiques its narrative and the ideologi- cal role the term plays in constructing the nation. What is never questioned is the desire to have ajUrusato, to have an origin in a bordered place. Iwai's film opens up the possibility that non- Japanese can have aJurnsato, but only by constructing them as having the same desire the Japanese have for a secure locus against the vicissitudes of transnational border-crossing. The Other is then presented as in effect desiring to be Japanese, a representation that effectively absorbs the Other in the Self. The constitution of Yen Town as ajUrnsato is then merely the recon- struction of the narrative of the Japanese nation along the lines of the consumerist elision of difference typified by Yen Town, creating a new Japan amidst the detritus ofthe postcolonial era, a space where all can become Japanese by buying into the image Aoyama Shinji's 1996 fIlm Helpless, a brilliant e,vocation of youthful alienation and loss of identity, takes place significantly in 1989, the year of Emperor Hiro- hito's death, and features ayakuza in a constant search for his "boss"-the author- ity figure whose death he cannot accept because it was so central to his identity. (Photograph from "Helpless." Courtesy ofthe distributor.) 35 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org ofJurusato. In this respect, it shares all too much in common with Fujioka's effort to reconstruct the Japanese nation from a post- cold war assemblage of consumable images of great Japanese. For Japanese youth who have lost their sense of national history and their pride in being Japanese-who in effect are the equiva- lent of Iwai's nationless Yen Towners-the neonationalist revi- sionists offer the commodified icon ofJapan as the new space on which to narrate the nation. Fujioka and the New Textbook group have arisen, as I have argued, due to a complex historical conjuncture at the center of which is the growing fear ofthreats both internal (the young, etc.) and external (Asia) Others, which are felt to be weakening the national Self. This conjuncture cannot be fully understood, how- ever, without understanding that aspects of these threats are actually part of the same phenomenon as the neonationalist revisionists. If Fujioka's group was merely a return of the old right, and if contemporary youth culture was simply an embrace of Asia, then the opposition between the two would be clear and unambiguous. As we have seen, however, the repackaging of Japanese nationalism must be seen as a sometimes contradictory part of the same cultural phenomenon as the consumerist cele- bration ofAsia. The latter offers a vision of Japan accepting Asia, while the former creates one of Japan accepting itself. Both sell inoffensive, consumable images of Japan, reducing the nation to a narration of commodified images and nationalism to consunlp- tion of those images. Fujioka and the textbook revisionists should be considered a threat, but not simply because they are a revival of the old right. It is their use ofthe media and the market, a use exemplified by the image of the girl and baby on the cover of Kyokasho ga oshienai rekishi and the narratives that book contains, that makes them share in the equally dangerous nation- alism of which Swallowtail Butteifly is but one manifestation: consumerist nationalism. Notes 1. Fujioka Nobukatsu and Jiyushugi Shikan Kenkyukai, Kyokasho go oshienai rekishi (Tokyo: Sankei Shinbun Nyusu Sabisu, 1996), p. 10. 2. In Japanese, "Honto wa kono kuni no koto, yoku shiranakatta. Nihonjin no kokoro ni kizamitai 78 no monogatari." 3. Such mothers typically lost children in the war or struggled greatly in the poverty-stricken aftermath (both tragedies very real to contem- porary Japanese), but their sacrifices always go unrecognized by their or The masochistic pleasure involved in identify- mg WIth.this a ceIl:tral means by which 1950s Japanese film audiences narrativJZed wartime and postwar history as a tale of unjust and umecognized, but still stoically endured misery. Two ofthe more interesting examples of the genre are Kinoshita Keisuke's A Japanese Tragedy ("Nihon no higeki," 1953) and Naruse Milio's Mother (''Okasan,'' 1952). 4. There are many discussions of the relation between masochistic in feminist film studies, with Mary AnnDoane, The DeSIre to Desire: The Woman sFilm o/the 1940s (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987) providing a good outline. 5. The ''re!ISianization'' that Laura Hein and Ellen H Hammond have discussed-in which conservatives have called for Japan to rejoin Asia (as its I believe the other side ofthe same coin ofthe pelCeption of Asia as a threat. See "Homing in on Asia: Identity in Contemporary Japan," Bulletin o/ConcemedAsian Scholars 27, no. 3 (1995): 3-17). 6. ThisthemedominatesmuchofthediscussionbetweenSatoManabu,Kang Sangjung, Komori Yoichi, and Narita Ryuichi in "Taiwa no biro0 tozashita rekishikBn 0 do kokufuku smu ka?" Sekai 635 (May 1997): 185-199. 7. Kang Sangjung has pointed to Flljioka's personal experience ofstaying in theUnited States during 1he War, witnessing both thepower ofAmerican nationalism and the utter impotence of Japan, as fundamental in this ex-communist's switch to the right. See his comments in "Taiwa no biro 0 tozashita rekishikan 0 do kokufuku sum kaT' pp. 187-188. 8. See Ukai's comments in the discussion, "Rekishi to iu senjo kara," Impaction 102 (1997): 68-69. 9. A point perceptively made by Kano Milciyo, "Seikimatsu kyokasho kyosokyoku to sei no daburu standado," Impaction 102 (1997): 36. 1O. The ni"./cyo genre occupied a central position in the output of the Toel studio m the 1960s after jidaigeki entered into a decline. Many ofthe plots, such as in theShowa zankyoden or Nihon kyokakuden featured the between new, modem yakusa (defmed by therr Western clothes and disrespect for the chivalric codes ofthe gangster) and the representatives of more traditionally Japaneseyakusa ways (with Takakura Ken and Tsuruta Koji often representing this faction). 11. See his comments in "Taiwa no kairo 0 tozashita rekishikan 0 do kokufuku SU1U ka?" 194. Treating historical research as a field uncon- to public is not new: it was why many of the histonans continue publishing in specialized journals ,,:el1 mto the 1930s severe regulation. The publicity of the diSCOurse-and how much It appears before children-has historically been the measure of how much government oversight it earns. The history offtlm censorship in Japan compared to that for pUblicationalso reveals this, given how the stories ofmany WlCensored novels were cut only when they came to the screen. 12. See for instance, one such set of minutes printed in the AYah; Shinbun, 29 March 1993, p. 11. 13. Fujioka Nobukatsu and Jiyushugi Shikan Kenkyukai 10. 14. A point Komagome Takeshi makes in analyzing the same phrase: "Jiyushugi shikan wa watashitachi 0 'jiyu' ni suru no ka?" Sekai 633 (April 1997): 64-66. 15. Fujioka Nobukatsu, Ojoku no kin-gendaishi (Tokyo: Tokuma Sho- ten, 1996): 135, quoted in Komagome 62. 16. My use of the tenn "self-centered" resonates with Takahashi Tet- suya's use of"jikochu" to critique Kato Tenyo's controversial assertion that Japan must bury its dead before it can deal with the dead of Asia. See his comments in the roundtable talk, "Sekinin to shutai 0 megutte," Hihyo kukan II-13 (1997), particularly pp. 13-16. 17. Quoted in Ogoshi Aiko, "'Jugun ianfu' mondai no poritikkusu," Hihyo kukan 11-11 (1996): 37. 18. See comments by sato and Kang in ''Taiwa no kairo 0 tozashita rekishikan 0 do kokufuku sum kaT' 187 19. Otsuki Takahiro, "Boku ga 'Atarashii Rekishi Kyokasho 0 Tsukuru Kai' 0 sukedachi sum wake," Seiron (April 1997): 56. 20. Suga Hidemi, "Kyoiku hihanronjosetsu (6): Sono tame ni shiniuru 'kokka'," Hatsugensha 33 (January 1997): 86-91. 21. Much has been written on the relationship between travelltourism, the gaze, and (post-)co10niality: how the hierarchy of vision (the seer and the seen), supported by the economics of consumption, works to reproduce colonial relations ofpower between the Western traveller and the Eastemnative. Two recent examples are James Clifford's Travel and Translation in the Late Twentieth Century (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1997) and Nicholas Thomas's Colonialism sCulture: Anthropology. Travel, andGovemment (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Uni- l!ess, 1994). For a new anthology of essays on the colonialist gaze mcmema, seeMatthew Bernstein and Gaylyn Studlar, eds., VISions o/the East: Orienta/ism in Film (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers Uni- versity Press, 1997). 22. The strategic use ofsubtitles, silencing some and allowing others to "speak," effectively makes Japanese the linguistic locus of the film. 23. The image of Jurusato becomes more and more an object of consumption, an ideology in need of selling, as many Japanese lose any real contact with then: rural hometowns. For examples ofthe marketing ofJurusata, see Marilyn Ivy, Discourses of the Vanishing (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995). o Bulletin ofConcemed Asian Scholars 36 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org Bulletin o[Co,,",nedAstan Scholars. VoL 30,No.2(1998):37-46 ISSN0007-4810 C 1998BCAS(Oakland,Califomia) JapaneseEducation,Nationalism, andIenagaSaburo'sCourtChallenges IenagaSaburo'sthirty-two-yearcourtchallengeoftheJapanesegovernment's textbookcensonhip cameto anendin August1997.TheSupremeCourthandeddownitsdecisiononhisthirdlawsuit,findingthatonseveralaccountsIenaga had beenwronged bythegovernment'stextbookscreeningprocess.Whilethedecisionwassomethingless thana total vidory for Ienaga, an opinion delivered by the chiefjustice clearly indicated that school textbooks should include descriptionsofthesufferingofJapan' s neigbbonasaresultofpast Japaneseaggressionandthatsuchinclusionisapositive educationalconsideration.ThisarticlesituatesIenaga'sfightsagainstthestate'sdisseminationof anultranationalistand imperialistviewofhistoryinthecontextofJapan'spostwarideologicalstruggle.It presentsachronologyoflenaga'scourt battlesandarguesthatthestruggleoverthenation'spastisthestruggleoveritsfuture. byNozakiY oshikoandInokuchiHiromitsuIlk "Whocontrolsthepast,"ranthePartyslogan,"controlsthefuture; istic and emperor-centered education in the service of war, whocontrolsthepresentcontrolsthepast."Andyetthepast,though persistedinhisdeterminationto securethe imperialstateeven ofits nature alterable, neverhad beenaltered. Whateverwas true whileacceptingmilitarydefeat.Inthisway,muchoftheimperial nowwastruefromeverlastingto everlasting....Allthat wasneeded system, whichhad committed all sorts ofatrocities, remained wasanunendingseriesof victoriesoveryourownmemory. intactatthebeginningofpostwarJapan. --GeorgeOrwell,Nineteen Eighty-Four A governsitspeopleinpartbycreating , anddisseminatingnarratives. Oneimportantsiteofsuchefforts Introduction:NationalNarrativeandIdentity isschool textbooks, especially history and social studiestext- books. Afterall, educationisoneofthemosteffectivewaysto On15 August1945.thedayEmperorHirohitoannounced promote a national narrative (e.g., the official history) and to I tohis subjects the acceptance ofthePotsdam Declaration,the make andremake certain identities into the national identity.2 Suzukicabinetresignedenmasse. OtaKozo,theoutgoingEdu- Thestate,whetherdirectlyinvolvedintheproductionandcircu- cationMinister,presentedhisfInalinstructiontotheschoolson lationoftextbooksornot,canreadilyreinforcedominantideolo- thatday. HismessagewasthatJapan'sdefeathadbeenbrought gies. In response, alternative and oppositional forces develop onby thepeople'sinsufficientdedicationtotheemperor,along their own counter-narratives and identities. Forthe meanings withtheirfailuretobringintofullplaythespiritnurturedbytheir attached to a given identity-in this case the national iden- imperialeducation.Hereafter,heconcluded,studentsandteach- tity-are"anunstableand'de-centered'complexofsocialmean- ersoughttodevotethemselveswhollytotheirdutiesasimperial ingsconstantlybeingtransformedby politicalstruggle.',3 subjectsandtothemaintenanceofthekokutai. I Whenreferring The ongoing battles overeducational content inpostwar tokokutai. Otahadinmindtheemperor, whoinpre-surrender Japan have been one ofthe crucial fronts in a long-running doctrinewastheessenceofthenationandthenationalidentity. struggleovertheidentityofthenationitself.Tobesure,struggles Ota,likemanyotherofficialswhohadpromotedultranational- over the national narrative existed in Japan before and even duringWorldWarII,whenofficialnarrativessuchastheImpe- rial Rescript on Education and other "fme militarist stories" playedacrucialroleinJapaneseidentityformation. 4 Becauseof WesincerelythankMmkSeldenandLauraE. Heinfortheir editorial the state's strict, often violent, oppression, counter-narratives suggestionsand insightfulcriticismsof earlierversionsofthisarticle. Withouttheirknowledgeandguidance,thisarticlewouldnothavebeen (e.g., the proletarian educational movement) were unable to possible.Wearealso gratefultoRichardMinearandMichaelW.Apple redirectthenation'scourse.lbroughoutthepostwarera,educa- fortheircommentsandto SylvanEshforhis assistancein writingthis tionwouldbecomeahotlycontestedarenabetweencompeting article. socialforces andtheirvisionsofJapan'sfuture. IenagaSaburo Vol. 30,No.2(1998) 37 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org hasbeenacrucialfigureinthatpoliticalstruggleforcOWlter-nar- rativesandidentitiesforthelastfiftyyears. EarlyPostwarStrugglesovertheNationalNarrative The early occupation period saw substantial changes in textbook policy as u.s. officials sought to demilitarize and democratizeJapan.Seekingtokeepmilitaristiccontentsfromthe sightofoccupationofficials,ortocreateafavorableimpression onthem,Japanesebureaucratsmadethefirstchangepriortoany occupationdirectives. 5 It wascalledtextbook"blackening-out" (suminuri), andit involvedliterallyblottingoutoffendingpas- sages.On20September1945,theMinistryofEducationordered schools to deletemilitaristic contents intextbooks and educa- tionalmaterials,andgaveseveralcriteriafordoingso,without specifyingtheprecisepassagesthatwereto beblackenedout. 6 However,itleftintactthosepassagesthatcelebratedtheimperial nationhoodandmorality. Throughoutthefall of1945, teachers gradually beganto directstudentstoblackenoutpartsoftheirtextbooks. Because of theMinistry'svagueinstructions,localofficials,schools,and teachers developed their own lists for identifying items to be removedfromtextbooksinallsubjectareas. Asaresult,notwo blackened-out textbooks were exactly alike, and the locally developed lists often included far more items than the Minis- try's. 7 Tosomeextent,adifferentconstructionof nationalnarra- tivetookplaceineachclassroom. 8 In October, the SupremeCommandoftheAllied Powers (hereafter,SCAP)issuedseveraldirectivespertainingtocurricu- lum content and textbooks. On October 22, SCAP ordered the eliminationofmilitarist andultranationalistmaterialsfromschools. On December 15, it ordered the abolition ofthe government propagationofShinto, andbannedsuchstate-authoredteaching materialsasKokutai no H ongi (ThetruemeaningoftheKokutai) andShinmin no Michi (Thepathoftheimperialsubject). SCAP also informally suggested a rewrite ofJapanese history text- books.Finally,onDecember31,itorderedthesuspensionof the teaching ofmorals(shushin), Japanesehistory, andgeography, anddemandedthatexistingtextbooksandteacher'sguidesinthese subjectsbewithdrawnandnewhistorytextbooksbedeveloped. Following SCAP's December 31 order, some Japanese historians,includingIenagaSaburo,begantoaddresstheissues ofpostwar Japanese history education, textbook writing, and publishing. In fact, Ienaga, who was a historian as well as a formerhighschoolandnormal(teachertraining)schoolteacher, drafted his ownhistory textbook in early 1946. HisbookShin Nihonshi (NewJapanesehistory)reflectedhisviewthateduca- tion should be based on verifiable facts, and should convey democraticvalues andthedesireforpeace. 9 Atthetimeitwas published in 1947, all textbooks were required to be state- authored.Ienaga'sShin Nihonshi waspublishedbytheFuzanbo Press as a general book. The lawsuits he later filed werefor revisedversionsofthisbook. TheLastState-AuthoredHistoryTextbooks TheMinistryof Educationbeganitsprojectof writingnew historytextbooksinthefallof1945. InDecember,acommittee wasformedtoexaminethecontentsofexistingelementaryand secondary school history textbooks and to write new ones. ToyodaTakeshi,aformerwomen'snormalschoolteacher,who wasappointedinOctober1945tobeoneofthecompilersofthe Ministry's Textbook Bureau, was the author for the elemen- tary/secondary schooltextbook,andMaruyamaKWlio, another compiler,wasappointedtodevelopthenormalschooltextbook. The project was canceled in May 1946, with Toyoda having completed only the section on ancient history. SCAP then in- sistedthattheMinistrycommissionotherhistoriansnotassoci- atedwiththeTextbookBureau.10 Thenewprojectwaslaunchedwithaplantodevelopthree textbooks(forelementary,secondary,andnormalschools),each dividingJapanesehistory intofourperiods (ancient,medieval, earlymodem,andmodern/contemporary).TheMinistryofEdu- cationofficialschoseelevenhistorians,whobeganworkinthe cafeteria ofthe Historiographical Institute ofTokyo Imperial University.Eachselectedandorganizedhisowncontent,butall elevenfollowedthreeprinciples:nopropagandaofanykind;no militarism, ultranationalism, orpropagation ofShintoism; and inclusionoftheaccomplishmentsofordinarypeopleinthearea ofeconomics,invention,scholarship,andart,withmentionofthe emperor'sachievementsonlywhensignificant. SCAP'sJapanese employeesexaminedthemanuscriptsdaily,andalthoughSCAP neveractivelyaskedtheauthorstoincludespecificdescriptions, itdidvetosomepassages.11 Ienagawasaskedtowritethesectionontheancientperiod fortheelementaryschooltextbooklaterentitledKuni no Ayumi (ThecourseofourCOWltry). Becausethemanuscripthadtobe finished in about a month, he used Toyoda's draft as a basis; however, hedeleted the sectionsonmythology, beganthetext withadescriptionofstone-agecivilizationbasedonarcheologi- cal findings, and described the formation ofJapan as a state withoutany mentionofimperialistideology.12 Kuni no Ayumi, publishedinSeptember1946,wasthefrrstpostwarstate-authored history textbook. It was alsothefirstJapanesetextbookto list thenamesof theauthors.DespitetheadvancesembodiedinKuni no Ayumi, itwascriticizedbytheJapaneseleftandby analysts inseveralforeigncOWltriesforfailing toeradicatecompletely theemperor-centeredviewofhistory.13 The1947Constitution,theFundamentalLawof Education,andtheFailureofState-AuthoredTextbooks Inlate 1946andearly 1947,thelegalframeworkforedu- cationaldecision-makingchangedtoasignificantdegree,asthe "DemocratizingofJapan"undertheoccupationmovedswiftly, at least on the surface. The new constitution, promulgated in 1946, offered a narrative ofJapan's nationhood that differed substantiallyfromthepresurrenderultranationalistemphasison theimperialstate.It statedthatsovereigntyresidesinthepeople (the emperor's statuswaschangedto"symbol" ofthenation), guaranteedbasichumanrights,andrenoWlcedwar. Simultane- ously,the"neweducation"tookshape,astheconstitutionguar- anteedacademicfreedom(Art. 23)andthepeople'srightto an education(Art. 26). On31 March 1947,the FWldamentalLaw ofEducationandtheSchoolEducationLawbecamelaw. TheFWldamentalLawofEducationarticulatedtheprinci- plesof postwareducation,includingtheaimof educationasthe "fulldevelopmentof personality"(Art. 1),provisionsfor"equal opportWlity ineducation" (Art. 3), and"coeducation"(Art. 5). Mostimportant,itstatedthat"Educationshallnotbesubjectto impropercontrol,butitshallbedirectlyresponsibletothewhole people" (Art. 10).14 The law was in a sense an "Educational Bulletin a/Concerned Asian Scholars 38 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org Ienaga Saburo has been a crucial figure in that political struggle for C01Ulter-nmatives and identities in Japan for the last fifty years. Constitution." As the Ministry of Education put it at the time, it was "a declaration of new educational ideals." In essence, the law was meant to replace the Imperial Rescript on Education. IS By contrast, the School Education Law, which dealt with the practical operation of schools, stipulated that elementary school textbooks were to be screened, approved, and/or authored by "competent authorities" (Kantoku-cho, Art. 21). Similar pro- cedures were stipUlated for secondary school textbooks. At first, the "competent authorities" were assumed to be not only the Ministry ofEducation but also the prefectural school boards that would be created. In May, however, in the School Education Law Enforcement Regulations (which was not an actual piece of legislation), the Ministry restricted what was meant by compe- tent authorities to the Ministry itself. 16 The new legislation and SCAP policy made it impossible for the government to insist that schools use only state-authored textbooks. In September 1947, the Ministry announced that it would introduce textbook screening in 1948 (forthe 1949 school year) and it established several committees to develop the plan. The Japan Teachers Union (hereafter JTU) sent representatives to participate in the committee meetings. Although it was not clear at this time who was to have the legal right to adopt textbooks, the Ministry suggested that the schools, inconsultation with the teachers, would select textbooks according to their own educational needs. 17 Many of those con- cerned with education, including teachers, scholars, and the editors at publishing houses, welcomed the Ministry's position, and launched numerous new textbook projects. The JTUinitiated its own projects, eventually submitting about sixty textbook manuscripts for screening. Textbook screening during the occupation was a rather complicated, two-fold process. Publishers were required to sub- mit both Japanese and English versions ofmanuscripts. First, the Vol. 30, No.2 (1998) Ministry of Education screened the Japanese manuscripts. Five commissioned examiners evaluated each manuscript and sixteen appointed committee members made decisions. Then the Civil Information and Education Section (hereafter CIE) of SCAP screened the English versions of those approved by the Ministry. Ifthe CIE requested a revision, the publishers and authors needed to resubmit the manuscript to the Ministry's committee. The 1948 textbook screening was rushed and only a small number of manuscripts were approved. As of August II, 418 of the 584 textbook manuscripts submitted had passed the Ministry's screen- ing, but only 90 of the 418 had passed CIE screening. Beginning on August 25, textbook exhibitions were held at local school districts and sixty-two of the approved textbooks, including two written by the JTU, were displayed. Many teachers welcomed the new textbooks in an atmosphere full ofexcitement and enthusiasm. IS In 1950, with teachers promoting the "nongov- ernmental" textbooks, the Ministry of Education announced it would cease writing its own textbooks. It made one further futile attempt to reintroduce "standard textbooks" in 1952, but when this last-ditch attempt failed, it discontinued publishing state- authored textbooks. From 1953 onwards the Ministry began, instead, to seek ways to ''write'' textbooks by way of textbook screening. The Conservative Turn in Education PoHtic. during the 19SO. 8Ild 19608 After the introduction of the textbook screening system, Sanseido Press asked Ienaga Saburo to write a high school history textbook, and, since his Shin Nihonshi was already out of print, he agreed. He submitted the revised text of Shin Nihon- shi to the Ministry of Education in 1952. It was rejected when one of the five examiners gave the manuscript extremely bad IDaIks, but when Ienaga resubmitted it-with no changes-to a different group of examiners, it was approved and published (in 1953). Some of the reasons Ienaga had been given for the initial rejection disturbed him. For instance, the Ministry faulted his manuscript for its description of flfth-century diplomatic rela- tionships between Japan and China, particularly the description of Japan's envoy bringing tribute to China. According to the Ministry, the depiction of Japan as politically subordinate to China would cause students to suffer a sense of inferiority. The Ministry also argued that too much space had been given to the Pacific War. It stated that, since the students had experienced the war themselves, the entire description should be dropped. Other perceived faults included the description of women's status during the ancient and early modern periods and descriptions of poverty and peasant rebellions in the early nineteenth century. Ienaga publicized his concerns about these criticisms in the Asahi newspaper. 19 Ienaga's concern was not just imaginary. The recovery of the Japanese right, including ultranationalists, was underway in the early 1950s. With the victory of the Chinese revolution and the Korean War, occupation policy elevated anti-communism above democratization, and many of those who had been purged because oftheir cooperation in carrying outJ apan 's war activities were de-purged and appointed or elected to important posts. Edu- cational policy took an overtly conservative turn after the Ikeda- Robertson talks of 1953, in which the United States pressed for the re-militarization of Japan. 20 This was essentially to require re- 39 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org versing the new narrative of a peaceful and democratic Japan, fostered during the early postwar years. Conservatives attacked peace education curricula and ac- cused the JTU of promoting a communist agenda. They suc- ceeded in passing a series of new laws: one in 1953, to give the Education Minister the authority to screen textbooks, and two in 1954, to limit the political activities ofpublic school teachers and to ensure the "political neutrality" of compulsory education. In the general election of February 1955, textbook policy became one of the major issues, as Nakasone Yasuhiro ofthe Democratic Party (Minshuto) advocated a more centralized textbook publish- ing and adoption system-essentially a return to state-authored textbooks. The election result marked a clear political division. Out of 467 seats, and against the Democratic Party's 185 and the Liberal Party's 112, the Socialist Party (Shakaito, hereafter SP) won 156. With one third of the Lower House seats, the SP held enough votes to block an undesirable amendment to the 1947 constitution. As the Diet opened in June, the first postwar textbook attack came about, and it was a model for later attacks. The right (with members in both the Liberal and Democratic parties) launched an attack on education by inviting Ishii Kazutomo, a former JTU official dismissed in disgrace in 1954, to the Diet to testify on the textbook adoption bribery case. The move served as the occasion for an attack on textbooks, since Ishii's main topic turned out to be "biased textbooks." His principle target was social studies textbooks, including history textbooks. Ishii later worked with the Democratic Party on its pUblication ofbrochures entitled Ureubeki Kyokasho no Mondai (The deplorable prob- lems of textbooks). 21 In 1956, the Hatoyama administration of the Liberal Demo- cratic Party (Jiyuminshulo, formed in the fall of 1955, hereafter LDP) submitted three bills intended to gain control over educa- tion: the first to appoint rather than elect local school boards; the second to establish a special council for educational reform (i.e., to change the Fundamental Law of Education); and the third to tighten textbook screening and adoption. The protest against these proposals was immediate and strong, and it arose not only from intellectuals and educators, but also from the general pub- lic-in what remains to date the biggest protest in postwar education history. The administration rammed the first measure through by bringing police into the Diet, but could not save the second and third efforts. Meanwhile, by 1956 the Ministry of Education had tight- ened screening criteria and brought more conservatives onto the screening committee (an action that did not require legislation). After the 1956 Diet, the LDP administration shifted its tactics to strengthen control over textbooks through "regulations" instead of legislation. This approach was far more successful. In 1956, the Ministry rejected eight social studies textbooks as "biased." Authors were required to make revisions such as eliminating negative comments on Japanese wartime conduct. While in- creasing the number of the screening committee members and making the textbook examiners full-time employees, the Minis- try also pressured textbook publishers to remove some authors from their projects. 22 In 1957, the Ministry decided not to give authors written conditions for approval, but to give its "opinion" concerning revisions only selectively and only orally. This practice encouraged "self-discipline" on the part of publishers and authors by forcing them to revise texts without specific Ministry statements. In the late 1950s, the Ministry rejected many textbooks, especially in 1958, when 33 percent of textbook manuscripts were not approved. 23 The examiners not only checked for factual accuracy, but also evaluated the level of patriotism of each text. The Ministry further strengthened its hand in 1958 by making compliance with Instruction Guidelines mandatory. Finally, in 1963, a bill was passed that made textbooks free to all elementary and middle school students. But the bill also further consolidated the adoption process. In the new arrangement, county-level school boards (consisting of several local school districts), rather than local schools, were to select the textbooks. In effect, teach- ers lost control over textbooks, and the process of monopo- lization of the textbook industry was established. State control over textbooks became easier and more complete because the number of textbooks shrank. In short, the system looked more and more like the state-authored textbook system that was in place during World War II. Ienaga's Fint and Second Textbook Lawsuits When Ienaga submitted a revised edition of Shin Nihonshi to the Ministry of Education in 1955, it was approved on condi- tion that he make 216 changes. Ienaga made the changes, and the textbook was published in 1956. However, he had to revise the textbook again, as the Ministry issued new Instruction Guide- lines. 24 His book was rejected in 1957, only to be conditionally approved in 1958. After another revision, it was eventually published in 1959. Ienaga revised the textbook again a few years later, but when he submitted it to the Ministry in 1962, it was rejected (in 1963). The Ministry disclosed only twenty or so of its reasons. Ienaga, who had to guess at most of the Ministry's criticisms (in fact, there were 323 items altogether, a fact that became known only later through his court battle), revised the textbook yet again, and it was approved in 1964 on condition that 293 items be changed. He altered the text accordingly, and it was approved and published. By this time, Ienaga was convinced that textbook screening was a form of censorship that was both unconstitutional (e.g., a violation offreedom ofexpression and scholarship) and contrary to the Fundamental Law of Education (i.e., a violation of the principle safeguarding education from no improper control). Ienaga took his cases to court in the beliefthat the Ministry would not change its practice without a battle. Even though some legal scholars and publishers' union members worried that a lawsuit was risky, he filed his first suit against the national government in 1965. Many of those opposing textbook screening, especially the JTU and the Publishing Workers' Union, as well as individual teachers, scholars, and publishers' staff, supported his decision. Although he demanded fmancial compensation for the psychological duress caused by the screening process, Ienaga's chief objective was to demonstrate that state screening of text- books was unconstitutional and contrary to the Fundamental Education Law. To do so, he needed to prove that the Ministry had abused its power in requesting the specific revisions, which he listed in his suit. Some of those points were related to the depiction of Japan's most recent war (i.e., the fifteen-year war with China, Korea, the United States, and other countries). For example, Ienaga had stated that "most [Japanese] citizens were not informed of the truth of the war, and so could only enthusi- astically support the reckless war." The Ministry of Education had insisted that calling the war "reckless" was a value judgment, Bulletin o/Concerned Asian Scholars 40 i BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org Cover of Truth in Textbooks, Freedom in Education and Peacefor Children, published by the National League for Support of the School Textbook Screening Suit (Tokyo). and that it was inappropriate to make such value judgments about contemporary events. The Ministry had also declared that there were too many photo illustrations of the "dark side" of the war, such as an air raid, a city left in ruins by the atomic bomb, and disabled veterans. It had asked that some be removed. 25 Meanwhile, Ienaga attempted to reinstate several phrases in the 1967 edition of Shin Nihonshi, which he had changed for the previous edition under duress. In response, the Ministry held that his desired changes could not be regarded as "improve- ments" (in its view, the purpose of revision). In 1967 Ienaga fIled an administrative lawsuit asking the Minister of Education to revoke the Ministry's decision on grounds that the rejection of Ienaga'srevised version was unconstitutional and contrary to the Fundamental Law ofEducation. The chief objective of Ienaga's Vol. 30, No.2 (1998) second lawsuit was the same as his fIrst, but the merit in this administrative suit was that its legal procedure was less complicated than that of the earlier "damage claim" suit and it involved only six specifIc points. This kept the debate focused and resulted in the lawsuit moving more quickly through the courts. One of the specific points in the second suit dealt with Japan's earliest history, particularly the characterization of myths contained in two eighth- century texts, Kojiki and Nihon Shoki. Ienaga had stated that "all [of the myths] were composed after the imperial family had integrated Japan in order to justify the origin of its rule." The Ministry of Education had ordered him to eliminate these lines. As a result the textbook represented the myths as if they were facts. Another contention concerned a description ofthe 1941 Japan-U.S.S.R. Neutrality Treaty. The Ministry had ordered lena- ga to add the line "Japan entered the treaty as U.S.S.R. proposed" and suggested the elimina- tion of the footnote "after the German army in- vaded the Soviet Union, Japan collected its army close to the border under the name of the 'Kwan- tung Army special maneuvers,' and was prepar- ing to invade Siberia in the event that the situation became advantageous to Japan." The Ministry's intent seemed to be to create an impression that the Soviet Union's declaration of war against Japan in 1945 was the sole violation of the treaty. CourtDecisionsandIenaga's Achievementsinthe1970s By the end of 1967, because of the fIrst suit, details of the textbook screening process and the exact reasons for the rejection of Ienaga's text- book were emerging, despite government resis- tance. It also became known that the Ministry had kept documents explaining its objections to Iena- ga's textbook, but the state was refusing to submit them to the court, insisting on the need for confI- dentiality. Ienaga's request for a court order to hand over the documents was granted in part; however, when the state appealed the disclosure decision to the higher courts, the first suit stalled. Meanwhile, the second suit proceeded com- paratively quickly. The Tokyo District Court, with Chief Justice Sugimoto presiding, ruled in Ienaga's favor in 1970. Recogniz- ing the people's educational rights and freedom, the Sugimoto decision ruled that in the case of Ienaga' s textbook, the state had clearly exceeded its authority, and that while government screen- ing in itself could not be considered unconstitutional, as long as it only corrected obvious mistakes, it could be unconstitutional when it gave orders to change educational content. 26 The Minis- ter of Education appealed the Sugimoto decision to the Tokyo High Court, and fIve years later, with Chief Justice Azegami presiding, that court dismissed the state's appeal, while avoiding a direct judgment on the constitutionality of government screen- ing. Although the decision was less clear-cut, Ienaga had won again. The Minister appealed the decision to the Supreme Court. 41 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org The first suit began to move again in the early 1970s. After the Supreme Court dismissed the state's appeal against disclos- ing the Ministry's documents, and, after considerable public pressure, the state submitted its file on the case-more than one hundred pages long. Although the Ministry's file actually sub- stantiated Ienaga's argument and testimony, the Tokyo District Court handed him only a partial victory in 1974. The court found some abuse of power in the decisions made on eleven specific items (out of the 293 that Ienaga had contested), but it affinned the government's right to regulate the content of education, and declared state textbook screening constitutional. Ienaga appealed to the higher court, and the state also appealed to revoke the eleven points on which it had lost. From the beginning, Ienaga's lawsuit attracted strong pub- lic interest. The two lawsuits focused attention on the textbook screening system, which had been hidden from the pUblic. The standards for approval, the existence of two kinds of Ministry pressure ("request" and "suggestion"), the 1,OOO-point scale by which textbooks were graded (800 and above was considered passing), and the existence of an official file on each textbook all became public knowledge. In particular, the state was forced to disclose the actual process by which it had censored Ienaga's textbook and to explain the reasons for its rejection, along with the names ofthe examiners and the committee members who had vetoed the textbook. 27 Previously the undemocratic nature of the system had been known only through complaints made by text- book authors and publishers, but now the Ministry's own docu- ments revealed an arbitrary process, rife with abuses of power. Ienaga's victories in his second suit had an immediate impact on school textbooks. Following the Sugimoto decision in 1970, the Ministry relaxed its criteria for screening and textbook authors began to include a wider range of material (e.g., infor- mation about Japanese wartime atrocities). In 1973, Ienaga's revised Shin Nihonshi passed the screening review even though it contained more detailed descriptions of Japan's invasion of China, Japanese colonial policy in Korea, and peoples' move- ments against environmental pollution. Some junior high school history textbooks that contained descriptions of the Nanjing massacre were approved. Various groups of parents, teachers, publishers' staff, and researchers, who had been struggling to establish alternative and oppositional narratives in textbooks, became empowered through a newfound consciousness of their educational rights and freedom.28 Renewed Attempts to Enforce Patriotic Textbooks in the 19808 and 19908 In the late 1970s, the Japanese government and the LDP attempted to regain control over education, particularly by stress- ing nationalist (patriotic) curricula. For example, the 1977 In- struction Guidelines designated "Kimigayo" as the national an- them, despite the fact that no legal basis for that existed. With LDP support, a high official ofthe Ministry ofEducation inserted the modifier "national anthem" before "Kimigayo." That same year, the Ministry rejected five high school textbooks (one in ethics/civics, two in Japanese history, and two in world history). Around this time, it also tightened its textbook-screening rules again, requiring authors to follow the Instruction Guidelines more closely. Conservative politicians, especially younger LDP hawks, attacked textbooks more vocally after the LDP won a large majority in both houses in 1980. Charging that most textbook revisions after the Sugimoto decision were inspired by commu- nists, they sought stricter legislation to control textbook content. A nasty campaign was launched in the LDP's weekly newspaper by Ishii Kazutomo, the same person who took part in the textbook attack of the 1950s. Ishii and the LDP attacked the authors of social studies and Japanese language textbooks for supporting the JTU, the Communist Party, and the democratic education movements. One of their criticisms was directed at a Russian folk tale, "Okina Kabu" (A big turnip), which was thought to be promoting a communist agenda. Originally recorded by folk- 10rist Aleksandr N. Afanase'v (1826-1871), the story told about a grandpa, grandma, granddaugh- ter, and their household animals (dog, cat, and rat), who all joined hands to pull a big turnip out of the ground. The folktale has long been popular r e d i n ~ material for first-grade elementary school students. 2 Ishii and the LDP falsely stated that the story was a Soviet folk tale and that Afanase'v was a Soviet folklorist. They also offered an interpretation that perhaps no one had thought of-that the story was about workers, peasants, students, and intellectuals uniting to bring down capitalists. Rightwing intel- lectuals, economists, and big business supported critics' demands for more patriotic curricula. Troubled by the anti-nuclear movement, the Science and Technology Agency (STA) joined in the criticism ofjunior high school civics textbooks. In 1980, it attacked the textbooks for emphasizing the negative aspects of atomic power and for raising public concerns about its safety. The STA pressured Demonstration after the Tokyo High Court decision of 20 October 1993 in Ienaga's third lawsuit Ienaga Saburo is holding the bonner. (Source: Truth in Textbooks. Freedom in the Ministry of Education (unsuccessfully) to change the descriptions of atomic energy already in the Education and Peace for Children: The Struggle against Censorship ofSchool Textbooks in Japan textbooks approved for the 1981 school year. The [Tokyo: National League for Support ofthe School Textbook Screening Suit, 1995]. p. 19.) Democratic Social Party (Minshato), an opposition 42 Bulletin o/Concerned Asian Scholars BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org party supported by small business owners, joined the attack,30 and other business groups lobbied for changes in textbook de- pictions of their industries. Eventually, the Ministty accommo- dated them by "suggesting" revisions to publishers. As a result ofthese highly public battles, the media reported that state control over education had been strengthened and that the depiction of the Japanese wartime invasion of Asian countries had been watered down. A focal point of these reports, which received international coverage (notably in East and Southeast Asia), was the Ministry's request to replace the term "aggression" (shinryaku) with "advancement" (shinshutsu)Y InJuly 1982, the Republic of Korea (South Korea) and the People's Republic of China lodged formal protests with the Japanese government. By September, more than 2,000 reports on Japanese textbook screening had appeared in the press in nineteen Asian countries. 32 In October, the Japanese government formally accepted the criticisms of its Asian neighbors, and promised to correct the textbook descriptions. (The South Korean government essen- tially accepted the promise, but the Chinese government did not.) The Ministry of Education then announced changes in its screen- ing policy, including a new requirement that textbooks consider modern historical relations between Japan and Asia from the perspective of international friendship and cooperation. At that point, the Japanese government unilaterally declared the contro- versy settled, but the Ministry of Education did not change the nationalistic orientation in its textbook directives. For example, although it now allowed use of the term "aggression," it contin- ued to "suggest" that textbooks should report smaller numbers ofvictims in the massacres that took place in Nanjing, Singapore, and Okinawa during the war. lenaga's Third Lawsuit When the Instruction Guidelines were rewritten in 1979, a revised text of Shin Nihons hi was approved (in 1980) and repub- lished (after Ienaga made 420 changes). When the Japanese government promised (in October 1982) to correct the textbook depictions of Japan's foreign relations, Ienaga asked the Minis- try's permission to make corrections, but his request was re- jected. He submitted the revised manuscript again in 1983, and it was approved subject to some seventy changes. In 1984, Ienaga filed a third lawsuit against the state demanding compensation for the psychological damage the screening process caused him. His ultimate goal was still to prove the unconstitutionality of state textbook screening. In this suit, he disputed eight specific points (six Ministry requests and two suggestions for revision). Four were related to the Japanese invasion of China, one con- cerned the Japanese colonization of Korea, another involved the Battle of Okinawa during the last months of World War II, and two covered domestic protests against imperial power. The frrst point concerned the use of the term "aggression" to describe the Japanese invasion of China. In the 1980 and 1983 negotiations, Ienaga had insisted on the appropriateness of this term, refusing to change his language despite the Ministry's repeated "suggestion[s]." He also fought to include two phrases with respect to the 1937 Nanjing massacre. In the screening process, the Ministry had requested that Ienaga change the line-"Immediately after the occupation of Nanjing, the Japa- nese Army killed numerous Chinese soldiers and civilians"-to a statement that people died in the "confusion" around the time of the occupation. The Ministry had also requested that Ienaga Vol 30, No.2 (1998) eliminate mention of rape from his description of the Nanjing massacre (which read: "Not a few Japanese soldiers raped Chi- nese women [when occupying Nanjing]"), arguing that rape is a common wartime phenomenon, not limited to the Japanese Army. The Ministry had also requested that he remove the mention of Unit 731, a biowarfare unit that had conducted experiments on live human subjects. 33 It had claimed that there was no credible scholarly research on Unit 731 and that it was, therefore, premature to mention it in textbooks. The fifth point concerned Korean resistance to the Japanese invasion at the time of the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895. Ienaga had described the event as the beginning of a fifty-year Japanese colonization of Korea, writing that "in Korea, which was the major battlefield of the war, popular anti-Japanese resis- tance often took place." The Ministry had requested that he change the phrase "anti-Japanese resistance," stating that it would confuse students. The disagreement between Ienaga and the state rested on two radically different narratives of Japanese history. Ienaga attempted to critique the official narrative of Japan's conduct in World War II and of the years leading up to it. He also presented a different narrative of the war at home, at least with respect to the Battle of Okinawa in which an estimated 160,000 civilians, including women and children, lost their lives, many at the hands of Japanese soldiers. Ienaga had written that "residents, both young and old, were killed," and specifically pointed out that "more than a few of these civilians were killed by the Japanese Army." The Ministry had responded that "voluntary mass sui- cides" were the major cause of Okinawan civilian deaths, hold- ing that the victims willingly gave their lives for the country (rather than being "killed" or "forced to kill" family members by the army). In short, the Ministry had downplayed the massacre of Okinawans by the Japanese Army. The seventh and eighth points concerned domestic events in which the righteousness of imperial power was questioned-a point that the official narrative ignored. Ienaga cited two text- book descriptions of domestic events that the Ministry had asked him to change. Both involved portrayals of imperial power as oppressive. The frrst concerned a protest by Shinran (1173- 1262), the founder of a major Buddhist sect, against the oppres- sion of new Buddhist sects by the Imperial Court. The second example involved the description of the volunteer army called "Troop Somo," which had fought for the emperor during the Meiji Restoration, but had then been quickly suppressed by the Meiji government because of its populist orientation. 34 lenaga's Court Battles from the 1980s to 1997 In the mid-1980s, Ienaga was fighting three court cases simultaneously, all of them moving toward the Supreme Court. Of the three, the second ended first-without a proper conclu- sion. After an appeal to the Supreme Court, the Ministry of Education changed its strategy and argued that Ienaga's case had "no benefit"-that it was moot-because, even if Ienaga were to win, the Ministry had already changed the Instruction Guide- lines, and therefore Ienaga's 1965 textbook, following the old guidelines, would no longer be used. The Supreme Court referred the case back to the Tokyo High Court, which dismissed the case in 1989 on grounds of "no benefit," without declaring anything more specific. Ienaga decided not to appeal to the Supreme 43 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org Court, since the earlier decisions, including the ground-breaking Sugimoto decision, retained their value as precedents. The first suit, meanwhile, progressed more slowly, taking twelve years to reach a second decision. In 1986, the Tokyo High Court, with Chief Justice Suzuki presiding, overturned Ienaga's earlier partial victory at the District Court. The ruling revoked the lower court decision on eleven specific points, declaring that the Ministry of Education had not been "excessively unreason- able." Ienaga appealed that decision to the Supreme Court. Seven years later, on 16 March 1993, the Supreme Court dismissed the first lawsuit, handing Ienaga a total defeat after twenty-eight years of effort. 35 The third suit proceeded more quickly, with decisions con- sistently favoring Ienaga. Inthe Kato decision of 1989, the Tokyo District Court found the order to change the Troop Somo descrip- tion unlawful, ruling that he had been wronged on this point, and that the government should pay him 100,000 yen in compensa- tion. Although he won a partial victory, Jenaga appealed the decision to the higher court (as did the state) because he hoped to win his main point, that state textbook screening was uncon- stitutional, as well as all the other specific points of contention. The latter included arguments concerning the descriptions of the Nanjing massacre, Unit 731, the Korean resistance, and the Battle of Okinawa. The descriptions of the Battle of Okinawa had sparked the most dramatic and powerful testimony of the case. In 1988, Kinjo Shigeaki, a professor at Okinawa Christian Junior College, had testified that at age 16 he had participated in a "mass suicide" in which he killed his mother and younger siblings on orders of the Japanese Army. Testifying for the state, Ayako Sono, who had written a documentary-fictional account of the event, stated that in herresearch she had found no evidence of a suicide order given by the captain himself. In the fall of 1993, the Tokyo High Court softened the district court decision slightly. The court ruled in favor of both Ienaga's contention regarding the description ofTroop Somo and his description of the Nanjing massacre, including mention of widespread rape, stating that on these points the Ministry's screening had been excessive and thus unlawful. However, it ruled against Ienaga on Unit 731 and all other points. 36 After another appeal by Ienaga, the Supreme Court, with Chief Justice Ono presiding, delivered its final decision in the third lawsuit on 29 August 1997. Ienaga won one additional point, allowing mention of Unit 731 's cruel experiments. The Supreme Court decision, while affirming the constitutionality of government textbook screening, agreed that the orders to change some de- scriptions of Ienaga's textbook were in violation of the law with reference to at least the four descriptions. 37 Although Ienaga lost his attempt to ban government textbook screening as unconsti- tutional, the court held that the Ministry's requests for revision must be based on views verified or commonly accepted in the field of histOI)' studies. This decision will undoubtedly limit the scope of textbook screening in the future. A Conclusion: The Signifk:ance of lenaga's Textbook Lawsuits Ienaga's lawsuits have been a countervailing force in the struggle over national narrative and identity construction in postwar Japan. His concern with history, history teaching, and textbooks has as much to do with the present and future as it does the past. Narratives of the past construct (and reconstruct) per- sonal identities, and, as such, they ''gersuade [persons] to act in ways they might not otherwise act." In particular, narratives of "nation" and a nation's past are powerful tools that can involve people in a shared sense of identity, clarifying who "we" are and where "we" come from?9 In a sense, then, Orwell's insight (see above, page 37) could hardly be more discerning. "Who controls the past controls the future" is an apt explanation of why the Japanese government and the (ultra)nationalists have tried to alter narratives of the nation's past. (Orwell's picture of total Party control over the present does not exactly match the Japa- nese case, however.) The historical and political conditions of postwar Japan have been the context for Ienaga's struggle over Japan's national narrative. Although most Japanese regard 15 August 1945 as the "end" ofthe war, for most ofJapan's neighbors, including China, Korea, and Vietnam, the war entered a new phase on that date. In 1945, the United States exempted from prosecution in the Tokyo War Tribunal many of those responsible for Japan's war crimes, notably the emperor. Japan's acceptance of the tribunal court judgments meant not only that the pursuit of war crime issues by the occupation force ended there, but also that pursuing such matters became "taboo" for Japanese. Until recently, the Japanese government, under LDP control, ignored both the question of war responsibility, including that of accountability for colonial rule, and the voices ofAsians who had suffered from Japanese actions during the war. 40 The year 1945 was also not the end ofthe struggle for those Japanese seeking alternative narratives and identities. 41 They had to continue to grapple with issues of war responsibility, and the meaning of such terms as democracy and freedom. Ienaga was one of a very few scholars who, in the 196Os, recognized that there were two aspects to the ordinary Japanese war experi- ence-namely, that of assailants (externally) and that of victims (internally)--and one who unequivocally argued the need for the Japanese themselves, through their own judiciary, to pursue the issue of war crimes and responsibility.42 His uniqueness lay in the fact that he was not just arguing the position, but was himself pursuing it in his own way. He filed the textbook lawsuits, an approach totally unfamiliar to many Japanese, and fought in the name of the 1946 constitution, which speaks of freedom and the rights of citizens. Ienaga's lawsuits were, in effect, his way of dealing with Japanese war crimes and war responsibility. His suit did not pass judgment on individuals who committed crimes, but made vis- ible the operation ofthe imperial, ultranationalist power that had allowed such individuals to commit crimes and that now at- tempted to conceal it. It is no coincidence that Ienaga's position resonated with the voices of war victims in China, Korea, and other Asian countries. The immediate impact of his 1970 victory (the Sugimoto decision) was to embolden other textbook authors to document Japan's war atrocities. Ienaga's victories in his third lawsuit were partial, but they were victories nonetheless (reflect- ing, perhaps, the changed international situation that compelled Japan to listen to the victims' voices), and his lawsuits as a whole succeeded in stimulating both research and public interest in the wartime conduct of the Japanese military. This paved the way for many Japanese to accept, or at least begin to listen to Asian voices that demanded a hearing on unresolved issues of war and colonialism. Bulletin ofConcemed Asian Scholars 44 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org lenaga's thirty-year challenge to the state mises the ques- tion of whose knowledge oUght to be represented in textbooks and taught in schools. A related question raised by lenaga's lawsuits is that of process: Who should decide the content of education and on what basis? No democratic nation has resolved these questions; the tendency, in fact, has been to ignore them. In our view, it is important to develop a democratic process through which educational content can be debated, negotiated, and selected. Textbooks need to be produced through a "free, contributive and common rrocess ofparticipation in the creation of meanings and values.,,4 The appropriate role of the state is to ensure the fairness of such a process. The current Japanese system, which has allowed the state and the (ultra)nationalists to advance their agenda by incremental extra-legal faits accompli should be abolished. The alternative, however, should not be a "free market" system, in which socially dominant and powerful groups decide what knowledge will be represented in school curricula. In a society that provides universal education, school text- books offer teachers and students "symbols to start with," "signs that some larger community exists," and as such "the possibil- ity-indeed, the actuality-of a shared collective identity.,,44 A sifting of knowledge is always involved in the production of textbooks, however. This "sifting" is inherently problematic since selective knowledge is given to represent a collective identity-whether national, regional, or international-and so the identity constructed necessarily includes some people and excludes others. It is little wonder, therefore, that social groups compete over the symbols embodied in textbooks and that con- troversy accompanies the production of textbooks. This will always be the case, we believe, as long as a society is committed to the democmtic process. Critics who think that the problem has already been settled in their society-any society-are too opti- mistic, just as those who think democratic textbooks are impos- sible are too pessimistic. lenaga's lawsuits suggest a third posi- tion, namely, forming an oppositional narmtive and identity and, simultaneously, building a consensus around it, one that actually changes the way people see the world and themselves. Notes 1. Y8IIllIZumi Masami, Nihon Kyoiku Sho-shi (A concise history of Japanese education)(Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1987), p. 143. The term kokutai is often translated as "national polity," but the exact translation of the term is difficult. For further discussion, see Richard Minear, Japanese Tradition and Western Law: Emperor, State. and Law in the Thought ofHozumi Yatsuka (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1970), pp. 56-83. 2. Space does not permit us to elaborate this point, but we would like to remind readers that the actual processes of identity formation through education needs to be understood as complex and flexible. See Raymond Williams, ''Base and Superstructure in Marxist Cultural Theory," inProb- /ems in Materialism and Culture (London: Verso, 1980), pp. 3840. 3. Michael Omi and Howard Winant, Racial Formation in the United States (New York: Routledge, 1986), p. 68. 4. The Imperial Rescript on Education was in essence the narrative of the imperial nation. See Byron K. Marshall, Learning to Be Modem: Japanese Political Discourse on Education (Boulder: Westview Press, 1994), pp. 58-62; and Horio Teruhisa, Educational Thought and Ideol- ogy in Modem Japan (Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1988), pp. 65-72. For the presurrender textbook contents, see NakBmura Kikuji, KyokashonoShakaishi(Asocialhistoryoftextbooks)(Tokyo:lwanami Shoten, 1992); Nakauchi Toshio, Gunkoku Bidon to Kyokasho (Fine militarist stories and textbooks) (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1988); and Vol. 30, No.2 (1998) Ieoaga Saburo, "The Glorification of War in Japanese Education," IntemationalSecurity 18,no. 3 (winter 1993/94): 113-122. 5. See Nakamura, Kyokasho no Shakaishi, pp. and Yoko H. Thakur, "History Textbook Refonn in Allied Occupied Japan, 1945- 52," History o/Education Quarterly 35, no. 3 (fall 1995): 265. 6. The exception was the case of second-semester elementary school textbooks on the Japanese language, for which exact items were speci- fied. Such items were mainly war-related Stories adulating the emper- ors remained, along with Kimigayo, a song wishing for the prosperity of imperial sovereignty. See Yamazumi, Nihon Kyoiku Sho-shi, pp. 148-150. Forthe1ranslation ofthe portion ofthe order, see John Caiger, "Ienaga Saburo and the First Postwar Japanese History Textbook," Modem Asian Studies 3, no. 1 (1969): 2-3. 7. For further discussion on the blackened-out textbooks, see Nakamura, Kyokasho no Shakai-shi, pp. 220-238; and Yamazumi Masami, Sha- kaika Kyoiku no Shuppatsu (The beginning ofsocial studies education) (Tokyo: Nihon Tosho Senta, 1981), pp. 9-15. 8. The blackened-out textbooks remained in use until 31 July 1946. In 1946 and 1947 the Ministry published and distributed "stop-gap" text- books in certain subjects. These were in short supply, however. For details, see Tokutake Toshio, Kyokasho no Sengoshi, (The postwar history of textbooks) (Tokyo: Shin Nihon Shuppansha, 1995), pp. 44-45; and Kyoiku no Sengoshi Henshu Iinkai (Conunittee for the Compilation of Postwar Education History), Sengo Kyoiku Kai/caku to sono Hokai enD Michi (The postwar educational refonn and the course of its collapse) (Tokyo: San'ichi Shobo, 1986), pp.l31-32. 9. IenagaSaburo, ''TheHistorical Significance ofthe Japanese Textbook Lawsuit," Bulletin o/Concemed Asian Scholars 2, no. 4 (1970): 8. See also Ienaga Saburo, ''Sengo no Rekishi Kyoiku" (Postwar history education), in Iwanomi Koza Nihon Rekishi (Iwanami lecture series, Japanese history), vol. 22, Beklam (Special volume) no. 1, (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1968), p. 319. 10. From the beginning there was a conflict between SCAP, seeing entirely new history textbooks as necessary, and the Ministry, seeking merely to eliminate militaristic content from existing textbooks. While Toyoda's text began with archaeological fmdings, which pleased SCAP, it presented as history the myth of the founding of Japan, which was quite unacceptable to SCAP. Though SCAP suggested a new deal, Maruyama, writing the normal school textbook, remained as an author forthenewJXUjectSeeThakur,''HisImyTexIbook.RefonninAlliedOccupied Japan,"W 267-68; aodIeoaga, ''SeIlgo no Rckisbi Kyoiku," W. 314-17. 11. Ibid., pp. 318-19. See also Yamazumi, Shakaika Kyoiku no Shup- patsu, pp. 16-18. 12. Ienaga's specialty was ancient Japanese history. His doctoral disser- tation was on eighth- to twelfth-century cultural history. According to Ienaga, most of the members were historians of "empirical tradition" (jisshoshugi) who were rather apolitical and who had had little experi- ence teaching history in grade schools. See Ieoaga, "Sengo no Rek:ishi Kyoiku," p. 319. For fiuther discussion on Ieoaga and Kuni no Ayumi, see Caiger, "Ienaga Saburo and the First Postwar Japanese History Text- book"; and Thakur, "History TextbookRefonn inAllied Occupied Japon." 13. For the criticisms, see Thakur, "History Textbook Refonn in Allied Occupied Japan," pp. 270-271; Yamazwni, Shakaika Kyoiku no Shup- patsu, pp. 18-19; and Kimijima Kazuhiko, Kyokasho no Shiso: Nihon to Kankoku no Kingendai-shi (Thoughts in textbooks: The modern and contemporary history represented in Japan and South Korea) (Tokyo: Suzusawa Shoten, 1996), pp. 274-78. The biggest shock for those involved in the history textbook production, however, was perhaps the introduction of "social studies," which nearly made the textbooks developed useless. For details, see Kimijima, Kyo/aJsho no Shiso. p. 280; and Usui Kaichi et al., Atarwhi Chuto Shakaika eno lzanai (An invitation to new secondary social stud.ies)(Tokyo: Chirekisha, 1992), pp. 155-62. 14. The fear here was of state control over least in a common interpretation. See Horio, Educationol Thought and Ideology in Modem Japan, p. 121. 15.Ibid,pp. 108-29. In fact, the Rescript was negated by a Diet resolution in 1948. Seealso YmnazumiM.asami, ''EducationalDemocracy versus State 45 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org Control," in Democracy in ConmmporaryJapan, ed. Gavan McCormack and Sugimoto Yoshio (Annonk, N.Y: M. E. Sharpe, 1986), p. 95. 16. This situation, which in the Ministry's words was to be the case "for the time being," in fact became permanent. 17. The Ministry even suggested that each classroom could adopt different textbooks. See Nakauchi Toshio et al., Nihon Kyoiku no Sengoshi (The postwar history of Japanese education) (Tokyo: San- seido, 1987), p. 105; and Tokutake, Kyokasho no Sengoshi, p. 57. 18. Teachers' enthusiasm continued in the following years. See Toku- take, Kyokasho noSengoshi, p. 59. Note that some ofthe textbooks were still in production and thus were not available for display. 19. See Ienaga Saburo, Kyokasho Kentei (fextbook screening) (fokyo: NihonHyoronsha, 1%5),pp. 79-81;andBenjaminC.Duke, "TheTextbook Controversy," Japan Quarterly 19, no.3 (July-September 1972). 20. Ikeda Hayato was then the head of the Policy Research Committee of the Liberal Party (Jiyuto). Walter Robertson was the U.S. Assistant SecretaI)' of State. 21. According to the brochmes, there were four types of ''biased'' descriptions: one supporting the teachers' labor-union and political activities, one stressing the poverty of the Japanese woIkers and pro- moting their labor movement, one praising the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China, and one teaching communist ideas. 22. Two prominent academics and textbook authors, Hidaka Rokuro and Nagasu Kazuji, publicly denounced the screening and withdrew their contributions to Akarui Shakai, a popular social studies textbook forjunior high school published by Chukyo Shuppan Press. Around this time, an editor at the press, Tokutake Toshio, inspired by Ienaga's talk, explored the possibility of bringing a court case against the screening, but gave up the idea. See Kyokasho Kentei Sosho wo Shiensuru Zenkoku Renrakukai (NLSTS, National League for Support of the School Textbook Screening Suit), ed, Ienaga Kyokasho Saiban Junen- shi (Ten-year history of Ienaga's textbook screening suit) (Tokyo: Sodobunka, 1977), p. 255. 23. More books were rejected in 1958 than in any other year except the year in which the screening system was launched. The Publishing WoIkers' Union decided to make the rejection reasons public, publish- ing Kyokasho Repoto (Annual report on textbooks). See Tokutake, Kyokasho no Sengoshi, pp. 103-15. For further discussion on the conservative tum in education, see Yamazumi, "Educational Democ- mcy versus State Control," pp. 95-97. 24. An oVemll, or a partial, revision and screening oftextbooks usually took place every three years. The term "a tentative plan" was removed from the titles of the 1955156 Instruction Guidelines, which meant that they were now ''requirements'' mther than"suggested plans" for instruc- tion. Furthermore, in 1958, the Ministry began to claim that the Instruc- tion Guidelines had legal force. 25. For details, see Ienaga, ''The Historical Significance ofthe Japanese Textbook Lawsuit," pp. 8-10; Ienaga, "The Glorification of War in Japanese Education," pp. 124-126. 26. For further discussion, see, for example, Ronald. P. Dare, "Textbook Censorship in Japan: The Ienaga Case," Pacific Affairs 43 (winter 1970-71): 548-56. 27. For example, the main reason for the 1963 rejection was ''flaws in both accuracy and choice of contents"; the number of "inadequate" items was 323; and the IIUlIk was 784. In 1964 the text just scraped through the screening process with 73 requests and 217 suggestions. 28. For further discussion, see Mainichi Shinbunsha Kyoiku Shuzaihan (Division of Mainichi News covering Educational Affairs), Kyokasho Sensa (fextbook war) (Tokyo: San'ichi Shobo, 1981), pp. 148-60; Tokutake, Kyokasho no Sengoshi, p. 186; and Tokutake Toshio, Kyo- kasho Saiban wa Ima (The current state oftextbook screening lawsuits) (fokyo: Azumino Shobo, 1991), pp. 155-70. 29. This version wastranslated by Saigo Takehiko,alanguageeducation scholar. A different version, by Leo Tolstoy, was translated by Uchida Risako. The story has also been popular in the United States. Turnip: An Old Russian Folktale (New York: Philomel Books, 1990). 30. For details of the party's attack on the textbooks, see Usui et al., Atarashii Chuto Shakaika enD Izonai, pp. 172-175. For further discus- sion ofthe textbook controversy in the 198Os, see Mainichi Shinbunsha Kyoiku Shuzaihan, Kyokasho Senso; and Y8IIl8Zumi Masami, Gakko Kyokasho (School textbooks) (Tokyo: Asahi Shinbunsha, 1982). 31. The media reported it as ifit were new, even though requests ofthis kind had been made since the 1960s. 32. Some labor unions and social action groups in Hong Kong sent a letter ofcomplaint to the Japanese Embassy; in August, the official party newspaper of the Democratic Republic of Korea (North Korea) criti- cized the Japanese official view on this issue, and the Vietnamese government asked the Japanese ambassador to correct textbook remarks concerning Vietnam. 33. These were mainly Chinese prisoners ofwar, but they also included people from Korea, Mongolia, European countries, IIIld the Soviet Union. See SheldonH. Harris,Factories o/Death: Japanese Biological Warfare, 1932-45, and theAmerican Cover-up (London and New York: Routledge, 1994), p. 49. 34. For details, see Ienaga, ''The Glorification of War in Japanese Education," pp. 126-27; and National League for Support ofthe School Textbook Screening Suit (NLSTS), Truth in Textbooks, Freedom in Education andPeaceforChildren: The Struggle againstthe Censorship , of School Textbooks in Japan (Tokyo: NLSTS, 1992), pp. 10-19. "Troop Somo" was vel)' popular with the peasants and played an important role in drawing peasant support for the Meiji government Peasants felt betrayed when the government executed the members of Trpop Somo for allegedly fabricating an announcement about a tax-cut that would have benefited peasants. 35. The court did not even notify Ienaga before handing down its ruling, a questionable legal maneuver in itself. 36. By this time, the existence of Unit 731 had become common knowledge, mainly because of Morimum Seiichi's book Akuma no Hoshoku (The devil's gluttony) (Tokyo: Kadokawa ShoteD, 1982); however, the question with which the court was concerned was whether or not Ienaga's description, or the Ministry's request, was based on scholarly woIk established by the time ofthe screening. 37. In fact, he won on four of the six points he had changed at the Ministty's request. The complete text ofthejudgment appears in Kentei ni IhouAri: Ienaga Kyokasho Saiban SaiJwsaiHanketsu (The screening is found illegal: The Supreme Court decision of Ienaga's textbook lawsuit), ed. Kyokasho Kentei Sosho wo Shiensuru Zenkoku Ren- rakukai (NLSTS) (fokyo: NLSTS, 1997). 38. hnmanuel Wallerstein, "The Construction of Peoplehood: Raciml, Nationalism, E1hnicity," in Race, Nation, Class: Ambiguous Identities, Etienne Balibar and Immanuel Wallerstein (London: Verso, 1991), p. 78. 39. Patrick Wright, On living in an Old Country: The National Past in Contemporary Britain (London: Verso, 1985), pp. 24-26. 40. Wada Haruki and Ishizaka Koichi, "Hajime ni" (Introduction), in Nihon wa Shokuminchi-shihai 0 do Kangaete Kitaka (How Japan has thought about its colonial rule), ed. Wada Haruki, Ishizaka Koichi, and j Sengo Goju-nen Kokkai Ketsugi 0 Motomeru-kai (Group for Request- ing the Diet Resolution of Japan's War Responsibility) (Tokyo: Nashi- nokisha, 1996), pp. 1-5. 41. Critical investigations are necessary to understand why many Japa- nese progressives as well as ordinary people "collabomted" with the government in its professed ignorance ofwar responsibility. One good example of such a study is Yoshida Yutaka, Nihonjin no Senso-kan: Sengo-shi no nakano Henyo (Japanese views on the war: Changes in the postwar history) (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1995). 42. Ibid., pp. 160-61. 43. RaymondWilliams,Resouro&S' oj1Iope: Culture, Democracy, Socialism (London: Verso, 1989), pp. 36-38. 44. ToddGitlin,The TwilightofCommonDream&: WhyAmericaIs Wracked byCu/ture Wan (NewYorlc: Metropolitan Books, 1995), p. 23. Bulletin o/Concerned Asian Scholars 46 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org Bulletino[ConcernedAsian Scholars, Vol. 30,No.2(1998):47-S2 ISSN0007-4810 C 1998BeAS (Oakland,California) TheJapan-SouthKoreaJointStudyGroup onHistoryTextbooksandthe ContinuingLegacyofJapaneseColonialism ThisarticlesummarizestheargumentsthattookplaceduringtheJapan-KoreaTextbookJointStudyGroupthatranfrom 1992to1994. TheStudyGroup,whichwasthefirstattemptofitskindbetweenJapanandSouthKoreainrecentyears, focusedonrepresentationsof KoreainJapanesehigh schooltextbooks.KoreanscholarscritiquedJapanesetextbooksfor theirlackofperspectiveonthehistoryofJapan'scolonizationofKorea.SomeKoreanscholarswerecriticaloftheJapanese attempttoemphasizetheactivitiesoUhoseJapanesepeoplewhoweresympathetictoKoreaunderJapanesecolonialrule, thinkingthatthiswoulddownplaytherepressivenatureoftherule.Finally,theauthorobservesthattheexaminationof KoreanhistorytextbooksinKorearemainsoneofthemostimportanttasksofthefuture.Kimijimadiscussestherecent trendofKoreanhistorytextbooksinKorea,anditsimplicationsforthepromotionofmutualunderstandingbetweenthe two countries. byKimijimaKazuhiko,translatedbyInokuchiHiromitsu* Since mid-1994, a movement to reinterpret history and AfteravisittoGermany,wherehereadFujisawa'sDoitsu-jin no historytextbookshasbeengainingmomentuminJapan.Ledby Rekishi Ishiki: Ky okasho ni miru Senso Sekinin (TheGermans' FujiokaNobukatsu,aneducationprofessoratTokyoUniversity, awarenessof history:Theresponsibilityof warasrepresentedin themovementdemandsa"revision"ofJapanesehistorystudies textbooks),YiproposedholdingaJapan-Koreajointstudygroup andhistoryeducation. Basedonaratherbluntformofchauvin- based onthe model ofGerman-Polish exchanges ontextbook isticnationalism,Fujioka's"historyrevisionmovement"enjoys development. 2 broadsupportfromtraditionalright-wing"intellectuals"andpoliti- Initially, the purposeofthe Study Group wasto examine calforces,eventhoughitisstillintheprocessof development. collaboratively the history textbooks in Japan and Korea by Fujioka andothersofhis kindhavelearnednothingfrom focusing ontheirrespectivedescriptionsofmodemhistory. As the accomplishments of the Japan-South Korea Joint Study it developed, however, the Study Group decided to examine GrouponHistoryTextbooks(hereaftertheStudyGroup),which modernhistory as represented in Japanesehighschool histOIY hassubjectedthesesamehistoricalissuestocross-nationalstudy. textbooks, because it seemed important to consider how the Jointresearch undertakenby JapaneseandKoreanscholarson aggressordepicteditsownaggression. Japanesetextbooksoffersnewperspectivesontheissues,while Inthebeginningtherewereaboutthirtyparticipantsinthe illustratingthedifficultiesinachievinghistoricalconsensus. StudyGroup,includinghistoriansofmodernJapanandmodern Korea, scholarsofhistoryeducationandeducation,highschool OriginsoftheStudyGroup andmiddleschoolteachers,textbookeditorialstafffrompublishing In thesummerof1990,FujisawaHouei,ofKanazawaUni- houses, and graduatelundergraduate students. (The Study Group versityinJapan,organizedtheStudyGroup,inspiredby theideas hadnodirectgovernmentsupportfromeitherJapanorKorea.) ofYi rae-yong,aSouthKoreanscholarofGermanphilosophy.' My owninvolvementwasas oneofthe organizersofthe StudyGroupontheJapaneseside.Attheinternationalmeetings, IreportedontheJapanesetextbooksystemandon thedescription of Japan-KoreahistoryinJapanesehighschoolhistorytextbooks. *FortheromanizationofKoreannames,thisarticlebasicallyfollowsthe Priorto thefirstjointsession,participantsfromJapanhad McCune-Reishauermethod,exceptsomecommonlyknownnamesin the beenholdingstudymeetingsonceamonth,whiletheparticipants English-speakingcountries(e.g.,SyngmanRhee).1hetranslatorwouldJike 10thank SonGwang-mkandBruceCwningsfortheirhelpin the romani- from Koreahad convened severaltimes. The internationalJa- zation ofKoreannames. pan-KoreaStudyGroupmeetingswereheldatotaloffourtimes, Vol. 30,No.2(1998) 47 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org This pyramid ofcorpses illustrates the carnage of the Russo-Japanese War. Most ofthe war was fought in Manchuria and Korea and also devastated large portions of both those regions. (From Illustmted London News, 24 Sept 1904.) (Sollml: Nlhon no shingyaku senso to oj/a 110 /co- domo [Japan's aggressive war and the children of Asia] [Tokyo: Meiseki Shot.en, 1996]) twice in each country, from the spring of 1991 to the fall of 1992. Discussions at the international meetings, which attracted about one hundred people from the public, explored historical contro- versies not limited to the descriptions in school textbooks. Issues Raised by Korean Scholars Among the many issues raised at the Study Group meetings, I specifically discuss those related to the "conceptualization" of the historical relationship between modern Japan and Korea. Views on the "Idea of Conquering Korea" At the second international Study Group meeting, Japanese historian Kato Akira (Joetsu University of Education) brought up the 1873 debate in Japan over whether or not to attack Korea. In that debate, several leaders of the new Meiji government, including Saigo Takamori, had argued for the Seikanron, i.e., "idea of conquering Korea," insisting that the government should immediately conquer Korea, even though that government had established power in Japan only five years earlier. Korean researcher Yi Hyon-hee (Songsin Women's Uni- versity) countered Kato's position by exposing the deep histori- cal roots of the Meiji debate on conquering Korea. The "idea of conquering Korea," professor Yi argued, had originated even earlier than the Meiji period, and was already well established in the late Edo period, when such famous thinkers as Kumazawa Banzan and Ando Shoeki were "representative advocates" of the idea, and when Hayashi Shihei, Yoshida Shoin, and others "ex- plicitly argued for the legitimacy of the idea of invasion." Yi traced the origins of the idea of Japanese invasion to the ancient myth, recorded in the Nihon Shoki (written in 720), that the legendary Empress Jinko had conquered Korea. He also noted the prevalent Japanese view that in the fourth and fifth centuries the kingdom of "Mimana" (one of Korea's old regional kingdoms) had fallen within Japan's sphere of governance. Fi- nally, moving from legend to established fact, Yi noted that Toyotomi Hideyoshi had invaded Korea in the sixteenth century, and that late-Edo thinkers viewed invasion as part of the "recov- ery of lost territory." Yi concluded that after Hideyoshi's inva- sion, the Edo thinkers, who internalized the warrior-class ideol- ogy (Bushido seishin), celebrated the idea of conquering Korea and further developed the idea that Korea was inferior and despicable. Yi was not the only member of the Study Group to take this position. Most of the Korean scholars situated the early Meiji debate on conquering Korea within the larger sweep ofJapanese history and viewed current problems in the Japan-Korean rela- tionship as an extension of that history. The claim of the Korean scholars was somewhat disap- pointing to the Japanese historians because they had made sub- stantial efforts since 1945 to critique and remove the imperialist ideology and ethnocentrism in historical studies, and many Japa- nese historians believed that they had already succeeded. Now they were forced to recognize that a large number of Korean scholars, whose country suffered under extreme forms of colo- nial rule, regarded the Japanese efforts as insufficient. The Ko- rean approach to history stimulated a reexamination of the Japa- nese approaches. Views of the Fifteen-Year War (1931-1945) Discussions about war between Japan and Korea in modern times have centered on differences in conceptualizing the scope of "the war" and in establishing "responsibility for the war." In Japan, progressive historians have come to conceptualize the Asian theater of World War II as the "Fifteen-Year War" (the term is also used in some school textbooks). The "war" is viewed as a series of wars beginning with the Japanese invasion of the northeastern part of China (Manchuria) in September 1931, and ending with the Japanese surrender to the Allied Powers in August 1945. In contrast, some conservative Japanese, who wish to con- ceal the Japanese invasion of China and Southeast Asia, have generally treated this flfteen-year history (from 1931, when the Japanese invasion intensified, until 1945) as ifit were composed of a series of unrelated incidents: The Japanese advanced into northeastern China in 1931 (and the conflict ended), the Japanese advanced into China in 1937 (and the conflict was settled), and the Japanese entered the war against the United States and the United Kingdom in December 1941 (and this war "ended" in 1945). This framework helps hide the essential nature ofthe war, which began with the Japanese invasion. Progressives in Japan seem to have provided a more accept- able, consistent explanation, arguing that (1) the Japanese inva- Bulletin o/Concerned Asian Scholars 48 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org sion of northeastern China was the cause of full-scale war with China; (2) the deadlock in the war with China was the chief reason for the Japanese invasion of Southeast Asia; and (3) the invasion of Southeast Asia triggered the Japanese war against the United States and the United Kingdom. In short, then, con- ceiving the series of wars as the Fifteen-Year War provides a more comprehensive picture of the history that also takes into account the question of war responsibility. The Korean scholars in the Study Group, however, posed a series of penetrating questions: What do the Japanese mean by the "Fifteen-Year War"? How do the Japanese conceive of "ac- countability for Japan's colonial rule of KoreaT and How does the "Fifteen-Year War" relate to that colonial rule? They criticized the concept of the Fifteen-Year War as a China and U.S.-centered view of history that ignores the earlier colonization ofKorea. From the Korean perspective, the war that ended in August 1945 was either a seventy -year war that began with the Kanghwa Island incident of 1875, a fifty-year war that started with the Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895), or a forty-year war that dates back to the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905). Citing the example of the One Hundred-Year War in European history, the Korean scholars observed that the term "war" is not limited to periods of continuous fighting. In sum, the central point of the Korean argument was that Japan and Korea were at war from at least the time of the 1894-95 Sino-Japanese War and the 1904-05 Russo-Japanese War. They noted that this point had been overlooked even by progessive Japanese scholars. In fact, in the official Korean high school history textbook, the anti-Japanese resistance during the Sino-Japanese War, which was fought mainly in Korea, is described as one organized by the "Tonghak farmers' army." Resistance to Japan after the Russo- Japanese War, also fought mainly in Korea, is similarly described as the Anti-Japanese war of "righteous armies" (uibyong). 3 From this perspective, Korea had been fighting a war of "righteous armies" ever since the Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese Wars. The same textbook also relates that the Provisional Korean Government (Taehan Min 'guk Imsi Chongpu), established in exile in Shanghai, continued the "Anti-Japanese War" after the March First Independence Movement of 1919 was crushed within Korea. War resistance efforts by Koreans in Manchuria became part of the anti-Japanese movement. The Provisional Govern- ment declared war on Japan when the Pacific War broke out (in December 1941), and, in the fmal stage of the war, was planning an operation to recover Korea. This never came to pass because of Japan's surrender. 4 In the Study Group, professor Chong Chae-jung (City University of Seoul) argued that the Anti-Japanese War in Korea intensified during the 1930s and 1 940s (i.e., during the period of the Fifteen-Year War). He linked this struggle to the resistance in Manchuria (noted above). Then, just after the Pacific War began in December 1941, the Provisional Korean Government declared war against Japan. Chong'S contention was that Japan was at "war" with Korea throughout the years 1931-45, and that the "responsibility for war" should be termed "accountability for colonial rule." By contrast, while Japanese textbooks have increasingly included terms such as the "Righteous Soldiers' movement" (Gihei undo) or the "Righteous Soldiers' struggle" (Gihei toso) when describing the Korean resistance to Japanese rule, they have never treated Korea in that period as a separate country Vol 30, No.2 (1998) waging a "war" for autonomy. Moreover, if we look at the textbooks in greater depth, and compare the number of descrip- tions ofKorea-from the 1873 "Conquer Korea" debate until the 1910 "Annexation" ofKorea-with the number from 1910 to the 1945 "Independence" of Korea, the latter period shows signifi- candy fewer references than the former. The disappearance of the independent nation-state of "Korea" in the years 1910-45 results in the erasure of Korea as a nation from the Japanese textbook descriptions. The Korean conceptualization of the war poses serious questions for modem Japanese historians. Modem Japanese historians are not familiar with the concepts of a "Japan-Korea fifty-year war" or "Japan-Korea forty-year war." When Japanese historians refer to the responsibility for "war," they implicitly assume the Fifteen Year War (that is, mainly the war with China). Moreover, they have not examined sufficiently the relationship between the colonial rule of Korea and the Fifteen-Year War. Thus, Japanese historians do not have a sound basis from which to respond to questions from the Korean scholars. Taking the Korean question seriously requires that Japa- nese historians reexamine the entire framework ofexisting stud- ies of the last war. This may be an issue Japanese scholars need to study and discuss among themselves before engaging in discussions with Korean scholars on equal terms. While Japa- nese textbooks of recent years have allowed more space for discussion of the Japanese invasion of Korea and its colonial rule, no textbooks have responded to, or been written from, this perspective. The Korean question, in fact, poses a great challenge for Japanese historians and educators. Study of Japanese Who Were Sympathetic to Korea Fujisawa Houei, the central Japanese figure in the Study Group, has pointed out that some Japanese were critical of Japan's colonial rule of Korea and sympathized with Korea. Korean textbooks, he suggested, should mention those people so that Koreans as well as Japanese could recognize their existence. Professor Takasaki Soji (Tsuda College) has made similar claims. For example, at the second Joint Study Group meeting in Korea, Takasaki reported on Japanese intellectuals' responses to the colonization of Korea by focusing on the attitudes of socialists, Christians, and humanists (specifically Kotoku Shu- sui, Uchimura Kanzo, Yanagi Muneyoshi, and Makimura Hi- roshi). He discussed their responses to three specific historical incidents: the "annexation" of Korea, the March First Inde- pendence Movement, and the Independence Movement under the Fifteen-Year War. Takasaki, while identifying the limitations of anti-colonial thought among modem Japanese intellectuals, argued that it should be noted nevertheless that even in the darkest days, some Japanese supported and attempted to ally with the Korean independence movement. He expressed his wish that Korean people would acknowledge Japanese efforts to honor their predecessors' anti -colonialist thought and activities. The Korean scholars objected sharply. Kim Sung-il (Dong- kuk University), for example, insisted that the brutality of Japa- nese colonial rule cannot in any way be negated or justified by enlphasizing the existence of a few Japanese sympathetic to Korea. Kim criticized each individual name Takasaki brought up, and he argued that not even the most conscientious Japanese of the period actively worked to end colonial oppression. Prioritiz- ing the national interest over individual thought and interests had 49 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org been the essence of the presurrender Japanese mentality, Kim argued. Moderator Yi Won-sun (professor emeritus, Seoul National University) summarized the Korean position in the debate: "It is possible to understand [the point of the Japanese argument], but it is difficult for Koreans to accept it [and include the description in the textbooks]." Yi had long promoted exchanges in the field of history education and he understood both Korean and Japa- nese sensitivities on this point. From the perspective of promo- tion of Korea-Japan friendship, he understood the significance of writing about these Japanese individuals, but he held that other Japanese were evading responsibility for colonial rule by refer- ring to the very few Japanese critics of colonialism. Arguments of this kind, Yi concluded, would not convince many Koreans; thus it is difficult to address this matter explictly in Korean school textbooks. Many of the Japanese participants understood the Korean point of view, but it presented problems for them nonetheless. Progressive history educators in Japan had wrestled with how to teach about Japan-Korea friendship in the context of modem Japanese-Korean relations. They decided to emphasize three areas of study: the "history of invasion," the "history of resis- tance," and the "history of solidarity." The "history of invasion," which deals in detail with the modern Japanese invasion of Korea and Japanese colonial rule, has been a central focus in progressive Japanese history educa- tion. Educators acknowledge two shortcomings with this ap- proach, however. The first is that it tends to disregard the agency of Koreans, in that Korea is simply treated as an object to be invaded and dominated. The second is that teachers have found that, because colonial rule was so violent and cruel, more than a few students developed a dislike for history classes after the "history of invasion" lessons. Students frequently made com- ments such as "again?" or "too much!" The "history of resistance" component, which was devel- oped in response to these criticisms, emphasizes Korean bravery in the independence struggle against Japanese rule. This ap- Kon:a was forcibly annexed by Japan on 22 August 1910. Japanese officials forbid the use of the Korean language and Korean pronoun- ciation ofnames in order to hasten the assimilation of Koreans into Imperial Japan. (SOUml: Nono Kuboi, Nihon 110 shillryaku 8eIlllSOU to Ajia 110 ko- domo, Tokyo: Aktuhi Shot.... 1996, ISBN 4-7503-0842-0. P. 49.) proach recounts not only the historical events of the "other" country, but it conveys also the importance of defending one's own nation against invasion. Educators note problems with this approach, as well. Teachers found that the following questions often arose as they taught about the history of invasion and resistance: Did Koreans and Japanese ever overcome their hos- tilities or the dynamic of invasion and resistance? Will it ever be possible for the people of the two countries to develop friendly relations? Japanese historians developed the "history of solidar- ity" curriculum unit in order to address questions such as these. The history of solidarity offers a basis for future solidarity and friendship by collecting historical data showing that some people in the two countries understood and helped each other. Teachers found that in this way their students had opportunities to recognize the people of Korea as fellow human beings. Although Koreans might argue that this approach justifies the Japanese invasion, this new approach has been beneficial for history education in Japan, helping to promote a good under- standing of Korea and to build Japan-Korean friendship. Japan- Korean friendship, it must be emphasized, must be built through efforts on both sides, and the key to this is how the two countries come to understand each other's present situation and history. Criticism that Japanese Textbooks Perpetuate the Emperor-Centered View of History In the Study Group meetings Korean scholars repeatedly pointed out that Japanese textbooks perpetuate the "emperor- centered view of history" and the "colonialist view of history" that was prevalent during the war. At first, Japanese scholars were puzzled by these terms and wondered what the point of these historical references was. Twenty years ago, in 1976, Yi Won-sun gave a lecture on this very point, one that still serves as a good reference for discussion. Yi argued that history textbooks under Japanese colonialism were written from an emperor-centered perspective in order to "foster the character and attitude of conquerors and to educate Japanese people that Japan had progressed to the extent that it had by extricating itself from Asia (Datsua shiso)." Specifically, in the case ofKorea, "the emperor-centered history attempted to explain, in a historical and rational manner, that Korea was an object to be invaded and conquered," and it also "attempted to deny the historical autonomy and creativity ofthe Korean people, while it created a historical image that all of Korean history was determined and fostered by forces and cul- tures in the Chinese continent, and was after aU advanced by external powers. It represented Korea as having a stagnant char- acter with no volition of its own.,,5 As far as I know, no Japanese history textbooks today explicitly expound this view. The ques- tion, however, is whether this perspective lies embedded in textbooks in other forms. In the Study Group, Pak Song-su, of the Academy of Korean Studies, pointed out that the old idea of the Japanese imperial state-that Japan "annexed" Korea in order to develop the civilization of Korea and protect it from colonization by Rus- sia-swvives in present-day Japanese textbooks in which Japan is said to be contributing to Korea's autonomous modcmization. Cho Hang-nae (Sungmyong Women's University) echoedtheseconcems, stating that distorted images are still implanted in the Japanese stu- dents' minds through textbook descriptions ofKorea. Bulletin ofConcemedAsian Scholars 50 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org Japanese researchers and educators need to recognize that their text- books still contain elements that remind Koreans ofthe emperor-cen- tered view of history. These elements include names used to describe particular historical incidents (e.g., "annexation"), the evaluation of historical events, and the overall organization of topics in the text- books. (Pictured above are samples of pre-war state-compiled textbooks that emphasized emperor worship. Source: Truth in Textbooks, Freedom in Educa- tion andPeacefor Children: The Struggle against Censorship ofSchool Text- books inJapan [Tokyo: National League for Support ofthe School Textbook Screening Suit, 1995J, p. 7.) Japanese researchers and educators need to recognize that their textbooks still contain elements that remind Koreans of the emperor-centered view ofhistory. These elements include names used to describe particular historical incidents (e.g., "annexa- tion"), the evaluation of historical events, and the overall organi- zation of topics in the textbooks. The history of the Japan-Korea relationship needs to be reexamined from this perspective, too. Reconciliation and the New Problematic: The Study Group's Achievements and Tasks for the Future The Study Group ended after two years, disbanding in March 1993, and a summary of the meetings was published as a book. Members moved on to pursue their own studies of text- books and to exchange views in more depth individually. The Study Group both produced much of value and raised many issues, some of which were left unresolved. Below I would like to discuss some achievements and remaining tasks. Actual Reading of Textbooks The most notable achievement was the opportunity to ex- amine Japanese high school history textbooks through both Japanese and Korean eyes. Currently, there are several routes of educational exchange available between Korea and Japan, but these exchanges have been primarily for research purposes. No groups have yet read specific textbooks together line-by -line. 6 In the Study Group, Korean scholars did comment on specific points in Japanese high school textbooks (e.g., biased presentations of Japanese and world history). Pak Sung-soo, for example, discussed two textbooks published by Jikkyo Shupp an press, Japanese History for High School and Japanese History. He judged them to be generally "well-written" in terms of the Japan-Korea relationship, but he criticized the textbook descrip- tion of the massacre of Koreans in Japan just after the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923. Pak pointed out that the racist meaning of the massacre was obscured because the books failed to differen- Vol. 30, No.2 (1998) tiate the mass killing of Koreans from the politically motivated murders by police of the Japanese anarchist Osugi Sakae and a group of labor organizers in the Kameido district of Tokyo. Pak also noted approvingly that Jikkyo Shuppan's Japa- nese History is the only textbook that refers to the Cheam Church massacre of 1919,7 but he criticized the last sentence in the captionofone ofthe book's photographs: "This is the photograph of a new church built in 1970 funded by Christians in Japan and others." Pak saw this line as part of an attempt to offset criti- cisms-and so justify-the Japanese invasion with talk of Japa- nese donations. Compared to other Korean criticisms of Japanese text- books-which often dismissed all textbooks as being "as awful as" the right-wing, militarist textbook, the New Edition History ofJapan (published by Hara Shobo Press)-Pak's specific criti- cisms of the "well-written" Japanese textbooks are timely and very useful. Japanese historians and educators should be prepared to hear more criticism that is based on close readings of actual texts, and should respond to such criticisms in a serious and sincere manner. The Need to Study Korean Textbooks The Study Group did not analyze Korean textbooks, per- haps the most important area it neglected. Since the estab- lishment of the South Korean government in 1948, Korean history textbooks have been changed six times in accordance with changes in the national curriculum guidelines. The first two sets of guidelines, adopted in 1954 and 1963-bothwritten under the influence of President Syngman Rhee's governance-coin- cided with adoption of the state-certified textbook system, and several existing textbooks were retained for each subject. The guiding principles in that period were "anti-communism" and "anti-Japan. " In 1973, the start of the third period, President Park Chung Hee proposed "education with nationalism" and gave the state the responsibility for writing history textbooks (a system that continues to date). History textbooks published during this pe- riod pointed to the Japanese invasion as the major historical factor disrupting Korea's autonomous development. The fourth set of curriculum guidelines, adopted in 1981, stressed continuities in Korea's self-reliant development, in spite of Japan's invasion and colonization. It described Korean mod- ern history as a period of anti-feudalism and anti-colonialism, and portrayed history under Japanese rule in terms of the anti- Japanese war for independence. The history textbook written to meet the fifth round of curriculum guidelines in 1987 described modern Korean history as an age of "autonomous development" in the areas of politics, economy, and thought. (The colonial period was said to be the "period when Korean national identity formed" and "when its national independence movement developed.") Korean nation- alism was heavily promoted in this edition of the textbook, and the significance of the Japanese invasion was toned down and the anti-Japanese tone was significantly reduced. The sixth curriculum guidelines took effect in March 1997, 8 and the seventh guidelines, scheduled for 200 1, are currently being developed. While I have not yet analyzed the textbooks that follow the 1997 guidelines, Korean textbooks in general now emphasize the nation's autonomous development and de-empha- size the impact of Japanese invasion and rule. Korean textbooks 51 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org stress the struggle for independence rather than the experience of being oppressed. This position has not necessarily replaced the earlier one, however. The history of the invasion and of Japanese oppression has hardly been forgotten in Korea, nor will it ever be, even if, as it appears, it is no longer central in Korean history textbooks. In the world beyond textbooks, a huge center for "anti-Japanese education" was opened in Ch'onan on 15 August 1987-Inde- pendence Memorial Hall-illustrating that the old position is fIrmly established. Researchers who wish to understand the descriptions of modem Korean history in Korean textbooks need to recognize the existence of two positions-one stressing Ko- rea's victimization by Japan, the other stressing Korea's agency and resistance to Japan-and the occasionally conflicting mean- ings that these positions represent. Is a Common Korean-Japanese Textbook Possible? The Study Group did not resolve the question of whether it would be possible to create a "common Japan-Korean textbook." On this point, Korean scholars were divided. While Pak Sung- soo insisted on the need for a common textbook (in his words, it is worth pursuing even if it takes a hundred years to develop), but Yi Won-sun thought the task impossible. Many Japanese participants shared Yi's perspective, noting the many institu- tional differences between textbook systems, differences in the organization of the history textbooks, and, above all, differences in the interpretation of history between the people and scholars of the two countries. I myself am inclined to agree that a common textbook is impossible, at least for now, for several reasons. First, Japanese and Korean history textbooks are very different in their organi- zation of knowledge and topics. In Japanese history textbooks, Korea is discussed mainly in political and diplomatic historical contexts. Analysis of Japan's modem-day diplomatic history, however, generally focuses on Japan's relations with Europe and the United States first, then China, and Korea last. In the Korean history textbooks, Korea's relationship with Japan is central. Even, the description of the period under Japa- nese rule focuses on Japanese oppression, even in the economic and cultural realms. (Anti-Japanese literature and anti-Japanese music are examples of the cultural topics treated in the text- books.) In other words, Korean modern history textbooks cannot be written without extensive reference to Japan. There seems to be no easy way to resolve these differences in a common Ko- rean-Japanese textbook. The second reason involves the textbook production sys- tems in Japan and Korea. Japan uses a state system for screening and certifying and has produced about twenty history textbooks; Korea, on the other hand, uses a single state-authored history textbook. This difference between the two systems needs to be understood in greater depth by scholars in both countries before work on a common textbook could be begun. The third reason has to do with differences in methods and approaches in the two countries. Though it may be possible to overcome those differences through scholarly exchanges, it will require time to bridge the gap. Having said this, I maintain that the attempt to create a common textbook and the importance of examining the content of existing history textbooks can be two separate projects. The Study Group was able to conduct a focused discussion on the issue of historical facts,and to explore ways in which the two sides . connected with each other. The joint discussions also gave us a clearer sense of the future tasks ofhistory education and history studies. The project should continue. By jointly analyzing the text- books of both countries, researchers will be able to begin to clarify the historic relationship between Japan and Korea, choose common themes for study, and deepen understandings between the Korean and Japanese people. Notes
is currently head ofthe Korea Intemational TextbookResearch Institute. 2. The Study Group was not the first attempt at dialogue on the issue. A Japan-South Korea textbook dialogue occurred in the late 1960s as a response to the call in 1965 from UNESCO headquarters, when Japan's domestic UNESCO committee and Korea's preparatory committee agreed to establish a History Education Conference. However, the conference was postponed indefInitely because the textbook lawsuit by Ienaga Saburo brought on a contlict of viewsregarding textbooks within the Japanese side. Dialogue ofthis kind only reopened in the mid-l 980s. 3. The "righteous armies" were local armies consisting mainly of peasants led by the "yangban" class (fonner government officials or landlords) and local intellectuals in order to resist the Japanese invasion through military struggle. At the time of the Sino-Japanese War and the Russo-Japanese War, many groups of righteous armies united and fought in organized ways. 4. Under Japan's colonial rule, in the course of the March First Inde- pendence Movement of 1919, several separate groups of Koreans in various places such as Seoul, Siberia, Manchuria, and Shanghai at- tempted to establish a provisional Korean government. In April 1919, the organizers of these groups gathered together to establish the Provi- sional Korean Government in Shanghai, where Japanese authories were out of reach and it was easy to develop diplomatic relations with many countries. The provisional government adopted a republican fonn, and Syngman Rhee became the fust prime minister. While it organized secret operations in Korea, it attempted to restore its sovereignty through diplo- matic means. Kim Kyu-sik, who stayed in Paris, was secretary offoreign affairs. In spite ofsome difficulty caused by the internal power struggle, the provincial government continued the independence movement, and de- clared war with Japan when the Pacific War broke out. 5. In Japan, such a view has been criticized by historian Hatada Takashi and others as the "view of history that sees Korea as a dependent nation" (Chosen taritsusei shikan) or the "theory ofKorea as a stagnant nation" (Chosen teitaiseiron). 6. The Examination of Content of Korean History Represented in Japanese Textbooks (Nihon Kyokasho ni Detekuru Kankoku-shi no Naiyo no Kento) (1987, in Japanese) authored by the Korea Education and Development Institute, is the closest to such a project. Although it discusses Japanese elementary, junior-high, and high school history textbooks, it does not provide specific references to titles of textbooks or page numbers. 7. In Japanese, the incident is called "Teigan Kyokai Jiken." This incident was one example of severe repression of the Korean inde- pendence movement. As part of the March First Independence Move- ment, some Koreans demonstrated near the city of Suwon on April 5. After the demonstration, on April 15, Japanese police and military searched for the leaders, and at the village of Cheam-li, they confmed twenty-one Christian villagers in the chapel and burned them to death. They also killed two village women and burned the village. They then killed six Ch'ondogyo (a popular religion) believers in a neighboring village, because Christians and Ch'ondogyo believers worked together for independence. 8. The most recent textbook fmally includes the issue of the "Comfort Women," albeit a short, simple description. D Bulletin ofConcerned Asian Scholars 52 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org Bulletin o[ConcernedAsian Scholars, Vol. 30,No.2(1998): S3-61 ISSN0007-4810 C 1998BCAS(Oakland,California) Identity and Transnationalization in German School Textbooks GermanyprovidesanInterestingpuzzlefromacomparativepenpectivetothestudyofnation-stateidentitiesintextbooks. UnlikeitsAsiancounterparts,andmore10thanotherEuropeancountries,inGermany,historyandciviatextbooksdisplay aprudenceinrepresentationsofnationalidentity.Ratherthanassertingnationalmythsandirredentistnarrativesasthe corecomponentsof nationhood,thetextbooksfocusontherepresentationof amoreglobalizedanddivenifiedworld,and theplaceof arelatlvizedGermanidentityinit.Inthispaper,theauthorexplicatesthepostwaridentitytrendsasdepicted inGermantextbooksandoffena setofexplanatoryfactonthatunderwritethesetrend..- thedispositionofGermany vis-a-vistheEuropeanUnion,theinstitutionalstructureoftheschoolsystemandtextbookproduction,andthenatureof i I I , theactoninvolvedintextbookreformationefforts. byYaseminNuholluSoysal Introduction Inrecentdecades,wehaveobselVed asignificantchange in nation-state identities in response to global and regional politicalreconfigurations. Onesuchcase,theEuropeanUnion, projects a transnational political entity-a union of nations, regions,andlocalities.Whathappenstocollectiveidentitiesand citizenship(historicallyshapedbytheboundariesofthenation- state)inasituationinwhichcentrifugalforcesareundermining thepremiseof nationalcollectivitiesandthenationalclosureof cultures?PostwarchangesintheEuropeanstatesystemprovide ample opportunitytoexplorethedefinition andredefinitionof collective identities andnationhood through the institution of education. Thispaperaimstocapturetheshiftsinnation-stateidenti- ties, specificallyin Germany,asthesearerepresentedinschool curriculaandtextbooks. 1 Incomparisonwiththestudyofnation- state identities in the textbooks ofother countries, Germany providesaninterestingpuzzle.UnlikeitsAsiancounterparts,and more so than other European countries, Germany displays a prudence in representations ofnational identity in its social science textbooks. Rather than asserting national myths and presentingirredentistnarrativesas thecorecomponentsofna- tionhood, the textbooksfocus ontherepresentation ofa more globalizedanddiversifiedworld, andtheplaceofa relativized Germanidentityinthatworld.Thisdeparturefromthetraditional representationsofnationalidentity should,nodoubt,beunder- stoodvis-i-visthecriticaljunctureoftheHolocaustandWorld WarII. Givenitsharrowingnationalistandmilitaristpast,Ger- manyhadnochoicebuttoanchoritsidentitywithintheprospect ofanintegratedEurope andatransnationalcontext.I contend, however,thatthereareotherdecisivefactorsthatweneedtotake intoaccountinordertounderstandthepuzzleofpostwarshifts inGermannation-stateidentity. In this paper, I explicate the postwar identity trends as depicted in German textbooks and offer a set ofexplanatoty factors that explainthese trends--the disposition ofGermany vis-i-visthe EuropeanUnion,the institutional structureofthe school system and textbook production, and thenature ofthe actorsinvolvedintextbookreformationefforts. Myfocusison theofficialrepresentationofidentitiesintextbooksratherthan theextenttowhichthetextbooksthemselvesaffecttheattitudes orshapethebeliefsofindividuals.Furthermore,Idonotintend toprovideanormativeassessmentofvariousrepresentationsof identity, instead I deploy the respresentations analytically to capturetheidentityreconfigurationsinpostwarEurope. NationandIdentityinPublicDebates The controversies over histOty and the definition ofthe nationarenotabsentfromthepublicsphereinGermany. Since unification in 1989, Germany hashadits shareof"searchfor nationalidentity"efforts,alongwithdebatesonhowtointerpret itshistoty.Theunityandnatureof theGermannationhavebeen called into question over and over again, in struggles over memorials, monuments, the re-interpretation ofthe Nazi past, andtheplaceofthearmyinthenewGermany. Indeedtheyear1994witnessedaheightenedpublicdebate overidentityandhistoty-notcoincidentally,sincetheyearwas markedbyaseriesof commemorationsof theendof theSecond World War. ItwasalsotheelectionyearfortheGermanpresi .. dency,withimmigration,unification,andthefutureofGermany I
VoL 30,No.2(1998) 53 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org among the topics on the electoral agenda Efforts to redefine the Gennan nation and its history and to discern the role of Germany in a unified Europe were strengthened as events unfolded in 1994. When the conservative presidential candidate Roman Her- zog identified himself as a "patriot" in an interview, stating "Ich liebe dieses deutsche Yolk (I love this German nation)," the routine and rather tranquil parliamentary contest for a ceremonial post turned into a matter for "national soul searching and re-ex- amination."2 Herzog's comments, interpreted as a drift toward German nationalism, generated reactions across a broad spec- trum. While his words found resonance among many, the ensu- ing debate was not as much about recovering the German nation as it was about defining a new identity for Germany-involving a break. from the past and a striving for normalcy as a nation-state and an assuming of European and global responsibilities. 3 Soon after his election, Herzog committed himself to this vision of a new identity, distancing himself from his earlier "volkisches Denken" (ethnic thinking) and recasting his image as the "president of everyone living in Germany"-Gennan or foreigner. 4 The controversies surrounding the commemorations of World War II were also signs of a desire to make a sharp break with the past and to reconstitute postwar Germany as an equal among the other European nation-states. Anniversary events in the summer of 1994 highlighted the urge to "move fOlWard"; at the same time, the fragility of the same desire in the shadow of the Nazi past came to the fore with the opening of a nationwide exhibition on "German resistance" to the Nazi regime; the quest of the German state to be part of the D-Day celebrations; the marching of German troops along with the French on Bastille Day as part of the Eurocorps; and President Herzog's official visit to Poland and his apology on the day of Warsaw Uprising. s Each of these events, while reflecting the efforts of Germany to reconcile with its neighbors and allies-and recontextualize its national identity- also revealed the strains of trying to come to terms with a difficult past. Not so inadvertently, the quest to normalize the German nation and identity has coincided with the flaring up of theories and historical accounts that relativize the Nazi past. Since the mid- 1980s, conservative reinterpretations ofthe Holocaust, which rej ect the uniqueness of the German experience or deny outright the existence of the Holocaust, have found their way into historians' writings. This perspective, however, has been fiercely opposed by humanist and left-oriented historians,6 and Gennany's constitu- tional court itself ruled that the denial ofthe Holocaust was uncon- stitutional. 7 Still, a loosely linked group of writers and historians continues to appeal for a more self-assertive German identity and national pride. And history and national identity remain con- tested issues as Nazi revivals, Holocaust revisionism, and anti- immigrant violence keep surfacing, despite reactions from wide- ranging segments of German society. While the contentions over German history and identity play out in the public arena, the school curricula and textbooks appear to be less affected by such controversies. The textbooks ratheneflect a consensus over the condemnation ofthe Nazi past and over the exclusion of references to the "past glories and power of the German nation." The significant absence of public struggles over textbooks, which is in sharp contrast with the case of Japan (and also the United States), is part of the puzzle that I try to untangle in this paper. To do so, I suggest that we need to take into consideration (1) the specificities of institutional (cor- poratist) arrangements in Germany, (2) the agency and involve- ment of international actors, and (3) the role of the unification process in Europe. It is these variables that underlie the different trajectory of identity definitions in the European context and explain the immunity oftextbooks from controversy in Germany. Nation and Identity in German Textbooks National textbooks are representative of officially selected, organized, and transmitted knowledge. 8 They are products of contestation and consensus. Thus they are indispensable to the explication of public representations of national collectivities and identities. My discussion of the emerging nation-state iden- tity and the changes in the public defmitions of citizenship in postwar Germany draws upon an analysis of history and civics textbooks for lower secondary schools, since they reflect more standardized, mass aspects of education. History textbooks have an amplified significance, for his- tory is not only a defmition of the past and present but also an attempt to foster continuity in national memory. This memory, in tum, is the foundation upon which collective identity is constructed and the future is predicated. 9 Thus, historiography debates do have an important role in shaping the Collective meanings of identity. My discussion in this paper, however, is confmed to the textbooks themselves, rather than the debates ushered in by historians to recast collective memory. In analyz- ing German textbooks, I focus on three dimensions that delineate the boundaries of the nation-state identity: 1. The extent of the Europeanization and globalization of iden- tities presented; and the coverage of topics such as progress, environment, and human rights, which have a transnationalizing content. 2. The existence (or nonexistence) of a renewed emphasis on national identities and the nationalizing content ofeducation; the nature ofvalues, ideals, loyalties, and civic duties celebrated; and the degree of the valorization of the nation. 3. The degree to which cultures and histories ofethnic, religious, and regional minorities are incorporated. Let me now present some of the "identity" trends as repre- sented in textbooks in the light of these three dimensions along with some comparative remarks. Transnationalizing content of education and the normalization of the national canon As Europe becomes a transnational political entity and sovereignty is increasingly shared between the European Union and the individual national states, we observe the penetration of a pronounced European dimension into national education. In practice, this means, for example, the teaching of Union lan- guages in schools; the incorpomtion of "Europe" as a formal subject of study; and an increasing emphasis in school curricula on wider European ideals and civic traditions (broadly defmed as democratic principles, social justice, and human rights), re- placing the nationalist content and the nationalizing mission of education. School curricula in severnl German states specifically include four dimensions to be dealt with across all (curricular) subjects: environment, gender equality, intercultural education, and the European dimension. Even in Bavaria, a typically more conservative state, the topics that deal with Europe, democracy, and human rights have been assigned a higher priority along with Bulletin a/Concerned Arian Scholars 54 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org our point of view.',11 Accordingly, the ministry pro- duces supplementary teaching material specifically designed to strengthen the teaching ofthe European perspective in history and civics lessons. Similarly, the head of the German History Teachers' Association stressed the need for a shift in approaches to teaching history: The aim is more and more to cover what is important for Europe. For example, in teaching about the towns and cities inthe Middle Ages, the oldertextbooks spoke about the German old towns. And we saw expressed in these towns the typical German character. And now, we do not study the German character of these towns, but their European character. For example, we have build- ings in Poland like buildings in Germany. In former times, the teacher would say, "Ah! You see in Poland there are the same buildings as in Germany, therefore these buildings were built by Germans." Now we say, "in both countries in this period, people built similar buildings." This is a question of perspective. You can teach the same material from a national perspective or from a European perspective. And now, we have, we want to have a European perspective.12 The European dimension is being given more prominent space in the textbooks and it is becoming visually salient 13 The following exhibits sample the depictions of Europeanness and European i e n t i ~ from two different German history textbooks. The fU'St exhibit (left) reaches back in history in the form of a fourteenth-centwy map that projects a rather inclusive Europe-from Italy and Germany to Denmark and from Spain, Gaul and Hungary to Constantinople. The two posters that appear on pages 6 and 56 (the second exhibit) orient Europe to the future and to development. Posters that celebrate Europe show member nations as unmis- takenly embodied inthe European Union-and its youth and future. In these depictions, the nation exists in the his- tory and future of Europe, and national i e n ~ is subsumed under a unified, supranational European- ness (but not necessarily euronationalism). This is Exhibit 1: "Europe as Unity." This map from the fourteenth century projects a rather not a static, unchangeable definition of the nation, inclusive Europe-- from Italy and Germany to Denmark and from Spain, Gaul and since it implies growth with others. Neither is it Hungary to Constantinople. The use ofmaps such as tIlls one shows students that the an unequal portrayal of the nations-each con- nation exists in the history and future ofEurope, and national identity is subsmned tributes to a common future and each is equally under a unified, supranational Europeanness (but not necessarily euronationalism). "fruitful." And not surprisingly (for Germany) the (Source: Geschichte undGeschehen. vol. 2 [Stuttgart: Klett, 1987]. p. 101.) use of tree as a symbol of the European body resonates with the strong environmentalist em- more regional themes that emphasize the heimat (homeland, phasis in German education. as in "my homeland Bavaria,,).10 As a corollary to the trend toward Europeanization, we also Many of the ministry officials, educators, and the heads of observe a normalization of national canons that glorify discrimi- teachers' associations I interviewed shared their perspectives on natory uniqueness and naturalistic myths. An example of this is the increased prominence given to the European dimension in the remaking of the VIkings from warrior forefathers to spirited f school curricula. One ministry official stated that the changes in long-distance traders. This is evident in the increasing celebra- I ~ curriculum were made "in response to the technical, economic, tion ofthe European heritage of the VIkings in history textbooks. I and political developments in Germany, Europe, and the whole Similarly, Germanic tribes in civics textbooks are often depicted world." For him the direction was clear: "You cannot preach a in cultural terms through references to village life, hospitality, European Union and at the same time continue to produce foodways, and artistic achievements. 14 textbooks with all the national prejudices of the nineteenth Yet another manifestation of this trend toward normaliza- centwy .... We must lose our national prejudices, we must change tion of national canons is the deliberate attempt to remedy the I 1 Vol. 30, No.2 (1998) 55 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org i conflicting national histories of European countries. Currently, there are several joint commissions working at hannonizing the teaching ofhistorical relations between Gennany and its various neighbors, including Poland, the Czech Republic, and France. These commissions produce guidelines and proposals for writing textbooks and for generating a common understanding and vo- cabulary for the teaching of national histories consistent with European ideals. (I return to this point below.) Emphasis on national identities Responses to Europeanization differ from country -to-coun- try based on the country's position within the European Union. Germany, with a secure place in the new Europe, and with a stronger identification with it, is more open to the transnationali- zation of its educational curricula and the diversification of collective identities. The countries in the old core of Europe- such as Britain and France-have a higher propensity to react to the intrusions ofEurope by accentuating their national identities. For example, the 1988 Education Reform Act in Britain was intended to institutionalize a "national curriculum" with increased emphasis given to national history and English litera- ture. The growing presence of the European Union-and a possible loss of British identity and sovereignty-underscored the debates surrounding the Reform Act. The installation of a national curriculum is a major step in the case of Britain, given that education has alway s been locally organized and the country has never had a nationally designed curriculum. Not surprisingly, in the new curriculum, British history occupies a very prominent place-accounting for seventy -five percent of the time allocated to history teaching. This percentage is extremely high compared to Germany, where the European dimension and world history share relatively equal curricular time with national history. In Lower-Saxony, for instance, the history cur- riculum for the fIrst year of secondary school allocates 39.9 percent of the teaching time to national history as compared to 49.8 percent reserved for European themes and 10.5 percent for non-European civilizations. IS No doubt, German history books have the customary narratives ofthe origins, histori- cal progress, and consolidation ofthe nation- from the Romans and Greeks and Christian Middle Ages to the coming of age of the nation-state. However, in comparison with textbooks in other European countries, con- temporary history in German textbooks is given a more prominent place. Ancient and medieval history is relatively marginalized in comparison with coverage of the Weimar Re- public, the Nazi period, and the cold war. For example, one popular secondary school his- tory textbook, Die Reise in die Vergangenheit. reserves three volumes out of six to the history of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, with separate volumes devoted to the Weimar and Nazi periods and to postwar world history. In Zeiten und Menschen, another popular text- book, out of a total of 237 pages covering twentieth-century history, half are devoted to the study of World War II, beginning with the "crisis of the Weimar Republic." This is not coincidental. In all German states, curricula guidelines require extensive teaching of contemporary Gennan history from Weimar on. This dispropor- tionate attention to contemporary history-given its contentious nature--makes it difficult to extol the "deutsche Nation and Volk" through celebratory narratives. The incorporation of minority/regional cultures and languages into national curricula and textbooks By breaching the link between the status attached to citi- zenship and national territory, the European Union creates a legitimate ground for various subnational groups to make claims for their cultural and linguistic identities within national educa- tion systems. More and more societal groups (immigrant organi- zations, regional movements, religious groups) are mobilizing around demands for inclusion into the defmitions and institutions of national education. Since 1983, for example, organizations advocating the use of languages such as Cornish, Sardinian, Occitan, have been w o r k n ~ through the European Bureau for the Lesser-used Languages. 6 In the last decade, various Euro- pean states, even those which had long resisted linguistic and cultural diversity, as in the cases ofFrance, Italy, and Spain. have passed legislation accommodating and supporting the use of regional languages in schools. In Gennany, many local states require "intercultural educa- tion" as a part oftheir curricula. In history textbooks, intercultu- ralism has found its way into the teaching about Islamic civili- zations. More and more, for instance, chronological accounts are giving way to narratives that depict Islam as a "culture" and a "way of life." Unlike the coverage of Christianity in German textbooks, the chapters on Islam invariably include everyday -life pictures of mosques, prayers, and marketplaces. In civics text- Exhibit 2 With this poster, the history text- book celebrates an idea ofEurope that projects the European Union as the embodiment ofmember na- ,. I tions and their future. (." (Source: Geschichte. vol. 4 [Munich: Bayerischer Schulbuchverlag, 1986]. pp.202203.) Bulletin ofConcemed Asian Scholars 56 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org Wir leben mit Menschen anderer Lander zusammen Exhibit 3: This class photo from a middle school in Hannover, Germany, shows pupils from different coun1ries and is a typical depiction of "us" and "others." (Source: Welt- und Umweltkuntle, Braunschweig: Westermann, 1993, p. 156.) books, interculturalism commonly fmds its expression in the introduction of the "ausl/lnder" (foreigner) under the thematic title of "miteinanderen leben" (living with each other). Exhibit 3 (above) is a typical depiction of"us and "others," a class photo from a middle school in Hannover, showing pupils from different countries. The explanation that accompanies the photo introduces the "virtual German student body" to Zerrin, daughter of a Turkish guestworker. Through Zerrin's visit to the village of her parents in Turkey during the summer holiday, students learn about Turkish culture, traditions, and village life. Back in school after the holidays, Zerrin meets another "aus- llndische Mitschuler" (foreign fellow-student), Esra, daughter ofa Kurdish refugee from Turkey. Zerrin learns about the Kurds, their history, traditions, and oppression in Turkey. (The text implies that Zerrin is learning about the Kurds for the flfSt time, because discussion of this subject is forbidden back in Turkey.) So, Zerrin meets her "other" as well. But, the chapter does not end there. After the spring break, a new student arrives in class, from yet another land, Poland. Stefan is introduced to the class as the new German student. To Zerrin's swprise, however, he speaks very little German. With the introduction of Stefan, son of 811 "Aussiedler" (ethnic German repatriate), the picture of Han- nOVel" as a multicultmal society becomes complete. The identities presented in this textbook narrative are par- ticular and differentiated along ethnic lines. Pupils of German, Turkish, Kurdish, and aussiedler origin fill the classrooms (the micro-geographies ofGermany), recognize their differences, and Vol 30, No.2 (1998) learn about and from each other. The German nation, "us," becomes meaningful together with its others (Turks), and even with their others (Kurds and aussiedler). Hence, the German identity is relativized as one among many ethnic and cultural identities. The representation of the "other" in this identity trajectory is rather a positive one, emphasizing the principles of plurality and harmony and marking a break from an unbefitting past. In this new trajectory, the threat to "us" (the German nation) no longer emanates from an "exogenous other" (the barbaric Tude or some other foreign culture) but from an "indigenous" one that violates the democratic order and jeopardizes the standing of Germany in international arenas. This indigenous "other" mate- rializes in textbooks as the Neonazi youth, who invariably ap- pears as the natural, present-day extension of the Nazi past. The dangers posed by the Neonazis are taught through extensive and negative coverage ofthe Nazi history as a time of violence, persecution, death, and destruction. And, not coinci- dentally, in civics textbooks, the sections on "Neonazis Heute" (Neonazis today) follow the visual and narrative denunciations of Nazi times, and explicitly connect Neonazis to National Socialism through comparisons of ideology, activities, and propaganda. 17 In one of the civics textbooks, the students are asked to describe and search for similarities between the picture of a Neonazi gathering from 1990 (uniformed youth in a forest area with flags, drums, and a camp fIre) and one ofHitler Youth from 57 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org 1934 {assembled in a camp-site in military style).!8 In another textbook, the section on current Neonazi propaganda against foreigners warns students that similar propaganda existed before 1933, and that is "how it all started, leading from hateful speech and race-talk to war and extermination camps."!9 Narratives of suffering and tragedy also connect the Neo- nazi youth to the Nazi past. The verbal and physical attacks suffered in school by Nina and Sergtll (a black and a Turkish student) in the 1990s are juxtaposed against the experiences of Hanna and Peter (two Jewish students) in year 1933. The stu- dents are asked to think about Hanna and Peter when recounting how Nina and Sergtll may have felt. 20 Similarly, a wall painted with Swastikas and Neonazi graffiti-"Deutschland den Deut- schen" (Germany of Germans) and "To.rkenRauss" (Turks Out)" -recalls a Nazi sign from 1938 that prohibited Jews from entering a neighborhood. 21 Through references to these lessons ofthe past, civics textbooks emphasize how necessary it is today to understand the "other" and have solidarity with them as fellow-human beings. ExplaiDing the Postwar Trends in German Textbooks The identity trends to which I referred in the previous section point to the three distinct ways of conceptualizing iden- tities: Europeanltransnational, national, and ethnic/community- based. These identity positions are generally set against one another and generate much heated debate in popular and schol- arly circles. When conceptualizing identities and engaging in political action, globalization is discussed in opposition to local- isms and nationalisms are set against regionalisms. I argue, however, that such strict dichotomizing is not productive, either theoretically or empirically. My research on textbooks reveals that different identity positions co-exist in postwar Europe, not necessarily opposing or replacing one another. More oftenthan not, they are interpreted by each other, and redefined in the process. German textbooks situate the nation and identity within a transnational context. As such, the German case does not fit conventional perspective that poses a conflict between the na- tional and transnational. In the case of Gennany, national identity is explicated and recast by the transnational. This sets Germany apart from the cases of Japan, South Korea, and China, in which the national dimension still plays a visibly larger role in matters of defming identities through education. I would like to offer three explanatory factors to account for the dominance of the transnational dimension in German textbooks. The flISt of these factors has to do with the distinct identity position of Germany vis-a-vis the international commu- nity in the postwar period. The other two concern the institutional structure of education and the nature of actors involved in the production of textbooks and curricula. The international arena provides "collective expectations and nonns" for the proper behavior of states as actors, as studies by John W. Meyer and Peter J. Katzenstein have shown. 22 Hence, the nature of the international community in which the countries are immersed has an important role to play in shaping nation- state identities. After the Second World War, while Germany has followed the course of European integration (economic and political) as a possible way to deal with its defeat and regain national sovereignty, Japan's approach has been to focus on economic security and competition with the United States. 23 As Japan's nation-state identity has taken shape vis-a-vis the United States, both on economic and symbolic grounds-and mainly in an oppositional configuration, German nation-state identity has evolved within the unifying project of Europe. As Katzenstein notes, in the process of integrating with Europe and East Germany, "Germans have eliminated the con- cept of 'power' from their political vocabul'!2. They speak the language of 'political responsibility' instead." 4 Symbolic mani- festations of identity struggles in Europe are still apparent during the European Cup matches or in the case of Britain's insistence on serving beef during a European Summit. However, the inte- gration process itself and the institutional framework for the process facilitate denationalization by creating nonnative expec- tations of equal and tamed nation-states. The dichotomy between transnational and national does not appear natural in the context of European unification, for the member states have to prove themselves asproperplayers within tightly interlinked transnational security arrangements. In Asia, on the other hand, internal and external security are exclusively the domain of national govem- ments, and so national boundaries and identities more salient."lS This difference in international dispositions is clearly reflected in the identity definitions and markings ofboundary in textbooks. Embedded as it is in a larger unifying project, Ger- many has felt considerable outside pressure to adopt a collabo- rative attitude in the negotiation of its identity and relationship with its neighbors. Japan, on the other hand, has managed to shield itself from such pressures, and has resisted the demands of its neighbors to collaborate in rewriting the history of World War II in Asia. As recently as August 1997, the Japanese govem- ment rejected proposals by South Korea for a joint history textbook commission with Japan, Germany, Poland, and South Korea.26 Another explanatory factor I would like to emphasize is the peculiarity of the institutional structure of the Gennan educa- tional system. In Germany, a tight network exists among the state, the academy, school systems, and the publishing industry, meditated by a set of corporatist institutional arrangements. 27 The close connection between educational authorities and other interest associations-business associations, teachers' unions, teachers' associations of geography, history, and social studies, parents' associations, churches, and universities-creates a basis and a strong incentive for consensus in developing curricula and producing textbooks. Germany's federalist system delegates control over educa- tional matters to the local states, where curriculum matters are the responsibility of the ministry of education. Curricula are re- viewed and revised every ten years by a committee that consists of representatives from the ministry, teachers' unions, teachers, and academics. Together they set up the themes, the content of the subjects to be taught, pedagogical guidelines, and the goals and extent of the curriculum. The curriculum is widely circulated among a variety of interested parties for commentary and sug- gestions. In Lower-Saxony, for example, the draft curricula are sent to four hundred associations, institutions, and universities throughout Germany for comments and feedback. 28 Teachers and academics, who serve on the curriculum committees, are usually commissioned by publishing companies to write and revise textbooks. Approval of the textbooks for use in state schools is the responsibility of the state's ministry of education.29 Germany's tight corporatist and consensus-orlented 8lT8Dgement contrasts starldy with the state-centric textbook FUCa tion and cmriculum development in Japan and South Korea. Bulletin o/ConcernedArion Scholar& 58 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org The existence ofcorporatist arrangements in the production of curricula and textbooks does not necessarily imply the absence of conflict in Germany. In the aftermath of unification, sex and religious education, in particular, have been major areas of contention. This is due in part to the merger oftwo ideologically very different education and institutional systems and also to the increasing visibility of religious diversity in Germany. The Ger- man constitution allows denominational religious instruction in schools, the content of which has to be approved by the churches (Protestant and Catholic). Although not to the same extent, both Jewish and Muslim communities are also consulted in matters related to religious education. Religious minority students (Jew- ish and Muslim) are usually exempted from these classes. The extension of religious education to the new states in the East has created considerable strains over the nature and content of relig- ious education and the place of religion in schools. Many new states, as well as some from the West, offer "values and ethics" ,instruction, where the emphasis is on teaching world religions (including Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Confucianism) in lieu of religious teaching. 3 ! The major conflict over national curriculum, however, arose in the late 1 960s in Western Germany, when the state of Hessen altered its educational system in a rather revolutionary manner-both in terms of organization (introduction of compre- hensive schools as an alternative to the stratified system) and in terms of content. One of the major actors behind the Hessen reforms was the Young Socialist Student Union, which pushed for open discussion of the Nazi period, a greater emphasis on contemporary German history, and equal access to higher edu- cation. Interestingly enough, the inspiration for these revisions came from the postwar re-education program initiated by the U.S. occupation forces in Germany, who founded the first com- prehensive school and introduced "Nazi Germany" as a compul- sory subject.32 The Hessen reforms were eventually taken up by other German states, and by the end of the sixties there emerged a consensus among political parties for a need to reform the whole education system. One consequence of these reforms was de- mocratization and inclusion of a wider spectrum of interest groups in the decision-making process. This led to the current institutional basis for consensus. Another consequence of these reforms was the incorporation of Germany's Nazi past into the curricula and the devalorization of the "national" in education about German identity. The current curricula and textbooks still cany the imprint of the normative principles and institutional framework established at the time of the educational reforms of the late 1960s. Lastly, one has to take into consideration the difference in the nature of actors involved in the postwar efforts to normalize history teaching in Germany and Japan. Whereas in Japan the government has had much more direct control over these efforts, in the case of Germany the bodies and organizations that have been particularly active are mostly non-governmental, both in- ter- and transnational. In Europe, international attempts to reexamine and revise textbooks go back to the interwar period. The national and international committees, set up by the League of Nations, and in cooperation with teachers' associations in different countries, sought to eliminate national prejudices and stereotypes from textbooks. In the 1930s, bilateral consultations were already in Vol 30, No.2 (1998) place between German and French, and German and Polish historians. With the foundation of UNESCO and the Council of Europe after the Second World War, however, these efforts gained a more institutional basis. Especially effective was the German Commission for UNESCO, whose activities culminated in the foundation of the Georg-Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research in 1951. Assisted by UNESCO and the Council of Europe, the institute has facilitated several interna- tional collaborative projects and promoted the exchange of his- tory and geography textbooks between countries. 33 Joint com- missions between Germany, France, Poland, and Israel have produced recommendations for normalizing contentious histo- ries and bringing about a rapprochement among "former ene- mies."34 More recently, with the goal of "integrating national units [in]to international ones," the Institute has been focusing on the teaching of Europe, environmental education, human rights, and multicultural society-themes that are supported by UNESCO and the Council of Europe and integrated into the curricula in many German states. Education is a priority of member states in the European Union. An advisory committee of national administrators exists at the European level, but education is still a "battleground" for sovereignty. There are no formal European Community direc- tives and education as a policy area is only marginally incorpo- rated into the Maastricht treaty.3S Nevertheless, over the years, the European Union has established several educational pro- grams, most of which deal with issues of vocational education, harmonization of credentials, student exchange, and the incor- poration of the European dimension and heritage into national curricula. More importantly, numerous groups, committees, pro- fessional associations, and advocacy organizations for regional languages-loosely associated and funded by the Union-have been extremely active in the forging of European education and standards. Experts and academic specialists conduct studies on behalf of the European Union and give advice on technical, as well as substantive, aspects. They supply and translate curricula, form teams to evaluate national education systems, and compare and rank member-state education systems by performance and achievement. Thus, the rather less-structured and less-formalized nature of education as European Union policy field (unlike the situation for monetary, economic, and security issues) provides an oppor- tunity for various groups to seize initiative and create networks outside the strict intergovernmental negotiation structures. The European Standing Conference of History Teachers Associa- tions (EUROCLIO) and the European Academy are two among many organizations. EUROCLIO, in existence since 1993, aims to " [eliminate] prejudice in the teaching of history by emphasiz- ing positive mutual influences between countries, religions, and ideas in the historical development of Europe...and [ensuring] that national history does not become nationalist history ... and include a genuine pan-European dimension.,,36 The European Academy was founded in Berlin by "concerned Europeanists" (party members, heads oftrade unions, business representatives, academics) in the early days of the Europeanization movement in the 1960s and 1970s. The activities ofthe Academy are funded by German federal institutions, the Berlin government, and the European Union. Both ofthese organizations run periodic, practice-oriented conferences, which bring together teachers, textbook authors, 59 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org and curriculum experts from various countries. 37 They also pro- duce what is referred to as "gray literature," covering topics not necessarily included in textbooks but required as part of the curriculum. These complementary materials fmd wide distribu- tion among teachers. 38 All these activities extend European net- works, both organizationally and symbolically, and facilitate a climate of Europeanness and the reconsideration of national canons in education. Interestingly, national approaches come to the fore quite regularly in international collaborative efforts. Historically em- bedded pedagogical and institutional differences prove to be the main barriers to the realization of a unified European education. Nevertheless, ideas diffuse and educational norms evolve, and these expedite standardization at the national level both in terms of teaching technologies and subjects covered. Conclusion We think of textbooks singularly as tools for teaching national priorities and for building unified national communities. We have seen in the case of Germany, however, that textbooks promote not only national but increasingly local and transna- tional identities and responsibilities. In contrast to dominant conceptualizations, national, local, and transnational identities do not appear to be exclusionary. The increasing pronouncement of local/ethnic and transna- tional identities does not necessarily result in the displacement of national identity. On the contrary, in the process of teaching and expressing identities, the nation is being reinterpreted and recast anew. What we are accustomed to thinking and teaching as national culture-the typical civic values: democracy, pro- gress, human rights, equality-become part of the transnational and defme Europeanness. Concurrently, transnational institu- tions (UNESCO, the Council of Europe, and the European Union) legitimate the proliferation of ethnic, religious, and re- gional identities by upholding the principle of the right of each people to its own culture and sovereignty. Hence, we all have our particularistic identities and cultures to be proud of and to secure and celebrate. The nation loses its singularity as the principle of identity. In the process, national identities become more and more rationalized across nation-states, as equally valid identity positions and comparable cultural heritages, undermining mythi- cal geneses and naturalistic canonizations. In Germany and Europe, as in other parts of the world, the questions of history and identity in education are periodically revisited and contested. However, the corporatist institutional structure of the German textbook production system, and, more importantly, Germany's disposition within the European Union and vis-a-vis European integration have led to the relative insu- lation of textbooks from ongoing public struggles over national history and identity. German textbooks are the product of com- plex and wide-ranging consultations and negotiations within Germany, and between Germany and its neighbors. As Europe expands, national and European actors and networks involved in this process multiply, and textbooks become a matter of growing transnational action. The postwar evolution of German textbooks and curricula illustrates the changing context and meaning of identity in a world where the national is increasingly subjected to reinterpre- tation by the transnational. In that respect, European integration provides a unique opportunity to sharpen our analytical and conceptual tools as we scrutinize the relationship between text- books and emerging nation-state identities. Notes I. The paper draws upon my current project, which explores the emerging forms of claims-making and mobilization by minority and regional groups on national education, and investigates the changes in nation-state identities through a comparative analysis of history and civic textbooks in postwar Europe. The data for the project come from national textbooks and public school cwricula for lower secondary schools in four European countries (Germany, France, Britain, and the Netherlands). I sample the history and civic textbooks and curricula in these countries at three time points, the 19508, 19708, and 199Os, when major educational reforms took place. I also examine public debates, conflicting claims, and court cases that surround national education systems and national cwricula, as well as the incoIpOration of minority culturallreligious provisions into public education systems. I make use of interviews I conducted with officials from state educational boards and ministries, school authorities, teachers' and parents' associations, the representatives of European and national level associations and networks on textbook and curricular study, and with the leaders of immigrant organizations and regional movements. 2. Interview with Roman Herzog, Focus, 9 May 1994, pp. 20-25. 3. See the interviews with Johannes Rau, the presidential candidate for the Social Democrats (die Zeit, 6 May 1994); Hildegard Hamm-BrQcher, the candidate for the Liberal Democratic party (die Zeit, 13 May 1994); and Hans Otto Brautigam, the Justice Minister ofthe State ofBrandenburg (Franl(urter Rundschau, 10 May 1994). Also see the statements by Rita S1lssmuth, the president of the Parliament from the Christian Demo- cmtic Party, and Richard von Weis.zacker, the outgoing president (der Tagesspiegel, 2 July 1994). 4. After being elected, Herzog paid a symbolic visit to the Turkish community, and presented a ''medal ofhonor" to the mother ofTurkish children who were burned to death when Neonazis set a rue to their house in Sollingen. 5. For the portrayal of these conlroversies in the German press, see "Keine Ruhe vor der Geschichte" (der Tagesspiegel, 20 July 1994); "Das Band der Sippenhaft: 50 Jahre nach dem Hitler-Attentat vom 20. Juli 1944, Der Slreit urn den richtigen Widerstand" (Suddeutsche Zei- twig, 2 August 1994); "Es lebe das freie Polen! Gedenken an den Aufstand" (Franlfforter Allgemeine Zeitwlg, 2 August 1994); and ''Her- zog bittet urn Vergebung ft1r Deutsche Verbrechen und bietet den Polen Deutschlands Freundschaft an" (Suddeutsche Zeitwlg, 2 August 1994). 6. Daniel Levy, "The Future of the Past: Comparing Historians' Dis- putes in Germany and Israel." Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Social Science History Association, New Orleans, November 1996. 7. The Constitutional Court, deciding on a freedom of speech case brought by the extreme-rightNational Democratic party (NDP), argued that "to deny that Jews died in Nazi camps was to deny a fact, and that the severity of the insult to the Jewish Community meant the right of freedom speech did not apply." The court-case regarded the banning of a talk by David Irving (Britishrevisionist historian) at an NDP congress (International Herald Tribune, 27 April 1994). 8. See M Young, ed., Knowledge and Control (London: Collier Mac- Millan, 1971); Ivor Goodson, The Making o/Curriculum: Essays in the Social History o/Schooling (London: Falmer Press, 1987); Ivor Good- son, ed, International Perspectives in Curriculum History (London: Falmer Press, 1987); John W. Meyer et al., School Knowledge for the Masses: WorldModels and National Primary Curricular Categories in the Twentieth Century (Washington, D.C.: Fa1mer Press. 1992). 9.CharlesMaier,TheU1ll'lfllStenlblePast:History.Holocaust,andGennan National Identity (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. 1988); Levy, "The Future of the Past." 10. A 1991 circular from the Ministry of Education in Bavaria states that "the European dimension should be in1roduced into all subjects" and "pupils should become aware of Europe's intellectual and cultural Bulletin o/Concerned Aaian Scholars 60 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org heritage and ofcommon European values such as democracy and hmnan rights" (Council ofEurope, Education News1e1ta', no. 4, Stmsbourg, 1991). 11. Interview with the official responsible for curriculum in the Ministry ofEducation in Lower Saxony (23 November 1995). 12. Interview with the head of the German History Teachers' Associa- tion, Jacobson-Gymnasium., Seelen (30 November 1995). 13. Falk Pingel, ed., Macht Europa Schule? Die Darstellung Europas in Schulbflchem der Europaischen Gemeinschqft [power of European schools? Representation ofEurope in textbooks in the European Union countries), Schriftenreiche des Georg-Eckert-Instituts, 'kl. 84 (Frank- ftut \b"lag Moritz Diesterweg, 1995). 14. See, for example, Welt- und Umweltkunde 5/6 [World and environ- ment science 5/6), Niedersachsen (Braunschweig: Westermann, 1993), pp. 138-153, and Menschen Zeiten Rilume 5/6 [people, times, places), Arbeitsbuch fur Welt- und Umwelkunde in derOrientierungsstufe [Work book for world and environment science for jtmior high 5/6) (Berlin: Come1sen Verlay, 1993), pp. 188-231. Following the chapter on Ro- mans and Germans, both books present the "culture" and the "village life" ofThrltish migrants and Native Americans, expressively equating all three peoples across time and space. 15. Karl-Ernst Jeismann and Bernd SchOnemann, Geschichte amtlich: LehrpliJne undRichtlinien der Bundeslander [Institutional history: Cur- ricula and instruction guides in federal states). Schriftenreiche des Georg-Eckert-Instituts, Vol. 65 (Frankftut Verlag Moritz Diesterweg, 1989), p. 75. 16. The European Bureau for the Lesser-used Languages is directly financed by the European Union and has the goal of protecting fifty minority languages in the member states ofthe Union. 17. Welt- und Umweltkunde 5/6, pp. 226-229; Menschen, Zeiten, Rilume 5/6, pp. 272-75. 18. Menschen, Zeiten, Rilume, pp. 160, 272. 19. Welt- und Umweltkunde, p. 226. 20. Menschen. Zeiten, Rilume, pp. 266,274. 21. Ibid 22. John W. Meyer, "The World Polity and the Authority ofthe Nation- State," in Studies ofthe Modem World-System, ed. A. Bergesen (New Yode Academic Press, 1980); Peter J. Katzenstein, ed., The Culture of National Security: Norms and Identity in World Politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996). 23. Peter J. KaIzenstein and Nobuo Okawam, "Japan's National Security: S1ructures,NOJDlS, and Policies," International Security 17 (1993):84-118. 24. PeterJ. Katzenstein, ed., TamedPower: Germany in Europe (Ithaca: Comell University Press, 1997), p. 116. 25. Peter 1. Katzenstein, Cultural Norms andNational Security: Police andMilitary in PostwarJapan (Ithaca: Comell University Press, 1996). 26. Reiner Drifte, "Is the Mombusho Running One of Japan's Most Sensitive Bilateral Relationships?" Article distributed through SSJ-Fo- rum, Institute ofSocial Science, University ofTokyo (ssjmod@ shaken. iss.u-tokyo.ac.jp), 15 August 1997. 27. Peter 1. Katzenstein, Policy andPolitics in the West Germany: The Growth of a Semi-sovereign State (philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1987); YaseminNuhoglu Soysal, Limits ofCitizenship: Migrants andPostnational Membership in Europe (Chicago: University of Chi- cago Press, 1994). 28. InterYiewwith the official responsible forcwriculum in the Ministry ofEducation in Lower Saxony (23 November 1995). 29. Each ministry publishes a list of, generally, four or five textbooks that confonn with the established curricular nonns and requirements. The schools have the option of selecting books from this list. 30. In Japan. the government authorizes textbooks to be used and has a right to censor ''undesirable'' content, as exemplifled in the recent controversy over the treatment ofJapanese war crimes in history text- books(New YorkTImes,30August 1997). In South Korea, the textbooks are issued by the state itself. 31. For the controversy over "values and ethics" instruction in the state ofBrandenburg, see Achim Leschinsky, Vorleben oder Nachdenken? Bericht derwissenschaftlichen Begleitung flberdenModellversuch zum Vol. 30, No.2 (1998) Lembereich "Lebensgestaltung-Ethik-Religion .. [Anticipation orretro- spect? Report on the scholarly debates accompanying the search for models in teaching the ''lifestyle, ethic, and religion" course) (Frankfurt: Verlag Moritz Diesterweg, 1996). 32. Interview with Professor Ingrid Haller, University of Kassel. Pro- fessor Haller was a key figure in the conceptualization and implemen- tation ofHessen refonns. 33. Like many German institutions, the Institute has a public standing and is sponsored by the local states. The Governing Board includes representatives from the states, the Foreign Office, the Federal Ministry of Education and Science, the German Commission for UNESCO, as well as independent scholars. The Foundation Act ofthe Institute aims to submit recommendations for making "more objective" the historical, political, and geographic representations of Germany and other coun- tries in textbooks; to organize international meetings of experts for examining and revising textbooks; and to advise authors and publisha"s oftextbooks. 34. The recommendations include: the ''German-French Agreement on Controversial Problems ofEuropean History" (1951), the ''Recommen- dations for Textbooks ofHistory and Geography oftheFedera1Republic of Germany and People's Republic of Poland" (a product of the Ger- man-Polish Commission on textbooks, which has been in place since 1972), and the "German-Israeli Textbook Recommendations" (1985). Also, since 1981, the French-Gennan Commission has been working on recommendations for the treatment ofthe Weimar Republic, National Socialism, and the Vichy regime. The recommendations of the joint- cmmnissions have been substantially incoIpomted into the cmricula and textbooks in the respective countries (interviews with experts and re- searchers at the Georg-Eckert-Institut, Braunschweig, November 1995). 35. The Maastricht treaty was signed in 1991, creating the European Union (EU) out ofthe European Commtmity. The treaty was a compre- hensive agreement designed to regulate the transition ofEurope into a tmion with a common currency and without internal borders. The treaty dealt primarily with economic issues, but it also emphasized the com- mitments of EU member states to "humanitarian traditions" of Europe and created the status ofthe citizen ofthe Union, leading the way beyond nation-state citizenship to European citizenship. 36. EUROCLIO Bulletin, no. 5 (1996): 15. 37. Many ofthe participants ofEUROCLIO conferences are practicing teachers, active in their national associations. In 1994, about ninety history teachers were involved in a year-long project to discuss the "theoretical and practical aspects of encouraging democratic values through history education." In 1995, working with the Council of Europe, EUROCLIO organized a conference on ''Philip IT and His Times," a prominent and controversial personality in European history, with the goal of comparing varied interpretations and methods of teaching. Similar conferences have been held with the ex-Soviet repub- lics (Latvia, Lithuania, and Russia) to refoIDl history teaching, and dealing with the question ofrepresenting women, ethnic minorities, and human rights in textbooks. 38. The European Academy, for instance, is the publisher oftwo ofthe most widely used examples of gray literature on Europe: Vom Binnen- markt zur Europliischen Union and Euro and Cent: Europliische Inte- gration und Wahrungsunian (by GUnter Renner and Peter Czada). o BeAS Back Issues All issues-in print and outofprint-from volume 1, number 1, in 1968 until the present are now available from BCAS or from University Microfilms International. Please consult our guideindex, which covers all previous years and has information about ordering and prices. It is available on our Web site < http://csf.colorado.edu/bcas/ > or by mail. 61 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org Bulktin o/Concerned Asian Scholars. Vol. 30, No.2 (1998): 62-71 ISSN 0007-4810 C 1998 BCAS (Oakland, California) CombiningEthnicHeritageandNationalUnity: AParadoxof Nuosu (Yi)LanguageTextbooksinChina Since the reform of the C?hinese Party's ethnic minority policies in 1984, education in minority languages has promoted m many Although they participate enthusiastically in minority- language education, pobtical and educational elites in minority areas are faced with conflicting demands their local and on the one hand, and the requirement to promote the Party's poliCies ethmc and unification, on the These conflicting demands are only partially resolved m the cumculum materials m the Nuosu (Northern YI) language used in Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture in southern Sichuan Province. This article analyzes first- through Nuosu-language readen in a case study of this contradiction and of attempted resolutions. by Stevan Harrell and Bamo Ayi" Chinese Nationalism and Ethnie Education Ever since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, nationalism has been a continuous theme in all sorts of propaganda, including school textbooks. But the nature of the nation at the heart of this nationalism has not been changeless. During the radical years from 1956 to the late 1970s, nationalism was intimately connected with class struggle; to be Chinese was to be anti-imperialist, and to be anti-imperialist was to be anti- bourgeois. All conflicts, internal and external, were fundamen- tally manifestations of class struggle, and nationalism was an aspect ofclass solidarity. Since the beginning ofthe era of reform in the late 1970s, however, the content of nationalism has been gradually divorced from class struggle. Now, as we show below, nationalism means national symbols, revolutionary heroes, mod- ernization and development, and the unity of the great family of nationalities that constitutes the "Chinese Nation" (zhonghua minzu). And these themes have become, if anything, more per- The research leading to this paper was enabled by a Chinese Fellow- ship for Scholarly Development from the Committee on Scholarly Commmtication with China, supplemented by a grant from the China Studies Program at the University of Washington. We are thankful for the help of both these organizations. We have also benefitted from detailed comments on earlier drafts by Laura Hein, Mark Selden, and Janet Upton. In addition, we are gmteful for the opportunity to present this material to the China Colloquium at the University of Washington. Note: The authors use italics for Chinese words and bold face for Nuosu words in this article. Ed. vasive in the Chinese party-state's propaganda; without the connection between nationalism and class struggle, a kind of purer "national nationalism," focused on the Chinese as a dis- tinctive nation and a distinctive people, regardless of class, has gained more emphasis than ever. 1 But China is, of course, not a nation-state in the classic sense that posits a union of a people, a culture, a language, a territory, and a government. It is both actually and ideologically a multi-ethnic state, which includes among its popUlation not only the 91 percent of the population who are Han Chinese, and for whom Chinese nationalism is not particularly problematic, but also by the other hundred million citizens of China who belong to its officially classified national minorities (shaoshu minzu). Bringing these people into the body politic, making them not only compliant but also willing participants in the project of building China as a multinatonal state, is an important and sometimes vexing aspect of the ideological mission of the Peo- ple's Republic and Communist Party leaders. 2 Outright separa- tism in Xinjiang and Tibetl, and ethnic conflict that falls short of separtism in almost every region inhabited by minorities, means that state authorities pay careful attention to ideological work with minority ethnic groups, to winning the hearts and minds of Kazakbs, Miao, Mongols and others who must be included if China is going to succeeed as a multi-ethnic nation with a multi-ethnic nationalism. Nowhere are nationalistic themes more strongly empha- sized than in the "unified national textbooks" (tongyi jiaocai) used in elementary and secondary schools all over China. 4 The content of these textbooks is determined for every subj ect by the State Education Commission, on the basis of documents pre- Bulletin o/Concerned Asian Scholars 62 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org pared for each classroom subj ect, known as outlines ofeducation (jiaoxue dagang). These documents set out the goals for each subject at each grade level, the means of reaching those goals, and the content that is to be taught. On the basis ofthese outlines, writers and editors compile textbooks to be used for all classes at every grade level. According to the 1987 Outline for Elementary Language Class (yuwen Ire) materials, the content of language classes in elementary school "has not only a skills aspect, but also an ideological aspect," which aims to teach children to fervently love the motherland (zu guo), fervently love the Chinese Com- munist Party, and fervently love socialism. 5 Consequently, edi- tors of elementary language textbooks include quite a few les- sons with explicitly nationalistic ideological content. In developing curricula for minority children, however, state authorities face conflicting demands. On the one hand, many of them are sincerely committed to the building of a multi-national state with a significant degree of pluralism. On the other hand, they are passionately attached to the idea of maintaining a unified China. This means that promotion of cultural pluralism is seen as a specific vaccine against the disease of separatism; minority policy posits that ifmembers ofminority ethnic groups see that there is a place for them within China that aiIows for certain cultural distinctiveness, they wiiI be less likely to demand a place outside China. At the same time, authorities are aware that certain aspects of cultural distinctiveness, particu- larly those dealing with religion and regional histories of inde- pendence, themselves lead to separatist sentiments. This balanc- ing act between pluralism and unity stands at the forefront of "nationalities work" (minzu gongzuo) in general, and it is par- ticularly salient for minority education. As stated in working documents used in the compiliation of textbooks, there must be a balance between local and national content, between celebra- tion of local particularities and promotion of unified national goals of unity, progress, and development. 6 Some members of minority ethnic groups are educated entirely in the Chinese language; in their classes and curricula the local-national balanc- ing act is not always transparent. 7 But for those minority peoples and in those areas where education is primarily or partly con- ducted in their own, non-Chinese languages and scripts, the contradictions are ever present. The attempt to deal with this paradox by the leaders and educators who belong to these minor- ity groups is the topic of this essay. Currently, twenty-one of the ftfty-five official minority ethnic groups actively employ their own writing systems, and of these the Mongols, Tibetans, Uygurs, Kazakhs, Koreans, Yi, Zhuang, Kirgiz, Xibe, Dai, and Jingpho use their own languages and scripts in primary and secondary education. In implementing education in minority languages, educators have the dual task of following Party and Government policies about the content of education, while at the same time paying attention to the special characteristics of ethnic groups and local areas. The threefold slogan for conducting this process is "zunzhi dagang, lianxi shiji, bienyijiehe" (Follow the outline, connect with reality, and com- bine editing with translation). 8 "Follow the Outline" means that since China is officially a unified nation with diverse ethnic groups, the content of minority -language education must remain in accord with the instructions of the Education Commission. "Connect with reality" means that the content of education should proceed from local and ethnic characteristics. "Combine Vol. 30, No.2 (1998) editing with translation" means that some lessons should be translated from Chinese-language textbooks, while others are newly composed by local editorial committees. In composing and translating materials for elementary language textbooks, educators come face to face with the problem of Chinese national unity in a way that we believe is unusually illustrative of the wider problems of nationalism and education. Our particular illustrative case of nationalism and national unity in minority language textbooks comes from a careful reading of language textbooks in the Nuosu language published for the Sichuan Provincial Education Commission and the Liangshan Pre- fectural Education Bureau by the Sichuan Nationalities Publishing House. (The textbooks examined cover the first three grades, plus the fourth through sixth grades.) The Nuosu are a branch of the Yi, an official ethnic minority with seven million members in Yun- nan, Sichuan, Guizhou, and Guangxi. The Nuosu, who number over two million, inhabit the Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefec- ture (Liangshan yizu zizhi zhou) in southern Sichuan, and a few neighboring counties in Sichuan and Yunnan. They are an agri- cultural people, growing buckwheat, corn, and potatoes on mid- dle- and high-mountain slopes, and raising cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, and other livestock. Until 1956, rugged topography and the military efforts ofNuosu clans had kept the core areas of Liang- shan quite independent of Chinese government control, and the establishment of an administrative system at that time was a primary consideration in the promotion of ethnic education. During the Cultural Revolution, China's nationalities pol- icy swung strongly toward assimilation, and little expression of local cultures beyond the everyday use of the local language was officially permitted. Slogans such as "eliminate ethnic groups in ten years; eliminate translation in fifteen" made the official use of minority languages other than Mongolian, Tibetan, Uyghur, Kazak, and Korean into a sign ofreactionary thinking, and turned those who advocated the use of minority languages into objects ofstruggle and "Ox ghosts and snake spirits.,,9 By the mid-l 970s, Nuosu intellectuals were afraid that their culture was in danger of disappearance. When things began to loosen up in the mid- to late-l 970s, however, and especially after the promulgation of the new Nationalities Autonomy Law in 1984, a cultural revival movement developed all over Nuosu territory. The implementa- tion of Nuosu-Ianguage education and the dilemmas it illustrates for China's nationalistic curriculum stem primarily from the cultural revival ofthe I 980s, and it is here that we begin our story. The Nuosu Cultural Revival in the 19808 and 1990s Starting from the beginning of the 1980s, when minority policy turned away from promoting assimilation to Han ways, the Liangshan prefectural government, the Party committee, and, in particular, a group of cadres at the prefectural and county levels began working to revitalize Nuosu culture by incorporat- ing culturally specific Nuosu themes into official and public life in a selies of ways. These included the construction of the Liangshan Yi Slave Society Museum on the outskirts ofXichang, the adoption ofNuosu architectural and statuary features in urban construction and design, the standardization and popularization of Nuosu songs and dances in schools and local government offices, the sponsorship of a modernized and secularized version of the summer Torch Festival holiday, and the pUblication in the Nuosu language of a large number of cultural materials, includ- ing newspapers, magazines. and collated editions of many tradi- 63 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org tional books and stories. All ofthese state-sponsored projects can be seen as aspects of the state's vaccination campaign against ethnic separatism: allowing a space for hannless expressions of cultural plurality. At the same time, the more liberal nationalities policies of the 1980s have allowed Nuosu intellectuals and ordinary people to express their ethnic identity in a variety of ways. Some of these, such as the establishment of scholarly associations and research societies, have clearly been benign from a government standpoint, but others, such as the revival of clan leadership in the villages and the re-emergence of priests (bimo) and shamans (sunyi), are clearly more problematical; they threaten local gov- ernment control as well as questioning the state propaganda objectives of promoting science and atheism. Thus, the contradiction between unity and pluralism, which is one of the cornerstones of the Reform-era version of Chinese nationalism, is at the core of the current relatively liberal ethnic- ity policy. Here, too, elementary school textbooks illustrate this contractiction well. How much local content should local text- books include? How do textbook authors strike a balance be- tween ignoring local culture and celebrating it? When do lessons that promote local pride or educate about local cultural themes become subversive of the very unity among nationalities that pluralism is supposed to promote? Standardization and Popularization of tbe Nuosu Script The Nuosu cultural revival was, more than anything else, based on the standardization and popUlarization of the Nuosu script beginning in the middle 1970s. There are several tradi- tional Yi scripts (related but not mutually intelligible)lo in Yun- nan, Sichuan, and Guizhou, but until the 1970s knowledge ofthe script in the Nuosu area was restricted to the bimo and a few intellectuals. In addition, in the absence of any standardized forms, individual usages were mixed and varied. In the 19508, in order to strengthen administration, the Party authorities sent linguistic experts to Liangshan to work on a new writing system, using the Latin alphabet. In 1958, forty-two teachers and about nine hundred students were taught to read using this system. Beginning with the Great Leap Forward in 1958, however, the policy changed to "Move Directly to Han Language Education" and no further attempts to develop or promote any writing system for the Nuosu language were undertaken until the 1970s. In the early 1970s, two developments led to the stand- ardization and revival of Nuosu writing. First, many Nuosu political leaders and intellectuals reawakened to their own Nuosu ethnic consciousness. They began to worry that Nuosu culture and the written language would die out altogether, especially after the onslaughts ofthe Cultural Revoltuion. Second, Han and Nuosu educators and educational officials, drawing on their concrete experience with basic education in Liangshan, began to feel that it was too difficult to educate rural Nuosu children in Chinese. In 1974, the Sichuan Provincial Nationalities Commis- sion established the Working Group for the Standardization of Yi Writing (Sichuan sheng yiwen guifan gongzuo zu), which produced the Outline for the Standardization of Yi Writing, approved in 1975. Over the next few years, the work group developed a modern, standardized version of the traditional script used by the bimo. The new script, with a syllabary con- taining 819 signs selected from the two or three thousand in traditional use," was approved by the State Council in 1980. 12 Unlike its Romanized predecessor from the 1950s, this writing system has proved to be wildly popular, and is used not just in education, but in administration, in anti-illiteracy cam- paigns, in publishing, and increasingly in the everyday lives of agricultural communities. In Liangshan, all important documents and speeches are translated into standardized Nuosu, along with the complete proceedings of meetings of the Communist Party, the People's Congress, and the People's Consultative Conference. Signs for official government and party offices must also be bilingual. The official usage of written Nuosu is, however, somewhat forced and artificial at present, because there are very few officials capable of using the new technical and administrative vocabu- lary effectively. Its symbolic value as an indicator of Nuosu local autonomy is probably greater than its practical value as a tool of administration. Anti-illiteracy campaigns began in 1980, using the stand- ardized Nuosu script, and according to official statistics have reached up to 80 percent of the young and middle-aged rural population of the prefecture. 13 It is difficult to know to what extent the newly acquired literacy skills are used or retained, but we do know of many examples of literate members of local communities taking the initiatives to start night classes to meet the demand for basic literacy training. In addition to the aforementioned translation of official documents, provincial, prefectual, and county-level language and translation offices have also done a large amount of work on the collection, collation, and publication-in both standard Nu- osu and Chinese-oftraditional Nuosu books ofstories, legends, myths, and history, as well as an increasing number of newly written books on technical and other topics, and a few books of scholarship such as NlI!psha Nuosu JjiJJbox Jjutuur (History of the slave society of the Liangshan Nuosu). There is also the Nuosu-language edition ofthe Liangshan Daily (NiepsbaNyipti Tepyy), and a monthly arts magazine entitled Niepsha Heplu Bbu,bbu, (Arts and Literature of Liangshan). The Sichuan Pro- vincial Broadcast Station began broadcasting in Nousu in 1978; now, in addition to the newly established Liangshan Station, there are radio transmitters in every county and most townships, so that loudspeaker broadcasting reaches about 70 percent of the Nuosu villages in the prefecture. Developing a Nuosu-Language Curriculum When Nuosu cadres and leaders began to promote the development and popularization of the Standard Nuosu Script in the 1970s, they realized that ifthe script were to become anything more than a pet project or an intellectual curiousity, it would have to be used in the schools; only if people learned at a young age to write in their own language and script would that script become a tool for daily communication, and thus be widely used and preserved. With a school curriculum in place, newspapers, agriCUltural manuals, public-health pamphlets, and eventually a wide variety of books and magazines could follow. Teaching in the Nuosu language naturally required a cur- riculum and textbooks. In 1978, the Education Bureau of Liang- shan Prefecture established the Yi Language Curriculum Mate- rials Office (Yiwen Jiaocai Bianyi Shi).14 The office, which has grown from six to twenty-six workers in twenty years, is respon- sible for producing elementary-, secondary-, and normal-school textbooks, teachers' manuals, supplementary curriculum mate- Bulletin o/Concemed Asian Scholars 64 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org rials, and some Nuosu-language reference books. The office has divisions producing curriculum materials for language and poli- tics (it is not insignificant, as we show below, that these are grouped together), history and geography, biology and chemis- try, and physics and mathematics, plus an administrative unit. Within months of its inception, the Materials Office had completed a frrst-grade language reader, and distributed it in mimeographed fonn for use in a few schools. From 1978 to 1983, the Office grew to include nine members, and produced volumes 1-8 (grades 1-4) of language readers, and volumes 1-6 ofmathe- matics texts. When the Nuosu-language texts were first used, beginning in 1978, Nuosu was a single class within a broader Chinese-lan- guage curriculum unit. At the Sichuan Province Yi Language Education Work Meeting, held in 1984, the provincial Education Bureau established two models for Nuosu-language education: Nuosu was to be used as the basic language of instruction in areas remote from Han 'cultural influence, and in which most people were monolingual Nuosu speakers; while in other areas with more Han influence, the Chinese language would be the basic language of instruction, with Nousu taught as a supplementary language. In fall 1984, Liangshan Prefecture established Nuosu- language elementary schools, with Nuosu as the primary lan- guage of instruction, and Chinese-language instruction reduced to a single class. During this period, the Materials Office was primarily concerned with getting as many texts written, printed, and distributed as possible, since there was an unmet need for Nuosu-language materials in the new Nuosu and bilingual for- mat schools. At this time, separate working groups were estab- lished for humanities and sciences at the elementary and secon- dary levels, and guidelines were adopted that mandated that translated and original materials were to be used in approxi- mately equal numbers in the humanities, but in the sciences Nuosu texts would simply be translations ofnationally used Han language materials. From 1984 to 1989, 143 texts and other curricular materials were produced, amounting to over fourteen million characters. With the increased availability ofNuosu-language texts, the frrst Nuosu-language middle school was established in 1990. At this time, the Office took on the added responsibility of training teachers for Nuosu-language classrooms. This training took place in twelve special teachers' classes, in the Provincial Nuosu-language Middle School in Xichang, at the Prefectural Nonnal School, and at the Southwest Nationalities Institute in Chengdu. IS Production of curriculum materials is something new in Yi history, and those who participate in the effort do so out of strong feelings ofattachment for their ethnic group and its language and culture. Through 1995, 292 books were produced, including Nuosu-language texts in various subjects at all levels, as well as teachers' manuals and reference books-altogether nearly a complete set ofteaching materials to be used in Nuosu-speaking areas of Sichuan and Ywman. Despite this remarkable achievement (in such a'short time), those who produce textbooks in the Nuosu language still face the contradiction between local pride and national unity. Many of the educators, despite being successful bureaucrats and profes- sionals closely connected to the Han-dominated bureaucratic and scholarly establishments in contemporary China, as well as members ofthe Chinese Communist Party, are, in their hearts, at least as committed to the cause of the Nuosu people and Nuosu Vol. 30, No.2 (1998) tic ".la mop IUOP po buo 1
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:f) 'T Xo Beijing, Tiananmen, and the Five Star Red Flag are symbols (Ihybo) ofour country. Our elementary students from the time they are small should learn to love Beijing and love the motherland. (From the teacher's mlll1U8l for Volume I,lesson I: 'TIananmen and the National Flag.) culture (or the Yi nationality and Yi culture as a whole) as they are to a united China and its nationalist goals. If central policy makers see limited autonomy as a vaccine against separatism, many local leaders want to use the state and Party apparatus to serve local ends, to promote Nuosu- or Yi-centered economic and cultural development using centrally developed and some- times centrally funded institutions. But in the case of language and education, these 10ca11eaders realize that ifthey are going to popularize the written fonns of their language, and make that language suitable for everyday communication in a modern, technologically advanced society, they must do so in the context ofthe Chinese nation and under the patronage ofthe Communist Party. Liangshan is not Xinjiang, and there is no possibility of-and virtually no sentiment in favor of-any kind of independence movement. So Nuosu-language textbooks, which might in other circumstances celebrate mostly Nuosu culture and traditions, must take a moderate stand. They must-like all other textbooks in China-promote the nationalist agenda of the Chinese Com- munist Party above all; then, if anything is left over, they can celebrate local culture and its glories. The remainder of this article analyzes the particular ways in which Chinese nationalism is presented in this context. Chinele :Nationalilm In Nuolu-Language Textbookl Nuosu-language elementary school textbooks contain a mixture of lessons directly translated directly from correspond- 65 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org we all love these things. Getting young children to Table 1 develop ideas about the attachment between "I" and 1--------....,-----------------...; "country," to learn the concept of country in general, Volume 1, lesson 2 and finally to become valuable workers for the na- Volume 1, lesson 16 tional interest, is of course a primary goal of all Volume 1, lesson 7 Chinese education. It is no less so for the children of Volume 3, lesson 8 the Cool Mountains than for those who can go to Volume 6, lesson 10 Tiananmen on a fieldtrip the week after the class- room lesson. In the Nousu-Ianguage textbooks, there Volume 7, lesson 11 are many other lessons on this and closely related themes. (See Table 1.) Volume 11, lesson 12 Patriotic terminology used in these lessons il- lustrates clearly some of the problems of ethnic edu- Volume 11, lesson 15 cation. The term pupguop (motherland), for exam- ple, was invented for the purpose of translating the Volume 11, lesson 29 Han-language term zuguo, by using the Nuosu word pup, which refers to an ancestor (usually a male ing Han-language textbooks and original lessons written locally. In the first five volumes ofthe language textbooks, the principles of the Outline are implemented not only by lessons translated from Han-language textbooks, but also by ideological content that does not occur in, or is different from that found in, the Han-language materials. First, for example, there are materials written on topics such as the unity of ethnic groups, maintaining national cohesion, and developing in students the notion of a unified nation made up of diverse ethnic groups. Second, lessons that aim to deVelop love for socialism are often locally written, and emphasize the themes of contrast between old and new Liangshan, or between socialist society and "slave society." Here we give detailed examples from a few representative lessons. '6 The Flag, Tiananmen, Beijing, the Motherland Opening the first volume of the Nuosu-language class texts to the first lesson, the first thing that meets the eye is a picture of the majestic Tiananmen, with the Five Star Red Flag fluttering in the breeze above (see page 65 above). The lesson reads I love the capital Beijing; I love the People's Republic of China. The teacher's manual explains how to get students to understand this lesson: When students study this lesson, they should be made to study the picture carefully, and understand that our capital is at Beijing. Beijing is the seat ofthe Central Party authorities and is the political, cultural, and economic center ofthe country. Tiananmen is the heart ofBeijing, and is majestic and awe-inspiring. The Five Star Red Flag is the national flag ofthe People's Republic ofChina. There are five stars on the flag, one big one and four little ones, showing that the people of various ethnic groups unite around the Communist Party to build a new socialist China. Because ofthis, Beijing, Tiananmen, and the Five Star Red Flag are symbols (shybo) of our country. Our elementary students from the time they are small should learn to love Beijing and love the motherland. In order to participate in the building of the great motherland in the future, they should study hard to gain knowledge and culture, and advance every day.17 Thus do the ragged, unwashed urchins of the remote moun- tain villages of Liangshan encounter patriotic education: no sooner have they stepped into the mud-walled, dirt-floored, electricity-deprived school buildings than they are confronted with Tiananmen, the flag, Beijing, and the reality of the People's Republic of China, and told to learn that ancestor; the word is related to axpu, grandfather), and combin- ing it with the borrowed Chinese word guo, or country, nation, state, government. 18 In fact, almost all words dealing with "na- tion" or "country" involve either complete borrowings-such as guopjiet, for "nation" (from the Chinese guojia) or zhoguop, for "China" (from zhongguo)-or are mixed terms, such as the aforementioned pupguop or guopyiet, for "national anthem" (a combination of the Chinese guo with the Nuosu word yiet, meaning "song"). The whole concept of "nation" is, in fact, foreign to traditional Nuosu thought; there is the idea ofdifferent kinds of people, such as Nuosu, Hiepmgat (Han Chinese), and Opzzup (Tibetans or other Buddhists), and there are named groupings of Nuosu people by clan, caste, dialect, district, and occupation. But until 1956, much of the Nuosu homeland had never been subject to the authority of any national government, and to this day, old people in remote villages would have no idea what pupguop was, and would be hard-pressed to define even guopyiet. The only way to get people like the Nuosu to embrace a concept of a nation that transcends locality, caste, and ethnicity is to begin with children, constructing a world through education. 19 A Unified Nation of Diverse Ethnic Groups: The Minorities Policy, and Ethnic Unity Nurturing patriotism is a goal of education in all Chinese schools. But with respect to the Nuosu, there arise the further questions of love for what kind of country, and what role Nuosu themselves play in this unified nation. Nuosu-language text- books address this question frequently and explicitly. Volume 1, lesson nine is entitled "Ahowo nzinyisila" (Little friends, unite). The text reads: Children unite (nzinyi), and become new masters (vipsi) of the new China. This is also a lesson that combines text with pictures. The picture in this case (see facing page) shows a group of smiling children, dressed in the varied clothes that both officially and locally serve as markers of ethnic identity, striding forward hand in hand, flanked by two sunflowers and backed by a radiant, presumably red sun. The teacher's manual for this lesson reads: This lesson is accompanied by a picture, which shows children of various ethnic groups in our country, hand in hand. There are some Bulletin ofConcemedAsian Scholars 66 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org sunflowers next to the children, and over their heads is aradiant sun. The sun and its radiance symbolize the Chinese Commwrist Party, whose radiance brings warmth wherever it goes. 20 The little friends holding hands demonstrate that in our country, all nationalities unite under the leadership of the Communist party to build the country. The sunflowers symbolize the teaching children is like sunflowers facing the sun, they face the Party, diligently study culture and knowledge, and become masters of a new China and builders ofthe country. (Volwne I, teacher'sm8nual, p. 70). The teachers' manual specifically explains the two terms "unite" (nzinyi) and "masters" (vipsi): nzinyi means "loving each other, and not dividing," while vipsi means "those who manage and build the countIy." Actually, in the Nuosu language, ozinyi means those who have good words to say about others, while vipsi means those who receive guests when they come to the house; vipsi is used in explict contrast to dipvip or guests. This presents an interesting problem in translation. On the one hand, vipsi is as close as ordinary Nuosu language comes to a translation for zhuren. which in Chinese means not only "host" but also "lord." Though vipsi has no connotation of lordship or rule, the text might also suggest to Nuosu children that they are vipsi in the New China, that is, they are the hosts, which means that the house of various nationalities to them is their own house, that they are not guests there. This connotation is stronger than in the original Chinese zhuren. Volume 3, lesson 23 (second grade), entitled "Niepsha c:ocux vytnyi" (The sibling nationalities of Liangshan) takes this learning to a more advanced level. There are ten ethnic groups in the Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture. These ethnic groups have always lived together throughout history. and have interacted with each other, helped each other out, and in the thirty years since liberation (in 1956, with the Democmtic RefoJDls), all the related ethnic groupshave strengthenedtheircooperation, theirmutual help, and their care for one another. Thus, as China is a multiethnic country, Liangshan is a multi-ethnic prefecture. And under the leadership of the Communist Party, all ethnic groups are working together in Liangshan. This lesson also presents another interesting translation problem. The original Chinese phrase translated here (even though the lesson itself is not translated from a Han textbook) is xiongdi minzu, or, very literally, "big brother and little brother ethnic groups." The Nuosu, however, is cocux vytnyi, whose derivation is somewhat different. Co means people; cux is a borrowing from minchu, which is minchu in the Liangshan Han dialect (minzu in standard Chinese). Vyt is part of the compound for older sibling-either vytvu for a man's older brother or vytmop for a woman's older sister-and nyi is part ofnyimat, a woman's older sister. Vytnyi thus means simply "siblings," or "people of the same clan," and cocus. vytnyi is something like "sibling nationalities," or "related nationalities" or "clan-mate nationalities." The clear implication in Chinese of the older brother Han and the younger brother minority does not come through in the Nuosu translation. Prominent in the textbooks and the teacher's manuals are vocabulary terms such as "people of all ethnic groups throughout the counIIy," "sibling nationalities," "all ethnic groups of China," "sons and daughters of all nationalities," and "nationalities unity." Also emphasized in the relationship of each ethnic group to the nation, or the motherland, is a concept that is much emphasized. Volume 3,lesson 8, "Geapmopsu pupguop" (the glorious moth- Vol. 30, No.2 (1998) ."9 . vip j' IT J!t rf BJ+ RRO t!.H: 1. 6)Xt!. Children unite (nzinyi), and become new masters (vipsi) ofthe new China. (Volwne I, lesson 9: Little friends, unite!) erland) introduces the students to concepts of national unity. in a text written in a style somewhat reminiscent of a traditional Nuosu praise song: Beloved motherland, exalted motherland, motherland of the long history! Over frlly ethnic groups live together, toiling without fear ofexhaustion, fighting without fear of death. All the ethnic groups are working together to develop the moth- erland; in labor their sweat flows together; when the enemies come, their blood flows together. Beloved motherland, exalted motherland, your children and gmndchildren of every ethnic group eat their fill from your grain; your laboring children and grandchildren growstrong from drinking your milk; the people ofall ethnic groups get warmth from wearing your clothes. Children and grandchildren of various ethnic groups gather to defend you, to settle their differences, to fight off the invasions of enemies. Your laboring children and gmndchildren of all ethnic groups an: building you. and mpidly implemmting the Four Modernizations. These texts tell the children rust, that the motherland is a countIy that is being built by all the ethnic groups together, with every ethnic group making its contribution, and second, that the relationship between the motherland and the people is that of parent nurturing children. These concepts of a unified nation ofdiverse ethnic groups, of ethnic unity, and of preserving the national unity, are only perfunctorily mentioned, usually through including pictures of 67 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org childrenofvariousnationalities,inthecorrespondingHan-lan- guagetextbooks, and are notexplicitlyincluded inthe Outline forElementaryLanguageClassesissuedbytheEducationCom- mission. In otherwords, the principles ofnational and ethnic unity are emphasized only with studentswho are educated in minority languages. Forminority students,theideaof"nation" hasanextralevel:forthemtheyaremembersofaminzu aswell asof thenation.AttheFourthNationalConferenceonMinority Education, heldin 1992,whereminority educationpolicy was setfor theforeseeablefuture, thechairpersonoftheStateEdu- cationCommission,LiTieying,stressedtheimportanceofethnic education,statingthatethniceducation [I]stheroadthatmustbetakeninordertohavedevelopmentamong minoritiesandin minorityareas,andisaftmdamentalrequirement ifwearegoingtomaintain national andethnicunity,andbuild socialismwithChinesecharacteristics. 2 The chairperson ofthe StateEthnic Commission, Ismail Aimat,said Wewantourstudentstobecomedefendersofthesocialistsysem,of ethnicunityandofnationalunity,tobecomecontributorstonational flourishing andethnicgroups' progress,to becomereliableinheri- torsofsocialismwithideals,morals,culture,anddiscipline. 22 Very clearly, the objectives are to strengthen the multi-ethnic nationalunity,topreventfissure,andtopreservetheunityofthe nation. ComparisonbetweentheOldandtheNew Society Contrastbetweentheoldandthenewsociety,beforeand after socialism, is still a pervasive theme in textbooks used everywhereinChina,butinNuosutextbooksittakes aspecial fonn: comparisonbetweenthe"slavesociety"ofoldLiangshan and the socialist society ofthe new Liangshan. Forexample, volume1,lesson15isentitled"Hxiepkatnyuokatdatepyy110 bbo"(Happily goingto school). Itstextreads WhenGrandpawasseven Hewenttobegforfood WhenDaddy was seven andisalwaysimplicitlymentionedincontrastbothtoHanChina, wherebeggarswerecommon,andtoLiangshantoday,wherenot onlyHanbutNousuoccasionallyresorttobegging. Lesson22involume2isentitled"NlepshaddumdltJji" (Liangshanspreadsitswings).Partofthetextreads, Beforeliberation,inthetimeofDarknessoftheSlaveSociety,the people ofall ethnic groups labored under the oppression ofthe siaveowners,leadinganoppressedlifeworsethanthat ofhorsesor cattle. AftertheDemocraticRefonns, Withone theycameintosocialism,andinthetwentyyearssince liberation,24 under the glorious light ofthe Nationalities Policy, Liangshan'sworkersinagriculture,industry,transport,culture,edu- cation,health,andmedicinehavemadegreatprogressin allareas. Therearetwopictureswiththislesson(seebelow). Oneshows aslaveinchainslaboringon thelandunderdarkclouds,andthe other shows a mountain gorge with a swift river and dark evergreens,with atraincrossingatrestlebetweentwotunnels, andanairplaneweavingamongthemountairspeaks. In the following lesson, entitled "Nuosulubytnyipclp" (Two Nuosurhymes),onereads In theSlaveSociety Darkcloudsblewacrossthesky Leopardsandtigersroamedtheearth Slavescouldnotgoanywhere. In theNewSociety Airplanesstreakacrossthesky Trainsroamtheearth Onthegreatroadofsocialism The liberatedslavescan goanywhere. Other lessons that compare the new and old societies include volume 3, lesson 3, "Dutzie" (Thetorchfestival), volume 2, lesson 25, "NleplhamuddixIhyluoluo"(The golden landof Liangshan), threesuccessivebucolic/industrial praise songsin
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Nowthisyear I amseven oqtQt . Withhappy eyesandhappyheart .f!J, ---- Igotoschooltostudy. .... .,.1..". Theobjectiveofthislessonis,accordingtothe 111'."' #11 W./I-:r N. .It III. teacher'smanual,"Togetthestudentstomake Ifl;:KIDl, a comparison between the old and the new society,sothattheymay strengthentheirlove fortheCommunistpartyandforsocialism." This is a translation ofa lessonfrom a Han-language primer published.in the late 1 970s;23 thereferencetoslaveshasspecifically beenaddedfortheNuosuedition. It isironic, however, that the reference to begging has beenretained: forastheNoususayingpoints out,"Thereareno beggarsinNousuterritory" (Nuosu muddlx zzahmot apJJo). This ab- -..- sence ofbeggars is usually attributed to the kin-based charity providedby thetraditional clan systembefore the DemocraticReforms, Lesson22involume2: ''NteplhaddurndltjJi"(Uangshanspreadsitswings). Bulletin o/ConcernedAsian Scholars 68 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org IIbll! $11 tilet) Y:':f fc Jt 0 ltV,\"'. 0:0 r.IlX
When students study this lesson, they should be made to study the picture carefully, and understand that our capital is at Beijing. Beijing is the seat of the Central Party authorities and is the political, cultural, and economic center ofthe country. (From tbe1eacher's manual for Vol- ume I, lesson 2: Love Beijing.) volume 3, entitled "Mgu au" (Beloved, lesson 10), "Mgulad- desu" (Dear, lesson 11) and "Suu" (Satisfying, lesson 12); volume 2, lesson 24, "Biji huoche xDa ox" (The train from Beijing has arrived), and in volume 5, a supplemental lesson entitled "Nlepaha xiyiet vat JJy vat" (What is best about Liang- shan?). All these comparisons of the old and new Liangshan are designed to get students to love the communist party and social- ism, and to understand that without the Communist Party, there would be no New China and no socialism, and without the correct nationalities policy of the Communist Party, there would be no leap across thousands of years, no direct transition from slavery to socialism, no new Liangshan. Revolutionary Leaden and Heroes As in Han-language texts, every volume of the Nuosu-lan- guage elementaIy school textbooks has several lessons that praise or memorialize the leaders of the Chinese Revolution, particularly Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, and Zhu De. Most ofthese lessons are accompanied by portraits of the leaders, helping students to familiarize themselves with these national heroes. The texts of these lessons emphasize the leaders' care for the masses and for the younger generation, along with the plain- living habits that kept them close to the people. In volume 3, lesson 3, "Che aho" (Harvesting rice), the young Mao is por- trayed getting in trouble with his father, because while herding his family's cows home in a rainstorm, he stopped to help an old neighbor lady get her rice under cover before it was ruined. In volume 3, lesson 2, "Ca hlohlo" (Nice and warm) a street- sweeper on a raw Beijing morning is warmed inside when Premier Zhou, having worked all night in the Great Hall of the People, stops on his way home to give some kind words ofthanks VoL 30, No.2 (1998) and encouragement. In volume 3, lesson 29, "Zhu Di Bleda" (Zhu De's carrying pole), the revolutionary general is portrayed as one with his troops, helping to carry grain up and down mountain paths to the point where the troops wony about his health and hide his carrying pole. The above texts concerning leaders and heroes are all direct translations from comparable level Han-language materials, and as such use personal names, place names, and common nouns that are quite unfamiliar to Nuosu children, especially thO!lC in the remoter areas where Nuosu is the frrst language of instruc- tion. But there are also lessons about China's revolutionary leaders that are presented in a form much more like that of traditional Nuosu praise songs. For example, in volume 2, lesson 5, "Mop Zhuxy shot" (Remembering Chairman Mao), we frod a text that is written in a rather traditional Nuosu style, devoid of any awkwardness in the Nuosu language other than that brought by the foreign-sounding name Mop Zhuxy, which is of course a direct borrowing of the Chinese (Chairman Mao). Otherwise, it reads well in Nuosu: Looking at a mountain We think ofpines that can resist the wind Looking at a plain We think ofcrops growing green Looking at the sun We think of Chairman Mao. The teachers' manual tells us that this lesson is supposed to teach students to Fervently love the Party, fervently love Chairman Mao, inherit the revolutioIlllI)' legacy ofthe older generation ofthe proletariat, dedi- catedly study science and culture, and strive to enrichand strengthen the socialist cons1ruction ofthe motherland bequeathed (to them) by the previous generation of revolutionaries. In addition to stories about China's leaders, Nuosu-lan- guage textbooks also contain many lessons (all of them directly translated from Han-language teaching materials), about revolu- tionary heroes-from Liu Hulan, who gave her life rather than cooperate with the Guomindang reactionaries and Luo Sheng- jiao, who sacrificed his life to save Korean children, even while helping fight off the U.S. invaders, to Lei Feng, who had no enemy to fight except the temptations of the class enemies. China's revolutionary history and the theme of the unity of the nationalities are intertwined in two lessons about the Red Army's visit to Liangshan during the Long March in 1935: The first (volume 2, lesson 7) is Gotiop hopjo motbutsu gguhomu mga aix Niepsha xi (The workers and peasant's Red Army crosses Liangshan on its Long March). The second (volume 5, lesson 12), which is written at a much higher level of sophistica- tion, is entitled Hopjo nimu :II (The Red Army arrives in Nuosu County). This story, which is celebrated in Chinese textbooks and in Edgar Snow's account of the Long March, tells how the Red Army commanders overcame the suspicions oflocal Nuosu leaders and eventually forged a blood-pact of friendship with them. Notable here is the use of traditional, even florid and literary, Nuosu vocabulary to tell the story. It is full offour-syllable literary teons such as suyy sumop (roughly meaning respected and vener- ated ones and used to refer to Nuosu leaders who negotiated with the Red Army officers), terms that would be as familiar to elders in mountain villages as puppop for "motherland" would be mysterious. The story ends with Zhu De meeting the Nuosu leader Luopbxo Zupyip in the town ofMianning (called here 69 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org by its Nuosu name Rrunuo Muke), as the Reds prepare to march away, promising him that when Jiang Jieshi is smashed (ndup latjjip),theCommunistswiUretumandrepaytheNuosu'shospitality. Conclusion Expressions of Chinese nationalism in minority-language curricula vary widely, from conventional, translated stories about Beijing and the Flag, national leaders and heros, to much more locally sensitive material about the unity of nationalities and the necessity for cross-ethnic cooperation, or about the advantages of socialism over what came before, not just in general, but with specific reference to local events, then and now. It appears from this material that the curricular materials do in fact follow the principles for ethnic education: they promote the general ideas ofnationalism and patriotism, but they also establish connections with local reality and employ a combination of original and translated materials. The real question here concerns the role of minority-lan- guage textbooks and curricula in resolving the contradiction between the central policy goals of using a small amount of ethnic autonomy to serve as a vaccine against larger ambitions of separatism, and the local leaders' ambitions of using the protective umbrella of the state and Party apparatus to promote the goals of local cultural revival, local development for local ends, and maximum feasible autonomy within the Chinese na- tion. There are signs already, even in the textbooks we have analyzed here, that this contradiction may be coming to a head. The 1995 reprinting of the third reader, for example, removed a lesson about the Torch Festival, even though the original text had stressed that reason why the beautiful girls and the handsome men could enjoy traditional holiday feasts and sports was be- cause of socialism and the enlightened nationalities policy (co- cux lypde). And in addition, at the Fourth Work Conference on Ethnic Education, mentioned above, renewed stress was put on the ideological content ofelementary readers. There is thus some indication that curriculum materials are moving away from locally specific content toward closer compliance with uniform national norms. If this is the case, it may indicate that central policy is swinging again and that the vaccine theory is giving way to a theory ofmore direct control; what it might mean locally would be that minority leaders would seek to move outside the umbrella of state and Party patronage to pursue their local agendas. How far the pendulum will swing, and what results this will have for ethnic relations, remain at this writing unclear. Notes 1. For varying views ofthe origins and possible successes or failures of the new kind of nationalism, see Prasenjit Duara, ''Deconstructing the Chinese Nation," AustralianJoumal o/Chinese Affairs 30 (1993): 1-26, andRescuingHistoryfrom the Nation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995); Edward Friedman, National Identity and Democratic Prospects in Socialist China (Annonk, N.Y.: ME. Sharpe, 1995), especially chapters 2, 4, and 8; Lowell Dittmer and Samuel S. Kim, "Whither China's Quest for National Identity?" in China's Quest/or National Identity, ed. Dittmer and Kim (Ithaca, N.Y: Cornell University Press, 1993); and the important theoretical discussion in James Town- send, "Chinese Nationalism," Australian Journal o/Chinese Affairs 27 (1992): 97-130. 2. For general accounts ofminority policy and its practice, see Thomas Heberer, China and Its National Minorities: Autonomy orAssimilation (Annonk, N. Y: ME. Sharpe, 1989); Dru C. Gladney,Muslim Chinese: Ethnic Nationalism in the People's Republic (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991), chapter 2; Stevan Harrell, "Introduction: Civi- lizing Projects and the Reactions to Them," in Cultural Encounters on China's Ethnic Frontiers (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1995), pp. 1-36, and "Introduction," in Negotiating Ethnicities in China and Taiwan, ed. Melissa J. Brown (Berkeley: University ofCalifornia, Institute of East Asian Studies, 1996), pp. 1-18; and Colin Mackerras, China's Minorities: Integration and Modernization in the Twentieth Century (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1994). 3. For recent accounts of Xinjiang, see Justin Jon Rudelson, Oasis Identities: Uyghur Nationalism along China's Silk Road (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997); for Tibet, see Melvyn Goldstein, The Snow Lion and the Dragon: China, Tibet, and the Dalai Lama (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997) and Ronald D. Schwartz, Circle 0/Protest: Political Ritual in the Tibetan Uprising (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994). 4. To distinguish between the two, we use italics for Chinese words and bold face for Nuosu words. Chinese words are romanized according to the pinyin system, while Nuosu words are romanized according to the Romanization system devised by government linguists in the 1950s and still used as an aid to reading in textbooks and dictionaries. Nuosu words never have syllable-fmal consonants, so the letters p, x, and t are used as markers oflow, middle-rising, and high tones respectively. Syllables without a tone marker are pronounced in a mid-level tone. 5. See the "Jiu nian yiwu jiaoyu quanri zhi xiaoxue yuwen jiaoxue dagang" (Outline for elementary language classes in the nine-year compulsory education system in Cui Nan), Xiaoxue yuwen jiaoxue fa (Teaching methods for elementary school language classes) (Beijing: Renmin Jiaoyu Chubanshe, 1996), p. 332. 6. See Cai Yongxiang, Ma Wenhua, and Hielie Muga, fl'wen jiaocai de jianshe bixu shiying Yiwen jiaxue de xuyao (Yi language curricular materials must be adapted to the needs of Yi language instruction), working paper. See also Ma Etzi, "Qiantan Liangshan Ylzu Degu" (A superficial discussion ofUle Ndepgu of the Liangshan Yl), Liangshan Minzu Yanjiu 1 (1992): 99-107. This latter work also contains a sum- mary of the principles followed in writing Nuosu-language textbooks. 7. For an account of the politics and educational results of teaching in various mixes of Chinese and minority languages, see Wurlig Bor- chigud, "The Impact ofUrban Ethnic Education on Modern Mongolian Ethnicity, 1949-1966," in Harrell, Cultural Encounters on China's Ethnic Frontiers, pp. 278-300. For a comparative account ofthe success or failure ofminority education policies in practice, see Mette Halskov Hansen, Lessons in Being Chinese (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1998). 8. See Erbindalai and Shama Jiajia, eds., Zhongguo shaoshu minzu wenzi jiaocai jianshe gaikuang (The general situation of the construc- tion of education in minority scripts in China) (Huhhot: Neimeng Jiaoyu Chubanshe, 1996), Introduction, p. 2. 9. Wu Mingxian, "Sichuan Sheng Liangshan Ylwen jiaoxue huigu yu zhanwang" (Retrospect and prospect for Yl-language education in Liangshan), LiangshanMinzu Yanjiu (1996): 156. 10. The Yllanguages (officially, there are six dialects, all mutually unintelligible) and their close relatives Lisu, Lahu, Rani, Jinuo, and Naxi belong to the Yl, or Loloish, branch of the Tibeto-Burman lan- guage family, which mayor may not be related to Chinese. There are few recognizable cognates between Yl languages and Chinese, and sentence structure is very different On the classification of Yl lan- guages, see David Bradley, "Language Planning for China's Minorities: The Yi Branch," in A World o/Language: Presented to Profossor S.A. Wunn on his 65th Birthday, ed D. Laycock and W. Winter (Canberra: Department of Linguistics, Aus1ra.lian National University, 1990), pp. 81-89; and James A. MatisotI, "Sino-Tibetan Linguistics: Present State and Future Prospects," Annual Review 0/ Anthropology 20 (1991): 469-504; on attempts to develop various scripts for different Yllan- guages in different provinces, see Bradley, "Language Planning for China's Minorities," pp. 81-89. 11. Nuosu writing works like Japanese kana: each distinct sign repre- sents a syllable; words with the same sound and different meaning (for Bulletin o/ConcemedAsian Scholars 70 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org example, yy meaning water, river, go; mu meaning horse, ear1h, do) are written with the same sign. The reason there are so many different signs is that the Nuosu language contains forty-two in- itial consonants, eleven vowels, and four tones. The reason there are 819 signs and not 1848 is that the high-middle tone is indicated by placing a "cap" over the sign for the middle tone, and not all theoretically possible combina- tions of vowel, consonant, and tone actually occur. The script in question is used only among Nu- osu-speakers, not among other Yi in Yunnan or Guizhou In those provinces, standard scripts have been developed, but not much used (see David Bradley, ''Lan- guage Policy for the Yi," in Ste- van Harrell, ed, Yi SOCiety and Culture. under consideration for publication). 12. The relevant documents, Guowu yuan guanyu Sichuan Sheng renmin zhengfu zhuanbao "Liangshan Zhou Geming Wei- China is of course not a nation-state in the classic sense that posits a union of a people, a culture, a language, a territory: and a gov'ernment. It is both actually and ideologically a multi-ethnic state, which includes among its population not only the 91 percent ofthe population who are and for Chinese is not particularly problematic, but also by the other hundred million CItizens of China who belong to Its offi- cially classifIed national minorities (shaoshu minzu). Bringing these people into the body politic, making them not only compliant but also willing participants in the project of building China as a multinatonal state, is an im- portant and sometimes vexing aspect of the ideological mission of the People's Republic and Communist Party leaders. (pictured above is a one-yuan currency note featuring a depiction of two representatives of China's minority populations). yuanhui guanyu 'Yiwen guifon an de baogao" de pifo. and Sichuan sheng renmin zhengfo zhuanbao "Liangshan Zhou Geming guanyu 'Yiwen guifan an' de baogao" de fobao, are reproduced ill Erbindalai and Shama Jiajia, eds. Zhongguo shaoshu minzu wenzi jiaocaijianshe gai/cuang, pp. 26-27. 13. For the official statistics see Wu Mingxian, "Zhong guo shaoshu minzu jiaoyu gaige fazhan de licheng bei" (Retrospect and prospect for Yi-language education in Liangshan) Liangshan Minzu Yanjiu (1996). 14. The original name was the Curriculum Materials Group (Yiwen jiaozai bianyi zu); this was changed to Curriculum Materials Office when Xichang and Liangshan Prefectures were combined in 1979. An unpublished acount of this group's activities by Bianyishi is entitled "Sichuan Liangshan Yiwen Jiaocai Bianyishi Jianjie," 1995. 15. Another aspect of the work of the Materials Office was the invention and standardization of scientific, teclmical, and other specialized termi- nology in the Nousu language. We hope to deal with the issue of new vocabulary in a future publication. 16. All examples are taken from Sychotse Saoxjjie Futkur Jjipsaoxdde Saodu Tepyy, Ddopltlll Bburma (Sichuan Province six-year elementary textbooks, reading and writing), and unless otherwise noted from the 1985-87 editions, which as far as we know are still in use almost everywhere. Some minor revisions were made in 1990; we have seen these only for volume 3. After compiling the fIrst edition, the Materials Group went on to complete the set of textbooks, including secondaIy school and science texts, so new editions of the elementary materials were not prepared. We have a 1995 printing of volume 1, but with the exception ofa new cover, its contents are identical to the 1985 edition. 17. This last sentence, nratnramu da 550, cypnyip cyphxo Ii, is undoubtedly a translation of Mao's instructions, to be found on just about every schoolroom wall in China: Hao hao xuexi; tian tian xiang shang. A later lesson takes this quotation as its title. Material from Nuosu-language teachers' manuals is taken from GgukuI Zziezzur HItIIItIu Saoxjie Futkur Jipsso Nuosu Ddopltlll Bblll'llUl HlIUlIsao Hxephxex Tepyy (Teachers' references for elementary nuosu language classes in the six-year curriclum of nine-year compulsory education). 18. Janet Upton informs us that modern Tibetan uses a similar term, mes-rgyal, in this case composed of two terms of long standing, combined into a neologism. Vol. 30, No.2 (1998) 19. For a general account ofthe way nationalism is imparted in elemen- tary schools, see Charles F. Keyes, "The Proposed World ofthe School: Thai Villagers' Entry into a Bureaucmtic State System," in Reshaping Local Worlds: Formal Education and Cultural Change in Rural South- eastAsia (New Haven: Yale Center for International and Area Studies, 1991). Yale Southeast Asia Studies Monograph, no. 36, p. 89. 20. This last is probably a translation of a line from the famous Cultural Revolution Song, "The East is Red": Gongch(Uldang Xiang Taiyang; Zhao dao noli. nali liang. 21. From Li Tieying, Dali gaige heJazhan minzu jiaoyu. cujin ge minzu de gongtongJanrong (Vigorously reform etlmic education, and promote the common flourishing of all the nationalities), in Zhongguo shaoshu minzu jiaoyu gaige Jazhan de lichengbei (Mileposts in China's ethnic education reforms) (Beijing: Jiaoyu Kexue Chubanshe, 1993), p. 2. 22. From Ismail Aimat (Simayi Aimaiti), Tuanjie Jendou jixu qianjin. shixian shaoshu minzu jiaoyu he quanguo jiaoyku de xietiao Jaman (Unite and struggle; continue to press forward; Implement the coordi- nated development of minority education and national eduation), in Zhongguo shaoshu minzu jiaoyu gaigeJazhan de lichengbei (Mileposts in China's etlmic education reforms: Collection ofdocuments from the Fourth National Work Conference on Ethnic Education), compo Guojia Jiaowei Minzu Jiaoyu Si (Minority areas education section of the State Education Commission) (Beijing: Jiaoyu Kexue Chubanshe, 1993), p. 18. 23. Jonathan Unger, "Introduction: Primary School Reading Texts and Teaching Methods in the Wake of the Cultural Revolution," Chinese Education 10, no. 2 (1977): 4-34. Thanks to Janet Upton for bringing this text to our attention. Otherwise, with the reference to slavery, we had thought the lesson was composed for the Nuosu-Ianguage readers. It does not appear in the current edition of the Han-language reader. 24. Liberation (jiejang) in the Liangshan context, usually refers not to the communist military takeover in 1949-50, but rather to the beginnings ofthe New Society with the Democmtic Reforms (minzhu gaige), which began in 1956. Still, we can see that textbooks currently in use are somewhat out of date. o 71 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org Bulletin o!ConcernedA,ian Scholar" VoL 30, No.2 (1998): 7282 ISSN 0007-4810 C 1998 SCAS (Oakland, California) War Crimes and the Vietnamese People: American Representations and Silences Survey textbook treatments ofthe governments and peoples ofNorth and South Vietnam provide a barometer of the wisdom achieved by a generation of U.s. scholanhip on the Vietnam War. In their discussions of the August Revolution and of the 1953-56 land reform and the Air War in the North and the Diem and Thieu regimes in the South, these books rework old controvenies, thereby demonstrating the pertinence and limits of received paradigms. In particular, the war crimes debate, driven forward by the "Winter Soldien" and others, continues to serve as a point ofreference for understanding u.s. intervention and war-induced changes in Vietnam. An analysis of social consequences helps to situate the Vietnamese in the Vietnam War and the war in Vietnam's modem history. by David Hunt* "War crimes" were in the logic of the Vietnam War. As the U.S. military sought to extirpate guerrillas living in the midst of the rural population, Vietnamese peasants paid a high price. With memories of World War II still fresh, the Tokyo and Nuremberg Trials provided the anti-war movement a framework for making sense of the carnage. Veterans led the way in documenting the case, most notably at the "Citizens Commission of Inquiry" (December 1970, Washington D.C.) and the "Winter Soldier Investigation" (January 1971, Detroit), during which returning soldiers described atrocities they had witnessed and perpetrated in Southeast Asia. The "Winter Soldiers" were heroes of the Vietnam War. Public testimony was part of an effort to recover from combat trauma, and perhaps there was a hope for atonement as well. But the hearings were primarily an act of citizenship, an attempt to force on the American public a recognition of what was going on in Vietnam. As one veteran put it, the willed incomprehension of friends and family and of participants in public discussion of the war impelled him to speak. "The fact that they didn't want to know," he declared, "told me they had to know.'" The Winter Soldiers were not satisfied with fixing blame for crimes committed. Refusing a solipsism that portrayed the war as a dispute among Americans, they insisted on the reality of Vietnam. According to their logic, a society guilty of atrocities could recover its humanity only in connecting to the humanity of the victims. As part of a collective effort to recover, veterans For their criticisms and suggestions, I am gmteful to James Hunt and Peter Weiler and also to BCAS editors Laura Hein and MaIk Selden. demanded reconstruction assistance for Vietnam and anticipated peaceful exchanges between the two countries and a wider understanding ofVietnamesehistory and culturein the United States. 2 Survey texts assigned in college courses on the Vietnam War convey a sense of how such issues are remembered in the United States (see appendix below for a list and description of the books considered here). Redressers of wrongs, the Winter Soldiers also called for a recognition of the Vietnamese as participants in their own history, with the implication that they too were party to questions of power and responsibility raised during the war. In order to meet the Winter Soldier challenge, survey authors must enter into the war crimes debate, and they must engage with the Vietnamese side of the Vietnam War. Having dealt elsewhere with "images of the Viet Cong," I focus here on how representative texts present the leaders and citizens of the Saigon-based Government of Vietnam (GVN) and the North Vietnamese Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRy). 3 Triumph and Eclipse of the Winter Soldien A few weeks after the Winter Soldier hearings (28 March 1971), the New York Times Magazine published an article by Neil Sheehan entitled, "Should We Have War Crime Trials?" When he was first stationed in Vietnam, Sheehan regarded the "Hun- like" behavior of U.S. personnel as "unnecessarily brutal and politically counter-productive," but it had not occurred to him that such conduct might be classified as criminal. By the time of the article, he was both advocating and expecting "a long and painful inquest into what we are doing in Southeast Asia." Alarm and indignation at the suffering of the Vietnamese had spread widely within the United States. Bulletin o/Concerned Asian Scholars 72 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org Post-war "revisionism" was launched in this atmosphere, shaped by the anti-war movement. Guenter Lewy 's America in Vietnam, which sets out to establish the legality and morality of U.S. war making, portrays the Winter Soldiers and other activist veterans as "emotionally disturbed individuals" who spoke of atrocities to gain "approval and acceptance" from the public, or simply as impostors and liars. At the same time, Lewy is ob- sessed with war crimes testimony. While exculpating U.S. policy makers and characterizing the Vietnamese as victims of Com- munism who needed our help, he recognizes that the countryside was full of persons the GIs "had good reason to consider un- friendly." Troubled by the implication that a general assault on the rural population was required to win the war, he both defends forced population relocations, seen as admissible according to the Geneva Convention, and recognizes that this tactic demoral- ized the peasantry. Napalm, defoliants, and tear gas were also not illegal, but humanitarian arguments against their use receive a hearing. My Lai-type massacres did not happen "all the time," as critics maintained, but "the lives of Vietnamese were cheap and not protected by the law of war." In a remarkable passage, Lewy suggests that if Japanese General Yamashita had been properly condemned at the end ofWorld War II forfailing ''to take all possible measures to prevent such crimes," then General William Westmoreland, who turned a blind eye to the travails of the indigenous popUlation, should be found culpable as well. 4 Roused to fury by the defamatory character of attacks on U. S. policy (the "war crimes" argument equated the United States with the Axis Powers of World War 11), Lewy confronts polemical adversaries on their own ground Working his way through the dossier, he repeatedly sbJmbles over evidence of massive firepower trained on an enemy who lived and fought in the midst of the Vietnamese people. Detennined to establish that the Americans waged ajust war, he makes clear that it was a dirty war. Moral questions imposed by counter-insurgency on the American conscience also haunt Marilyn Young, The Vietnam Wars, but in other survey texts published after America in Viet- nam, the war crimes debate recedes from view. The authors of these books are critical of Pentagon strategy and tactics. But, to employ the distinction drawn by Neil Sheehan, they tend to characterize U.S. intervention as "unnecessarily brutal and po- litically counter-productive" rather than as a criminal enterprise. Treatments of the My Lai massacre in these books are less extensive than the analysis offered by Lewy and Young and do not emphasize, as they do, that some Americans at the time thought Washington leaders were war criminals. The issue is further obscured when terrorist acts by the enemy, such as ''the Hue Massacre," are made to seem more wanton than u.s. atrocities. s Even so, the Winter Soldier message has not been entirely effaced. When I began to think about Lewy's work and about other surveys texts, I assumed that most would dwell on the U. s. role and marginalize the people of Vietnam. But if one adds up pages devoted to Vietnam's pre-1945 history, the Viet Minh, the GVN, the DRY, and the Southern guerrillas of the National Liberation Front (NLF), it emerges that the Vietnamese occupy center stage in over 40 percent of our collective text. This near parity with the u.s. side is unique in the annals of u.s. scholarship on foreign wars. Textbook treatments of Vietnam are unfmished, but their qualities are obvious when compared to surveys ofother U. S. military interventions in Asia. No Vietnam War study comes close to the racism of Max "War crimes" were in the logic of the Vietnam War. As the U.S. mili- 1aty sought to extirpate guenillas living in the midst of the rural popu- lation, Vietnamese peasants paid a high price. (photo courtesy of Ishikawa Bunyo, A Photographic Record o/the Vietnam War). Hastings, The Korean War, which declares that Korea "stank" and in which the political tendencies and even dietary prefer- ences of Koreans are treated with contempt. Their discussions of the DRV are not satisfactory, but the Vietnam War authors do not write off Hanoi statements, as does Hastings when explaining why he paid no heed to North Korean perspectives. They fail to resolve every question, but the surveys do open the way toward a discussion that is attentive to the place of the war in Vietnam's recent history. The Winter Soldiers helped to fashion a scholarly literature. 6 Story of a Betrayal Guenter Lewy, Timothy Lomperis, and Anthony James Joes stand out among the survey authors in their relative sympa- thy for the GVN and their unwillingness to write it off as a lost cause. These scholars agree on a number ofpropositions: that the introduction of U.S. ground forces, necessary to stave off defeat in 1965, quickly became an obstacle to progress; that Vietnami- zation was a welcome, if belated, step; that the G VN was headed in the right direction in the years leading up to 1975; and that the withdrawal of U.S. assistance after the Paris Peace Agreement constituted a fatal blow to Saigon. Vol. 30, No.2 (1998) 73 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org Joes's treatment of these themes is squarely within the "betrayal-of-an-ally" paradigm characteristic of right-wing ret- rospectives on the war. "The United States could have sustained the south indefinitely," he writes, "but chose not to. The United States could have stopped the final offensive against Saigon dead in its tracks, but chose not to. And so, in a real sense, the Americans defeated the South Vietnamese, and themselves." A similar interpretation is suggested by Lomperis, who writes that "at the time of the signing of the Paris Peace Agreement in January 1973, the South Vietnamese government had attained passive legitimacy." But, before "passive" could become "ac- tive" support, the Americans "let [the GVN] down." Lewy portrays the peace agreement as an abandonment of South Viet- nam by its U.S. ally and even (quoting an Australian observer) a "shameless bug-out." He condemns the "folly" of the anti-war movement and declares that the "very improvement of the G VN and the greatly weakened posture of the VC" prompted Hanoi to launch its 1775 offensive. 7 The GVN Polity This line of argument leads toward a portrayal of Saigon's leaders as victims ofthe Americans as well as ofthe communists. But the history ofthe regime, as narrated in the surveys, does not support such a view. With respect to the electoral sphere, Joes is enthusiastic about the 1955 referendum asking voters to choose between Premier Ngo Dinh Diem and Emperor Bao Dai (it provoked a "massive turnout of voters" in support of a Republic led by Diem), but everyone else thinks the contest was rigged. Joes and Lewy offer justification for cancellation of the Geneva vote scheduled for 1956, while the other authors are critical, with George Herring, Michael Maclear, George Moss, James Olson and Randy Roberts, and Marilyn Young specifying that Ho Chi Minh would have won if the Vietnamese had been allowed a choice. On the suspension of village elections by Diem in 1956, the verdict is unanimously negative, with even Joes, after some hesitation ("there was justification for this move"), expressing disapproval ("an unpopular mistake").8 Electoral contests in the era of President Nguyen Van Thieu prompt a somewhat more spirited exchange. loes regards con- stituent assembly and presidential campaigns of 1966-67 as a breakthrough and adds that they were "the fairest ever conducted in Viet Nam." Lomperis offers a more guarded endorsement, saying that the elections appealed to "modernists" by "at least going further than Hanoi in establishing legitimate constitutional government." He adds that many legislators in the National Assembly, chosen soon after Thieu's victory at the polls, "did see themselves as modern ombudsmen and developed links with the constituents.,,9 These judgments are not seconded in the other texts. Gary Hess declares that the 1967 vote revealed "the shallowness of the Saigon government's support," and Herring arrives at a similar conclusion. Stanley Kamow avers that, "Thieu performed mis- erably" and dwells on his "astonishingly poor" score. Moss remarks that the election revealed Thieu's dependence on "the backing of the Americans," and William Turley concludes that it pinpointed and sharpened divisions within the Saigon elite. 10 Perhaps most prominent among the skeptics when it comes to these elections is Guenter Lewy. While citizens trooped to the poles, Lewy notes, "the government continued to protect a power structure based on the wealthy urban elements of society." At the grassroots, "G VN officials, usually drawn from the urban elite of the country, displayed a contemptuous attitude toward the people they governed." Lewy's interest is stimulated more by Thieu's decision to restore village elections in 1970, especially since this democratic local leadership was given control over budget funds, paramilitary forces, and implementation of Land- to-the-Tiller. "A shift of political allegiance toward the GVN on the part of the rural population seemed to be in the making." But then, a few pages later, Lewy notes that, "The South Vietnamese government, despite belated reforms like the Land-to-the-Tiller program, had been unable to mobilize mass support in the countryside. In a series of moves in 1972 and 1973, Thieu once again seriously weakened local self-government by abolishing authority for the election of hamlet chiefs." II The survey authors come close to unanimity in their evalu- ations of the GVN polity, and, in addition to noting the limits of its electoral practice, many refer to press censorship, concentra- tion or "reeducation" camps, and thousands of executions. Sev- eral texts underscore Diem's authoritarianism, with Herring af- firming that his model was the nineteenth-century Emperor Ming Mang, Hess noting his regime's "contempt" for the people, and Moss characterizing the government as "a police state apparatus with fascistic overtones." Having been allowed to witness GVN police "interrogation" sessions, Karnow is authorized to testify that suspects were "often tortured." No improvement, the Thieu Regime was "an authoritarian, single-party state" (Olson and Roberts), a "single-party, authoritarian, bureaucratic rule," de- pendent on "the support of a foreign power" (Turley). In its last years, Hess declares, the GVN was going backward, and "politi- cal surveillance and control was even more extensive than under the Diem government."12 Ready enough to quarrel over details, the GVN sympathiz- ers fail to unite against this indictment. Lomperis depicts Diem as an "autocratic Confucian" and is troubled by Thieu's "consid- erable energy ... in political repression." Lewy minces no words in labelling the GVN a "lawless and repressive regime." And even loes grants that the government came to resemble a "Latin American dictatorship, arbitrary without being effective" and that its handling of prisoners "often left a great deal to be desired. ,,13 Saigon and the Peasants Four textbook surveys provide details on landlessness and usury in the countryside and eight indicate that the Viet Minh's pre-1954 land reform had been effective and that Diem's corre- sponding efforts brought meager benefit to the rural poor and were politically disastrous. Herring judges that the regime "did little" to satisfy peasant land hunger. Hess, Lewy, and Moss specify that only 10 percent oftenants received land from Saigon, and Kamow is even more pessimistic, citing figures from Long An Province where fewer than 1,000 out of 35,000 tenants benefitted. Young concludes that "the overwhelming of peasants "actually suffered" as a result of Diem's policies. 4 The pro-GVN camp does not contest these judgments. Lewy remarks that Diem's land reform was "virtually inopera- tive," and Joes estimates that it "caused even more damage" than the cancellation of village elections. Lomperis ignores the sub- ject, but later suggests that Thieu's Land-to-the-Tiller reform in 1970 was the first occasion when "Saigon developed an effective program" in this area. IS Bulletin o/Concerned Asian Scholars 74 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org Vietnam veterans in the United States led the way in documenting the "war crimes" case, using the Tokyo and Nuremberg Trials as a frame- work for making sense of the carnage. (Photograph ofmarch by active- duty U.S. military on 4 July 1974. Source: LNS Women:' Graphics,1974.) More than any other survey, Lewy's book emphasizes class struggle in South Vietnam, especially in the countryside, where the ravages of landlordism and the plight of tenants are fre- quently noted. "The demand for land ownership became a de- mand for an end to peonage and for personal freedom," he declares. So it is not surprising that he regards the Land-to-the- Tiller program as the most positive initiative in the history of the GVN. Within three years, it virtually eliminated tenancy, with the result that "the power ofthe landlords over rural life had been seriously weakened and a beginning made in changing the per- ception of government as simply the protector of the rich and the powerful." Redistribution of land stimulated "a new wave of prosperity," and related community development efforts, bus- tling markets, and an expanding school system reinforced an impression that progress was being made. 16 Joes and Lomperis follow Lewy on this score, and at least mildly optimistic passages on roads opened, bridges repaired, schools and health clinics built, and increasing rice production appear in Herring, Moss, and Olson and Roberts. But most ofthe surveys do not buy Land-to-the-Tiller as a turning point. Lewy's own skepticism is palpable. For example, where Joes celebrates progress in ARVN capabilities, Lewy joins the other survey authors in reserving judgment. ARVN leadership "camefrom the middle and upper classes of South Vietnam's urban society and had great difficulty in relating to their own soldiers, who were primarily of peasant origin," and to the rural popUlation. The consequent mistreatment of civilians was "reinforced and aggra- vated by the reliance on heavy weapons," an "addiction" that showed no sign ofslackening as the war went on. All in all, Lewy VoL 30, No.2 (1998) conveys a sense that Land-to-the-Tiller was only a first step. Victory on the battlefield would not be forthcoming unless Saigon brought about a redistribution of power throughout society. I? To sum up, the surveys make clear the GVN's anti-demo- cratic practice and estrangement from the peasant maj ority. Most readers of these books will not be tempted by a Betrayal-of-an- Ally interpretation of the war, with Saigon leaders as innocent victims. Even the authors who sound the betrayal chord in their discussions of the catastrophe that befell the regime in 1975 are troubled when reviewing the record for the earlier period, and their most authoritative champion, Guenter Lewy, sharply criti- cizes the elitism of the regime. Puppets Who Pulled Their Own Strings This near consensus on the performance of the GVN still leaves unanswered the question of responsibility. Were Saigon leaders unworthy allies who thwarted U.S. good faith efforts in Vietnam or were they simply following orders from Washington? Or is a more complex image required, to characterize "puppets who pulled their own strings"?18 The surveys underscore American responsibility for the spotty G VN electoral record. Among the most anxious of the survey authors to blame Saigon, Kamow highlights inattention and naivete on the US. side ("What the Americans failed to understand was that [Diem's] mandarin mentality could not accept the idea of even minority resistance to his rule"). Others are tougher on Washington. According to Herring, "the US. government and the American mission in Saigon did little to promote democracy, or even political reform, until South Viet- nam was swept by revolution." U S. policy makers got exactly what they had sought, in the words of Olson and Roberts, "an anticom- munist government in Saigon-democratic or not." Lewy suggests that the Americans should have pushed harder for "political and economic reform," while Lomperis adds that unconditional US. aid left Diem free to discount the tax-paying public. Joes is the only author who thinks the Americans were too critical, rather than not critical enough, of Diem's anti-democratic policies. 19 The ruthless face of the G VN is treated in a more evasive fashion by the surveys. Young is the most insistent on US. culpability and pinpoints the role of Michigan State University in training "the forces of repression" employed against oppo- nents ofthe Saigon government. She is the only author to explore this affiliation. When it comes to the Anti-Communist Denun- ciation Campaign, to torture and concentration camps, the other surveys blame Diem. 20 Human rights violations perpetrated by Thieu and abetted by the United States are also not much connected to Washington. CIA and GVN involvement in the heroin traffic goes virtually unnoticed, and tiger cages do not loom large, save for Lewy, who insists-not one of his better moments-that they were more spacious than anti-war activists claimed. Characteristically un- willing to ignore the issue, but hard pressed to fend off critics, he lapses into Oriental ism with the suggestion that abuses may have been due to the South Vietnamese "low regard for human life and suffering. ,,21 With respect to Diem and the peasants, the survey treat- mentsfall again into a blame-it-on-Saigonmode. Six discussions of Diem's land reform make no mention of the Americans, and several of the others claim that they were prodding Saigon in the right direction. Herring declares that Diem acted on the land 75 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org i question only at "American insistence," Hess claims that grudg- ing gestures at reform were undertaken "under pressure from the U.S.," and Lewy says that the program began with "American support and advice," but was not carried through by the Vietnam- ese. Karnow notes that Diem "brought in prominent American experts like Wolf Ladejinsky, who had planned successful land reforms in Japan and Taiwan, but he discarded their advice." Disputing these views, Young describes the GVN initiatives as "Ladejinsky's land reform program" and suggests Washington got the policy that it desired. 22 Balance Sheet on the GVN Analysis in the surveys ofrelations between Americans and Vietnamese is complex and unfinished, but this collective en- deavor clearly demonstrates the inadequacy of received para- digms. Advocates of the Betrayal-of-an-Ally view constitute a minority, and even they run out of patience when reviewing the record of Saigon abuses. Blame-it-on-Saigon exerts more influ- ence, especially when it comes to Diem's repression and class- based land program, and Young performs a service by insisting on U.S. involvement, even in the ugliest GVN practices. Still, all survey authors place at least some of the blame for disaster in South Vietnam on the United States. Finally, a notion ofthe G VN as a Puppet Regime has not worn well, as the texts make clear that Diem and Thieu were not mere mandatories of their foreign sponsors. To sum up, interaction between Saigon and the Americans is a story of differing degrees of power, but also ofjoint respon- sibility in determining the course of events. No account can leave out the preferences and actions of the Vietnamese, which in turn were influenced by regional, ethnic, and generational tensions within the Saigon milieu. Turley makes a beginning at engage- ment with these issues when he posits a difference between the founding fathers of the GVN and the Young Turks who sup- planted them. He sees Thieu as part of "a new elite-younger, more career-oriented, and more susceptible to U.S. influence by comparison with the mandarin Francophiles it displaced." But Thieu's closeness to the Americans cut both ways. While making him "more susceptible" to outside "influence," it also allowed for a shrewder understanding and opened new possibilities for the Vietnamese. Not even in his most grandiose flights could Diem have imagined intervening in U.S. presidential politics, as Thieu did in 1 %8 and 1972. Here and elsewhere on the subject of the GVN, there is more to be said. 23 A Litany of Resistance to Foreign Domination In defending Saigon, Joes speaks of"an admittedly corrupt government with at least some of the institutions and mecha- nisms of democracy and capable of further democratic evolu- tion," which he contrasts with "a totalitarian state" in the North, "explicitly contemptuous of all the political values ofthe Ameri- can people." Lomperis concludes his commentary on the GVN record by affmning that "there was still more freedom in the South than in the North," and he adds that South Vietnam was "less prosperous" after the war, when it was ruled by the Com- munists, than "in the days of Nguyen Van Thieu." Lewy agrees that the GVN can only be judged with reference to the DRY. "A totalitarian state like Communist North Vietnam, possessing a monopoly of indoctrination and social control, was bound to display greater military morale and unity than a fragmented and barely authoritarian country like South Vietnam." To pursue the inquiry, one must tum to survey treatments of the North.24 A cold war interpretation of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam holds sway in the three pro-GVN texts. The opening of Lewy's book, situated in 1950, is constructed to imply coordi- nated Communist aggression in China, Korea, and Vietnam. The author appears to accept Washington's claim that the Viet Minh's battle against the French "was more than a mere colonial war." Joes asserts that U.s. policy makers reacted rationally when "Ho Chi Minh openly declared himself a loyal adherent of a self-pro- claimed monolithic and expansionary world Communist move- ment." Lomperis says that, "It was really impossible to disguise the essential foreignness of the Communist ideology. ,,25 Elsewhere in the surveys, one encounters frequent refer- ences to Hanoi leaders as Vietnamese patriots. A "great man" treatment ofHo Chi Minh, with the emphasis on his nationalism, is common. In the words of Herring, "The Vietnamese Revolu- tion was in many ways the personal creation of the charismatic patriot Ho Chi Minh." Critical distance is perhaps signaled when Turley declares that, "As popularly told, Vietnam's history is a litany of resistance to foreign domination." But in most of the surveys the point is affmned without irony. As Olson and Roberts put it, "Vietnam was for the Vietnamese, not for anyone else, and that passion had driven Ho Chi Minh throughout his life."26 Some of the books that stress Ho's patriotism also take note of Vietnamese Communism. It would be "naive" to obscure this aspect, Olson and Roberts warn. Comparing the Viet Minh to other independence movements in Southeast Asia, Moss de- clares, "Only in Vietnam did the struggle for home rule also become a struggle for who should rule at home." Such formula- tions recall the notion, proffered by the left wing within the anti-war movement, of the Vietnamese resistance as a social revolution. 27 The August Revolution The balance among these conceptions shifts as the surveys trace the history of Vietnamese Communism, beginning with the August Revolution of 1945. Joes argues that the Communist seizure of power in that year was an "elitist movement," resem- bling "a coup much more than the great revolutions of history." Moss presents a different emphasis, with the Viet Minh harness- ing "the vast energies" of the population," leading to "a remark- able merging of a people and a movement," and allowing "the Vietnamese people" to reclaim "their national identity.,,28 Other treatments occupy a space between these interpretive options. A number of passages focus on Viet Minh agency and portray the masses as instruments of Party leadership in a way that tilts toward the "coup" version: "the Vietminh opportunisti- cally filled the vacuum, occupying government headquarters in Hanoi" (Herring); "the Viet Minh called for a national insurrec- tion, and its political cadres and army moved southward" (Hess); "the time had come to grab power" (Karnow); "the Communists decided to seize the moment ... "the party decided to strike" (Lomperis); "the Vietminh leaders had the crowd marching through the streets of Hanoi," then "staged similar people's rallies" in other cities (Olson and Roberts). Other formulations make the event sound more like a mass movement: "the August Revolution swept the Vietminh to power" (Hess); Ho was "rac- ing to keep up with events" (Karnow); "the Communists rode to power on the crest of a popular uprising" (Turley); "thousands Bulletin o/Concerned Asian Scholars 76 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org and Roberts); "atrocities throughout the coun- try" and "thousands" of deaths (Karnow).30 On this issue, the latter two texts abandon their earlier emphasis on Vietnamese patriot- ism and switch to a lurid view of the enemy. Karnow transforms Ho Chi Minh from a man of "gentle temperament" into an ideologue who was personally responsible for a blood- bath. The disjuncture is equally stark in Olson and Roberts. "He was just a wisp of a man," they declare in introducing Ho. But in 1954, "he set out on a misguided crusade," leading to a torrent of "accusations, lies, informants, and a neighbor-against-neighbor atmosphere," in which "thousands" died and "tens ofthousands more" were placed in labor camps. Both deny that landlordism was an issue in the North (such an idea was "insane," Karnow avers) and therefore imply that the exercise did not have any legitimate purpose. On this point, Karnow and Olsen and Roberts are close to Joes and Lomperis, who insist that land reform was, in Lomperis's words, an "imperative of Commu- nist ideology," rather than a response to a real problem. 3l Three of the texts see land reform as a flawed, but successful campaign to satisfy peasant land hunger. Hess speaks of "errors"; Moss, of "many abuses and atrocities," "thou- sands" of deaths, and "a residue of bitterness and distrust" in the countryside; Young, of a campaign that "frequently left villages not transformed, but deeply embittered." On the other hand, Hess cites "substantial results," including distribution of land to two million peasants and increased rice production. Moss Human rights violations perpetrated by Thieu and abetted by the United States are also not also notes that two million country dwellers much connected to Washington. CIA and GVN involvement in the heroin traffic goes virtu- received land and adds that "a new class of ally unnoticed, and tiger cages do not loom large, save for Lewy, who insists-not one of his landowners composed of middle peasants better moments-that they were more spacious than anti-war activists claimed. (Photographs strongly supportive of the Hanoi regime took ofvictims in Saigon's "tiger cage" prisons. Source: Liberation News Service, no daie given.) control of the villages." Young agrees that the of peasants poured into the cities from the countryside, demon- stratingtheirsupportforthe Viet Minh in huge rallies" (Young).29 To sum up, with respect to the August Revolution, the Communist "Foreign Other" of cold war discourse signals its presence, but Vietnamese aspirations, both patriotic and revolu- tionary, also occupy a prominent place in the survey accounts. Land Reform In the North Contrasting images of the North Vietnamese are shuffied in a different fashion as discussion turns to the land reform of 1953-56. Here the debate is between land reform as an atrocity, fomented by the Communists as part of their drive for power and resulting in an immense death toll; and land reform as an episode in a revolutionary process. Five texts argue that the campaign was not a reaction to genuine social ills, but instead grew out of the authoritarian politics or ideology of Communism, with cata- strophic results: 50,000 to several hundred thousand executions (Lewy and Joes); "epic disaster" (Lomperis); "disaster" (Olson Vol. 30, No.2 (1998) campaign "deepened popular support for the govenUllent. ,,32 To sum up, Foreign Other does not win this round, but it fares better in the land reform phase of the debate than in discussions of 1945, while Social Revolution struggles to hold its ground, and Vietnamese Patriotism, unable to gain a purchase on the evidence, retreats toward the sidelines. The Air War against the DRV During the 1956-65 period, the DRV virtually disappears from the surveys. Olson and Roberts constitute an extreme case. Mter land reform, "political life in North Vietnam settled down," they remark. then drop the topic for good. Young mentions, but does not explore, both "rewards" and "severe problems" in the industrial sector and "serious problems" with agricultural co-op- eratives. Turley comments on the co-operatives, by way of a flashback during discussion of the Air War, but more with reference to their role in defending the country than in produc- tion. Elsewhere, the political and economic systems developed 77 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org in the North and the health and education policies of the DRV are ignored. Cultural life under the new regime is neglected, too, save for the hundred flowers controversy, briefly noted by Turley and Lomperis. 33 When North Vietnam reappears at the beginning of the Air War in 1965, a number of the survey authors are unabashedly admiring. Herring speaks of "great ingenuity and dogged perse- verance"; Hess asserts that the Vietnamese "proved remarkably resilient in responding to the damage and in defending their country"; Olson and Roberts evoke their "cooperative spirit"; and Turley salutes a "well-founded pride" in "collective action when threatened." Turley is the most probing, as he considers both patriotic and revolutionary sources for Vietnamese resis- tance. To be sure, the war effort relied on peasant cooperatives created by the new government a few years before. But these institutions "were based on the communities to which almost all Vietnamese felt a primordial attachment" and drew on an ageless and "unremitting struggle with nature," as well as on "two millennia of conflict with China. ,,34 Quoting Brian Jenkins, Maclear singles out the patriotic aspect (Hanoi leaders "made history work for them"), and Kar- now takes a similar tack, with the view that bombing "rekindled their nationalistic zeal, so that many who may have disliked Communist rule joined the resistance to alien attack." Herring, Joes, Lewy, and Turley agree that air attacks helped the DRV solidify mass support, with Turley specifying that it accelerated the mobilization of Catholics, minorities, and women behind the war effort. Discussion elsewhere, even if it does not make the connection explicit, is couched in an idiom recalling earlier passages on the Viet Minh and Vietnam's history of resistance to foreign domination. 3s Exception made for the passages from Turley noted above, these treatments are more descriptive than analytic and do not weigh the relative contribution of Vietnamese patriotism or the Vietnamese Revolution in determining the success of the war effort. On the other side of the debate, for Lewy and Joes, the concept of "totalitarianism," connoting both moral bankruptcy and mass-based dynamism, serves a dual function by placing the Communists beyond the pale, while also explaining their suc- cess. But Lewy has nothing to say about political or any other institutions in the DRY, and neither does Joes, whose reference to "the familiar machinery of the totalitarian state" is no more than a rhetorical gesture. Lomperis is just as cavalier, and the comparison he proposes between North and South is not pursued. 36 To sum up, survey treatments ofNorth Vietnam are cursory. Joes and Lewy do not try to prove that the DRV was totalitarian, and rival claims that it was revolutionary are undocumented. The patriotic aspect is addressed more fully, but passages in this register are essentialist and, in the last resort, take refuge in a great-man evocation ofHo Chi Minh. Given this lack ofcontent, it is impossible to measure the "foreignness" of Vietnamese Communism. North Vietnam remains the terra incognita of the Vietnam War. Invisible History of the Vietnamese The surveys are not helpful in addressing the social history of the Vietnamese in the era of the Vietnam War. The problem is apparent in treatments of the people of the G VN, beginning with the refugees who moved from North to South after the Geneva Accords. The surveys are uncurious about the refugees. Lom- peris says nothing about them, Herring, Lewy, and Maclear do not explore their motivation, and the other texts are content to note that they were, in Kamow's words, "fiercely anti-commu- nist." Even Joes, the most sympathetic, pauses only to afIrrm that they were fleeing "ever further southward, ever away from Communist control.,,37 Bulletin ofConcemed Asian Scholars 78 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org Several texts execute a swift transition from the thoughts of the refugees to the schemes of those who sought to encourage their flight. Moss's account jumps from "Catholic peasants" who "were uncertain and fearful about life under the Communists and voted with their feet," to propaganda and psychological warfare authored by the Catholic Church, American and French officials, and the Diem administration, which induced "reluctant villagers to flee." It was "not an entirely spontaneous folk movement," he concludes. Hess ("blunt propaganda slogans"), Maclear (CIA "scare tactics"), Turley (refugees "egged on by u.S.-supplied leaflets"), and Young (Lansdale-inspired rumors of u.S. atomic bomb attacks on the DRY) strike a similar note. 38 Survey readers would not be tempted to attribute much sophistication to the refugees. Watchwords such as "Christ has gone to the South," "the Virgin Mary is going South," and "God has gone South" are credited by Herring, Hess, Karnow, Maclear, Turley, and Young, and the leadership of parish priests and the northern Catholic hierarchy is stressed by these authors as well as by Moss and Olson and Roberts. The patronizing undercurrent in such passages is made explicit when Olson and Roberts refer to refugees as "gullible peasants." Karnow's rejoinder to the effectthatthe subjective impetusmust havebeenmore weighty than any extemal prodding seems plausible. Yet even in this sensible passage, Karnow's cedes the floor to the Americans, in the fonn of Edward Lansdale's self-serving commentary on the migration, rather than to the Vietnamese who were doing the migrating. 39 A phenomenon of undeniable significance, this movement of almost a million people remains a mystery that no one seems interested in exploring, some because they would not welcome any softening of the anti-communist moral of the story, others because their notion of Vietnamese as puppets makes further inquiry seem superfluous. The failure to explain is apparent when one considers that hundreds of thousands of Catholics stayed in the North. To account for these choices, one would have to probe more deeply into the thoughts and experience of the refugees and of their co-religionists who remained at home. 40 A similar indifference is apparent as the surveys consider what happened in the following years to Vietnamese in the Saigon milieu. Several texts note in passing that the war changed the society of South Vietnam. Young refers to Samuel Hunt- ington's defense of an "American-sponsored urban revolution," achieved as fIrepower and defoliation drove the peasantry from their villages. Turley says the war stimulated "a cityward migra- tion" that proved to be "largely irreversible," Hess declares that it "shattered much of the traditional social structure," and Kar- now argues that the United States, "motivated by the loftiest of intentions, did indeed rip South Vietnam's social fabric to shreds." In the words of Olson and Roberts, "American forces destroyed the peasants' way oflife.,,41 This transfonnation is not much considered in the texts. Herring and Moss have little to say about the topic, and. in the absence of interviews with refugees, neither does Maclear. In an almost flippant passage, Olson and Roberts remark that Saigon "had become a city of prostitutes, pimps, black marketeers, petty thieves, drug dealers, assassins, orphans, refugees, deserters, Viet Cong, terrorists, and opportunists." Hess strikes a more poignant note, affirming that, "Family life disintegrated as young men and women, tempted by the lure of making easy money from the Americans, abandoned fllialloyalty and became part of the booming economy that served the American military." Kamow VoL 30, No.2 (1998) addresses the topic in almost Victorian tones, claiming that, "For young women in particular, the primrose path to relative riches was irresistible.,,42 For their part, Lewy and Joes refuse to endorse a modem- ization achieved by force and indeed are among the most insis- tent of the authors in criticizing an indiscriminate U. S. fIrepower that, in Joes's words, "caused tremendous loss of life and prop- erty among Vietnamese civilians." Both are convinced that the war had to be won by protecting, not displacing, the villagers. These two authors do not support "forced draft urbanization," to use Huntington's term, but fail to make clear that this policy brought about a fundamental change in South Vietnamese society.43 A related neglect is evident as survey authors shift their attention north of the 17th parallel. In discussing the DRY, they are most interested in military planning by Hanoi leaders, espe- cially in 1968, 1972, and 1975, and provide only sketchy refer- ences "from the bottom up." Other sources make clear that the war in the North uprooted millions ofcountry people, mobilizing them into the army and sending them to fIght in the South. Many of the survivors who came home in 1975 had spent their entire adult lives in the armed forces and were not willing or able to resettle in their villages. On the home front, family and neigh- borhood routines had been altered, while an administrative ap- paratus grew up around the state and the Communist Party, providing new careers for an emancipated peasantry. After 1975 it became clear that for North Vietnam the war had been more revolutionary than the revolution and had moved the center of gravity in society from the countryside toward the town, from orally transmitted custom toward the written word, from face-to-face reciprocities toward bureaucratic anonymity. The transfonnation was just as significant as the "urban revolu- tion" promoted by U.S. fIrepower in South Vietnam. To be sure, peasants in both North and South must still be reckoned with, but the agrarian order they fought to preserve and enlarge is now called into question. Thirty years of resistance eventuated in a triumph over the United States, but it also unleashed market forces throughout Vietnam, which are now drawing the country into the world economic system. 44 These issues can be explored only when the focus is placed not on Ho or Diem or Thieu, but on the Vietnamese people. In this light, what jumps out is the theme of movement, from the near million who migrated from North to South in 1954 to the millions who marched down the Ho Chi Minh Trail or who were evacuated from cities during the Air War or who fled from their homes in war zones below the 17th parallel to Saigon or other towns. Perhaps even more numerous are those who stayed home, but "moved" socially and psychologically, with profound impli- cations for age, class, and gender relations in the country. The survey authors fail to address these issue. The 1954 migration, an early mass movement of the Vietnamese, is slighted. Disruptions in the South, affecting relations between women and men and youth and elders, are mentioned. but not with much sensitivity, as, for example, in Karnow's reference to "the prim- rose path." And little is said about changes in daily life in the North, even by authors who note the revolutionary character of the regime. Opponents of U.S. intervention borrowed "war crimes" from the World War II context in order to emphasize that atroci- ties were being committed in Vietnam, and the conception still serves a purpose in the classroom, where students of a later 79 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org generationknownothingabouttherealityofanti-guerrillawar- fare. It isuseful as well in underscoring the magnitude ofthe change imposedby waronthepeopleofVietnam, a mutation thatdeservescomparisontotheenclosuremovementinEngland orforcedcollectivizationintheSovietUnion.U.S. intervention disarticulated South Vietnamese society, while the total war strategy adoptedbyHanoileadersin 1965reworkedthesocial orderoftheNorth. Inattention in the surveysto "forced draft urbanization and modernization" is perhaps occasioned by a failure ofpolitical nerve. Whateverthe source, this reticence hinders efforts to understand Vietnam's recent history. Social consequencesrequiretheattentionoffuture scholarshopingto makesenseoftheVietnamWar. Notes 1. StatementbyLarryRottmann,inThe Winter Soldier Investigation: An Inquiry into American War Crimes, ed. VietnamVeteransAgainst theWar(Boston:BeaconPress, 1972),p. 164. 2.Onthelink betweensoldieringinVietnamandstudyingVietnamese history, see Keith Taylor, who writes, "As anAmerican soldier in Vietnam, I could not help being impressed by the intelligence and resolveoftheVietnamese who opposedus,andIasked: 'Wheredid thesepeoplecomefrom?''';inThe Birlh o/Vietnam (Berkeley:Univer- sityofCaliforniaPress,1983),p.xv. SeealsoDavidMarr'sreference tohisexperienceasaU.S.MarineCorpsintelligenceofficerinVietnam in1962-1963,inVietnamese Tradition on Trial, 1920-1945 (Berkeley: UniversityofCaliforniaPress,1981),p.vii. 3.DavidHunt,"ImagesoftheVietCong,"inThe UnitedStates and Viet Namfrom War to Peace, ed. RobertSlabey(Jefferson,N.C.:McFarland, 1996),pp. 53-61. 4. OntheWinterSoldiers,seeLewy, pp. 313-21; onevidenceofwar crimes, ibid., chapter7("AmericanMilitary Tacticsandthe Law of War"),p. 223 tr. SeetheappendixforafullreferencetoLewy'sbook andtotheothersurveyscitedinthisarticle. 5. OntheWinterSoldiersandthe VietnamVeteransAgainstTheWar, seeYoung,p.255if; andalsoHerring,p. 266;Maclear,p. 234;Moss, p.349;andDisonandRoberts,pp.237and239.Onthe ''Huemassacre," seeHunt,"ImagesoftheVietCong,"pp. 54-57. 6. MaxHastings, The Korean War (NewYork: Simonand Schuster, 1987). ForanaccountthatplacesKoreansinthecenteroftheKorean War, see Bruce Cumings, The Origins 0/ the Korean War. I, Liberation and the Eme7gence o/Separate Rsgimes, 1945-1947(1989; firstedition1981},andVolII,The Roaring o/the Cataract, 1947-1950 (1990),bothpublishedbyPrincetonUniversityPress(Princeton,N.J.). 7.Joes,p. 145;Lewy,pp.202,436-437;andLomperis,p. 163. 8.Herring,pp.59-60, Karnow, pp. 239-240; Lewy, pp. 7-10, 14; Lomperis, pp. 49-50; Maclear,pp.49-50,53,54-55;Moss,pp.79,81;OlsonandRoberts,pp. 62,64;Turley,pp.6,14-15,52;andYoung,pp. 52-53,56. 9.Joes,p.77;andLomperis,p. 103. 10.Herring,pp. 177-178;Hess,p. 101;Karnow,p.466;Moss,p.232; andTurley,pp. 104-105.SeealsoLewy,p. 94;Maclear,p. 147;Olson andRoberts,p. 167;andYOUDg,pp. 184-186.Onthe 1971 presidential election,seeHerring,pp.269-270;Joes,p. 143;Karnow,pp.635-636; Lomperis,pp. 87,103;andYOUDg, pp.263-265. II. Lewy, pp. 94, 189, 218. Seealso Herring, p. 254; Joes, p. 121; Maclear,p.259;OlsonandRoberts,p.255;andTurley,p. 169. 12.Herring,pp.69,71;Hess,pp. 61, 101;Karnow,p.243;Lewy,pp. 14,297;Maclear, p. 55; Moss,pp. 91-92; DisonandRoberts,pp. 67, 256; Turley, pp. 52, 170; andYoung, pp. 56,60-62. Joesinsiststhat "Diem was as far as can be imagined from the stereotype ofthe bloodthirstytyranf'andthatthere wereonly thirty-three"noIYudicial executions" during his regime (p. 69). Other texts provide a more substantialbody COWlt 20,000 arrested by 1956("andthecampaign was subsequently intensified," according to Herring, p. 71); tens of thousandsarrested (Hess,p.61;Lewy,p. 15);75,000killedand50,000 anested(Maclear,p.55);20,000-75,000killedand100,000anested(Olson andRoberts,p.67},75,000killed(Turley,pp.18,33);12,000executedand upto50,000anestedthrough 1956(Moss,p.92;Young,p.56). 13.Joes,pp.65,69;Lewy,p.95;Lomperis,pp. 50,96. 14.Herring,p.70;Hess,pp.62-63;Joes,p.68;Karnow,p.246;Lewy, pp. 14,94; Moss,pp. 92, 116; OlsonandRoberts, pp. 52,64;Turley, pp.23,55;andYoung,p.57.Herring,Lomperis,andMaclearmakeno mentionofVietMinhlandrefonn. IS.Joes,p.68;Lewy,p. 14;andLomperis,p. 103. 16.Lewy,pp. 186-191. 17.OnLandtotheTiller,seeHerring,p.254;Hess,p.119;Joes,p.121; Lomperis,p. 83;Maclear,p.259;Moss,p.325;DisonandRoberts,pp. 197, 222; and Turley, pp. 135, 170. On the ARVN, see Lewy, pp. 170-171,181-183;Joes,p.66;andalsoMoss,p.296. 18. The "puppet who pulled his own strings" metaphor is cited by Karnow,p.251;andTurley,p. 52. 19.Herring,p. 69;Karnow,p.239;Lewy,p. 11;Lomperis,pp. 50-51; andOlsonandRoberts,p.64. 20.Young,p.61. 21.Lewy,pp. 297,287.Ontheherointraffic,Mossistheonlyauthor toprovideaSUlllDUll)'ofthedossier(p.332),andheandYoungarethe onlyauthorstocitethekeytext: Alfred McCoy,The Politics o/Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade (Brooklyn: LawrenceHill, 1991;fIrStedition, 1972). 22.Herring,p.70;Hess,p.63;Karnow,p.246;Lewy,p. 14;andYoung, p.57.Notext indicatesU.S.involvementwithThieu'sLandtothe Tiller. 23.Foradiscussionof these themes,seeGabrielKolko,Anatomy 0/a War: The Vietnamese, the United States, and the Modern Historical Experience (NewYork: NewPress,1994;first edition1985).Because the focusinthisarticleisonsurveytexts ofaninlroductorycharacter, suitable for college courses onthe VietnamWar, Kolko's dense and fonnidablebookisnotincludedinthediscussion,eventhoughitisin myopinionthe mostauthoritativetrea1mentofthesubjectOnFranco- philes and Young Turlcs, see Turley, pp. 103-104. Moss argues tbat "Thieu'slast-minutedemurral"withrespecttotheParisPeacenegotia- tions"may havegivenNixonhis slim victory"in1968 (p. 302). For moreonThieu'seffortstohelpNixonatthatmoment,seeHerring,pp. 238-239;Hess,p.115;Kamow,pp.600-601;OisonandRoberts,p.203; andYoung,p.233.On"peaceisathand,"Thieu'sbattleswithKissinger, andtheelectionof1972,seeHerring,pp.277-282;Hess,pp. 131-132; Joes,pp. 117-118;Karnow,pp.664-666;Lewy,pp.202-203;Maclear, pp.307,31O;Moss,pp.364-365;OisonandRoberts,p.249;Turley,pp. 150-154;and Young,pp.275-279. 24.Joes,p. 143;Lewy,p.438;and Lomperis,p. 162.Formoreonthe distinctionsbetween authoritarianismandtotalitarianism, see chapter 10("The'EvilEmpire"')inAbbottGleason,Totalitarianism: The Inner History o/the Cold War (NewYork: Oxfoni,1995),p. 190if. 25.Joes,p.105;Lewy,pp.3-4;andLomperis,p.53.Thesurveyauthors are virtually Wl8Dim.ous in distancing themselves from the domino theory.Lewy'sphrasing(increasesinU.S.aid toFrancewere"accom- paniedbyanescalationinexplanatory rhetoricand intheimportance attributedtoanoncommWlistIndochina"[po 5])isnuanced.Preferring amoraltoaspatialdefinitionoftheForeignOther,Joesconcedesthat, "InthelastanalysistheNorthVietnameseandViet Congwerenotaliens butcompatriots"(p. 68}-withoutbacking away fromhisconviction tbattheycouldandshouldhavebeen defeated. 26.Herring,pp.4-5;DisonandRoberts,p.5;and Turley,p. 1. 27.Moss,p. 15;and DisonandRoberts,p. 15. 28.Joes,p. 18;and Moss,pp.25-27. 29.Herring,p. 6;Hess,p.20;Kamow,pp. 161-162;Lomperis,p. 33; OlsonandRoberts,p.22;Turley,p.3;andYoung,p. 10.Lewydoesnot mentiontheAugustRevolution.andMacIearonlyglancinglyrefersto the event,becausehisinformant,ArchimedesPatti,didnotgettoHanoi untilaftertheVietMinhwas installedinpower(p. 11).Whereassurvey authorsseeFrenchandU.S.interventionsasdecisivein theformation oftheGVN,thetexts assignonlyamarginalroletoextema1 actorsin Bulletin o/Concerned Asian Scholars 80 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org the flJ'St days of the DRV. On Japanese, Chinese, French, and, most important, American pp. assistance to Ho Chi Minh,see Herring, p. 6; Hess,p. 30; Joes,pp. 18-19,23; Kamow,pp. 149-151; Lomperis,p. 33; Maclear, p. 11; Moss, p. 24; Olson and Roberts, pp. 21-22; and Young, p. 10. No one cites any involvement by the USSR or other repre>- sentatives of international communism in the events of 1945. 30.Joes,p.33;Kamow,p.241;Lewy,p.16;Lomperis,p.51;andOlson and Roberts, p. 51. 31. Kamow, pp. 133, 240; Lomperls, p. 51; and Olson and Roberts, pp. 5,51. 32. Hess, p. 64; Moss, p. 85; and Young, pp. 50-51. Herring, Maclear, and Turley saynothing about the aimsand results of land reform. All three note that "heavy-handed measures," in Herring's wotds, were employed during the campaign, while also questioning claims thata ''bloodbath'' took place. See Herring, pp. 73-74; Maclear, p. 54; and Turley, p. 19. 33. Lomperis, p. 51; Olson and Roberts, p. 52; Turley, pp. 19,91-91; and Young, pp. 50, 345. 34. Herring, p. 162; Hess, p. 92; Olson and Roberts, p. 156; Turley, pp. 91-92,95. 35. Herring, p. 165; Joes, p. 112; Kamow, p. 473; Lewy, pp. 391-392; Maclear, p. 245; and Turley, p. 96. 36. Joes, p. 139. 37. Kamow, p. 238; and Joes, p. 32. 38. Herring, p. 56; Hess, pp. 58-59; Kamow, p. 238; Maclear, p. 50; Moss, p. 77; Turley, p. 11; and Young, p.45. 39. Herring, p. 56; Hess, p. 59; Kamow, p. 238; Maclear, p. 50; Moss, p. 76; Turley, p. 11; and Young, p. 45. The reference to "gullible peasants" is found in the firstedition ofthe Olson and Roberts text (p. 62), but has been deleted from the 1996 version of the book (p. 63). 40. According to figures cited by Louis Wiesner, 457,000 Catholics (about 40 percent of the total in the North) remained in the DRV; see Wiesner, V'rctims and Survivors: Displaced Peraona and other War Victims in Viet-Nam, 1954-1975 (New York: Greenwood, 1988), p. 17. Foralocal study ofCatholicswho didnotgo South, seeFrancoisHoutart and Genevieve Lemercinier, Hai Van: Life in a Vietnamese Commune (London: Zed Books, 1984). In France, for generations republican historiansof the French Revolution wrote slightingly of counter-revo- lutionary peasants, judged to have beenmanipulated by theii parish priestsand the church hierarchy. But then came Paul Bois, who showed thatthe"republican" communities ofthe West were"docile,"whiletheir "right wing"neighbors hadbeenin 1789 the most militant and class conscious peasants in the region; and Maurice Agulhon, who argued that the eighteenth-cen.tury "white" engagements of villagers in the Southeast helped to explain their emergence as "reds" in 1848. When the refugees of 1954 are treatedmore respectfully, perllaps an equally complex analysis oftheir motives and behavior will emerge. For more, see David Hoot, ''Peasant Politics in the French Revolution," Social History 9 (1984): 277-299. 41. Hess, p. 102; Kamow, p. 454; Olson and Roberts, pp. 163,255; Turley, p. 103; and Young, p. 177. 42. Hess, p. 102; Kamow, p. 455; and Olson and Roberts, p. 255. 43. Joes, p. 109. 44. Vietnamese literature has opened the way toward an appreciation of war-time changes in the North. See Le Luu.A Time Far Past, Ngo Vmh Hai,Nguyen Ba Chung, Kevin Bowen, and David Hoot, trans. (Am- herst, Mass: University of Massachusetts Press,1997). MaryknollWorld Productions ASIA CLOSE-UP 28minutes- $16.95+ $3.00postage/handling ChildrenofTheEarthSeries StudyGuideincluded JAPAN A schoolgirl, Satomi Tamura, age thirteen, shares with you her life in historic Kyoto, Japan. She highlights the value Japaneseplaceon educationasyou follow hertoclassesin English andcharacterpainting.Shealsointroducesyouto herparentsand homelifeandtakesyou tovisitacemeteryand Shintoshrine. Firstpart:14minutes CAMBODIA SokThea,a13-yearoldCambodianboy, losthislegtoalandmineashetendedhisfamily'scowsin hisvillage, 60miles north ofPhnom Penh.The lossofhis legchanges his relationship with family and friends.Theteenagerstruggleswith newfeelings, even as helaborstouse hisprosthesis.You visithisfamily and get a rare view into rural Cambodian life. Sok Thea is one of thousands of people maimed or killed in the aftermath of the country's genocidal civil war. Second part: 14 minutes @ 1996 This video shows U.S. children the different ways young people live in other parts of the world. Sendcheckwithorderto: MaryknollWorldProductions-A P.O. Box308 Maryknoll, NY10545-0308 Tel: 800-227-8523 Fax: 914-945-0670 Vol 30, No.2 (1998) 81 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org Appendix Texts considered in this article include the following: George Herring, America s Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950-1975 (New York: Knopf, 1979, 1986, 1996). Gary Hess, Vietnam and the United States: Origins and Legacy ofWar (Boston: Twayne, 1990). Anthony James Joes, The War for South Viet Nam, 1954- 1975 (New York: Praeger, 1989,1990). Stanley Kamow, Vietnam, A History (New York: Penguin, 1983, 1984, 1991, 1997). Guenter Lewy, America in Vietnam (New York: Oxford, 1978). Timothy Lomperis, The War Everyone Won: America s Intervention in Viet Nam s Twin Struggles (Washington: Congressional Quarterly Press, 1984, 1993). Michael Maclear, The Ten Thousand Day War, Vietnam: 1945-1975 (New York: Avon, 1981). George Moss, Vietnam: An American Ordeal (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1990, 1994). James Olson and Randy Roberts, Where the Domino Fell: American and Vietnam, 1945-1990 (New York: S1. Martins, 1991, 1996); William Turley, The Second Indochina War: A Short Po- litical and Military History, 1954-1975 (New York: Mentor, 1986). Marilyn Young, The Vietnam Wars, 1945-1990 (New York: Harper Collins, 1991). Combining anti-communism with a defense of u.s. policy, Guenter Lewy's America in Vietnam launched the Vietnam War survey genre in 1978, in terms that reappear in studies by Timothy Lomperis and Anthony James Joes. Lewy devotes many pages to combating (and with surpris- ing frequency echoing) the anti-war case. His book is the strongest of the "right-wing" texts. George Herring's America sLongest War followed on the heels of Lewy's study. Buttressed by dense and original research, Herring develops a critique of U.S. policy, couched in the low-key idiom of the diplomatic historian. Revised to incorporate recent scholarship and with graphics added, a third edition in 1996 signals the resolve of the author and publisher to defend the book's place as the most frequently assigned text on the war. Studies by Michael Maclear and Stanley Kamow were written in the early 1980s to supplement made-for- TV documentaries produced in Canada and the United States. Interview-driven, Maclear's work contains inter- esting passages, but suffers from the limits of its sources. Kamow's treatment is more realized, but still depends too much on what the author saw and who he talked to. It ranked second in influence behind Herring's book in a 1993 review of the most frequently cited texts in college courses on the war.! Among recent survey authors, Gary Hess, George Moss, and James Olson and Randy Roberts are closer in outlook to Herring and Kamow than to Lewy. Hess's book contains many impressive passages, but is among the least noticed of the texts. Moss's treatment, which seems to have sold well (a third edition is forthcoming in 1998), is almost twice as long as Herring's book, but is similar to it in shape and argument. Unburdened by footnotes, Olson and Roberts offer piquant an- ecdotes and thumbnail sketches of major personalities. Alone among survey authors in drawing on Vietnamese language sources, William Turley respectfully attends to the guerrillas, a strategy that gives his presentation a "left" tone, one that is heard again from Marilyn Young. Now out of print, !urley's study is the shortest ofthe texts and is alone in beginning m 1954 rather than 1945. Young's The Vietnam Wars, 1945-1990 is the most readable of the surveys and the closest in spirit to the anti-war movement. Among survey authors, Herring, Lewy, Moss, and Young spend the most time discussing the U.S. side, well over half of the text in each case, and Herring and Young have the most insight to contribute on the subject. Lomperis and Joes pay less attention to the Americans, with Joes not getting around to examining Washington policy until 1963. Hess also deals rapidly with the United States, in part because he pays more attention than do the other authors to Laos and Cambodia. Also assigning the Americans a minority role in the narrative is Turley, the only author to devote the same amount of space, around 20 percent in each case, to the DRY, the GVN, and the NLF. The surveys are critical of U.S. intervention. Young con- demns the perpetrators of war crimes, and, while other authors hesitate to indict American policy in systemic terms, they do make clear that the Vietnamese were brutally treated. Kamow claims that the United States was "motivated by the loftiest intentions," but one sees little of such excuse-making elsewhere in the surveys. On the pro-war side, Joes lashes out at the bad faith of "Free World" leaders, and the case Lewy constructs on their behalf is strikingly ambivalent. Lewy, Lomperis, and Joes are the most sympathetic of the authors to the GVN and the toughest on the North Vietnamese. On. the. Saigon regime, Herring, Hess, Lewy, Moss, and Turley welgh tn to good effect, while Lomperis stays in a "nation-build- ing" register, and Joes pities the victims of a "satanic" commu- nism. Turley is thoughtful on the DRY, while other authors are content to talk about Ho Chi Minh and strategy debates in Hanoi. Turley and Young are the only authors to analyze the functioning of the NLF and to take their distance from the "Hue massacre" a cold war construct developed by the U. S. Mission in Saigon to establish that the guerrillas were guilty of the war's most blame- worthy atrocity. 2 Notes 1. According to a survey conducted in 1990-91, when the "second generation" of surveys (Joes, Hess, Moss, Olson and Roberts, Young) was just appearing, Herring ranked first among survey authors (58 mentions out of89 respondents), comparedto Karnow (46), Turley (11), Moss (7), Olson and Roberts (7), Lewy (2), andMaclear(l); seePatrick Hagopian, ''Report on1he 1990-1991 Survey ofCoursesonthe Vietnam Waf' (Fairfax, Virginia: Indochina InstituteIGeorge Mason UniveJ"Sity, 1993). 2. For more on survey treatments of the NLF, see Hunt, "Images of the Viet Cong." o Bulletin o/Concerned Asian Scholars 82 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org Bulletin ofConcernedASian Scholars. Vol. 30, No.2 (1998); 83-87 ISSN 0007-4810 C 1998 BCAS (Oakland, California) Review Essay Gender and Ethnicity: Interventions in China Studies Christina K.eUy Gilmartin, Engendering the Chinese Revo- IMlion: Radical Women, Communist Politics and Mass Movements in the 1920s (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995) Elisabeth CroU, Changing Identities ofChinese Women: Rhetoric, Experience and Self-Perception in Twentieth Century China (London: Zed, 1995) William R. Jankowiak, Sex, Death and Hierarchy in a Chinese City: An AnthropoWgicalAccount (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993) Reviewed by Louise Edwards The intervention of gender and ethnicity into Sinology's dominant paradigms is fraught with tension. Comfortable cer- tainties about the ordering of knowledge of China's history and society are challenged. A common response to such interven- tions has been to affirm the isolation of these "alternative" studies as "supplements." This affirmation acknowledges that the new perspective has scholarly validity but it tempers this with the understanding that the perspectives therein are partial, excep- tional oddities. This approach suggests that the dominant para- digms of Sinology remain largely unchanged but that they are a little stronger for the diversity provided by the addition of alternative viewpoints. The compartmentalization ofthe "minor" voices of women and minorities, and their parenthetic treatment in "major" studies, has reached the limit of its academic utility. It could be argued that the sequestration of gender and ethnicity was a vital nursery stage for scholarship in these areas, but this position elides the fact that such compartmentalization has setVed to consoli- date traditional scholarship. Confronted with these alternative posi- tions, the existing version of"China" can be confmned as the norm. These three volumes show that discourses surrounding gender and ethnicity are fundamental, and not tangential to, the progress of China over the past century. Debates about the relation- ships between women and men, the composition ofChina's ethnic identity have been embedded in all the discussions about the development and strengthening of modem China. Women and ethnic minorities have performed a host of important ideological functions as immensely flexible symbols of Chineseness and China's nationhood. Moreover, controlling the moral authority to speak for these minorities has been a vital legitimizing tool for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) because modern China's nationhood was premised on enunciating victimhood. The CCP's right to rule was pronounced by its monopolization of the posi- tion of advocate for the oppressed peasantry/women/minorities and this discourse ofvictimhood has continued to be an effective tool for the CCP through to the present. One significant challenge for China studies is, then, to explore the ideological connections between the "victim-speak" and the CCP. This will occur if we take seriously the challenges posed by considering the women! minority factors as resting at the foundation of our research and not as quirky fringe elements. I To this end, Christina Gilmartin has provided both scholars and students with a volume of immense importance. Engender- ing the Chinese Revolution is the fIrst in-depth examination of the influence of women in the history of the CCP. This informa- tive and readable volume will provide the lead for many other scholars working in the area ofwomen in communist history and more generally in studies of the women's movement in China. Focusing on the decade of the 1920s, Gilmartin discusses the manner in which gender influenced the "formation of the Com- munist body politic," in the first half of the book, and continues with an analysis of the "politics of gender in the national revo- lution," in the second half. Discussions of the participation of women in the Northern Expedition, the impact of the May 30th incident on women, and the signifIcance of Guangdong and Shanghai as centers of women's activism are all linked by the interface between the CCP and the women's movement. The book's major innovation is summarized in Gilmartin's assertion that "examining the experiences of women in the early Chinese Communist revolutionary movement through the lens of gender does not merely augment our understanding of party activi- ties ... but rather forces a shift in perspective" (p. 2). By this she suggests that the ideological, cultural, and social facets of the Party were closely linked to their policy planning and decision making and the transformation of the status of women was an integral part of these broad cultural policies. The inclusion of gender, Gilmartin argues, should not be regarded as an addition to previous histories of the CCP but rather as a necessary refo- cusing ofour notions about which issues have been crucial to the CCP since its inception. The decade of the 1920s, Gilmartin argues was "a period of peak influence offeminism on Commu- nist and Nationalist revolutionaries, and a seminal period in setting critical features of the relationship of women to the Chinese Communist Party" (p. 3). These bold assertions are cogently argued and well docu- mented throughout the two hundred odd pages of text. Gilmartin clearly reveals that gender was not a minor side issue for the early Communist Party but a vital factor influencing both Party philoso- phy and practical policy decision making. In her chapter "In a Different Voice: Male Communist Rhetoric on Women's Emanci- pation," she explains that topics such as the nature of marriage, Vol. 30, No.2 (1998) 83 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org male-female relations, and sexual morality were all fiercely debated during the 1920s among the urban educated from all political persuasions. The primacy of the issues of gender in public debate influenced the CCP because its fundamental prem- ise was social reform and the improvement of the living condi- tions of the bulk of the population. Engendering the Revolution details the distinct manner in which the public discourse on gender had a direct and tangible impact on CCP activities and also how prominent communists participated in the debate themselves. Male communists like Mao Dun, Chen Wangdao, and Li Hanjun, for example, all published on the importance of economic inde- pendence for women. Chen Duxiu, Li Dazhao, Mao Zedong, and Shen Zemin were among the many communist men who wrote on broad social issues such as inequities in the traditional mar- riage system and its associated notions of female chastity. The early women's movement, we learn, was dominated by men who often posed as women in their publications. As will become evident below, in the discussion of Elisabeth Croll's volume, the CCP's claim to have the right to speak for women continued for decades. A major reason for the influence of gender issues on early CCP activities was the absence of hostility towards the women's movement from two prominent communists-Li Dazhao and Chen Duxiu. The support given the women's movement by Li and Chen contrasted sharply with the attitude of European com- munists toward the European women's movement. Both Li and Chen regarded the women's movement (which was focused on gaining legal, educational, and political equality with men) as a natural ally of the CCP's-part of one campaign for social reform. Gilmartin traces the manner in which the CCP actively encouraged its members to use the networks already established by the women's movement to gain access to the women workers and political activists. As an ally of the CCP, the women's movement was able to expand its influence on broad policy decisions in the Party. Initial connections between the CCP and the women's organizations were established by Wang Huiwu and Gao Junman in the middle of 1921 when they directed "in an unobtrusive fashion the reorganisation of the Federation of the Women's Circles in Shanghai" (p. 52). Through this early coop- eration, schools like the Pingmin Girls' School and journals like Women Voice were established. These organs were at once left-wing and feminist; some male CCP members were not all that comfortable with the results. Later on, the main conduit between the CCP and the women's groups was Xiang Jingyu, prominent woman revolutionary and communist martyr. Chapter Three discusses the manner in which Xiang deftly, but not always enthusiastically, negotiated the distance between the CCP and the women's movement. The CCP's self-interest in incorporat- ing the discontent tapped by the women's organizations quickly became a tool for continued legitimization ofthe Party's bid to rule. The strategy of"coopting the victim" is shown to have been powerful in its immense flexibility: the CCP's right to speak for women did not mean that women's concerns were always the Party's prime focus, because women were just one of a host of "victim-groups" on whose behalf the CCP assumed moral right to speak (or not speak). Fluctuations in the CCP's enthusiasm in support of women's issues are examined in detail in Elisabeth Croll's Changing Identi- ties o/Chinese Women. A leading figure in studies of women in China, Croll has produced several books that have kept a wide range of readers current with changes and developments in the position of women in China. The main significance of Changing Identities is its survey of the effects of the social and economic liberalization on women in China in the 1990s and its analysis ofthe manner in which the CCP's discourse on "sexual equality" has affected the lived experience of women in China. Two of Croll's earlier books, Feminism and Socialism in China and Chinese Women since Mao, covered the events up to the dates of publication, 1979 and 1983 respectively. 2 Changing Identities summarizes the main points from the earlier volumes and then, in the last third of the book, discusses recent trends. In this respect the volume is a valuable summary of the changing status of women in twentieth-century China. As with her other books on this topic, Croll provides a broad template for major trends in women's issues in China. This is a task that only scholars with her depth of experience are able to achieve successfully. The perspective she adopts throughout this volume is the essence of its innovation. The detail is framed within the context of the interaction between national ideology and the actual experiences of women in China. It is here that Changing Identities will have a dramatic impact on Sinology as a whole. Croll plots the manner in which gender, as an analytical tool, has gradually emerged from beneath/within class in social- ist China. Indeed, she argues that gender has attained a position as a legitimate category distinct from class in China of the 1990s. In the three decades after 1949 women's issues were subsumed into the broader battles revolving around class struggle. Croll reveals how the accompanying assertions of sexual equality- the Party says men and women are equal, therefore men and women are equal-ultimately led to women's concerns being ignored by the state. Although the CCP had been proactive in educating the popUlation about the advent of sexual equality during the Land Reform and Marriage Law campaigns of the early 1950s, this activity was not followed up in subsequent years. Croll argues convincingly that there was a failure to recognize the importance of the process of gaining sexual equal- ity. Declarations that "men and women were equal" pronounced from on high by, what has been often a brutal, authoritarian regime, ensured that crucial processes of negotiation, where women assert their right to equality, were largely absent. Absent, that is, until the 1990s. Croll argues that the rhetoric of male-female equality was of benefit to women initially, but later, over the course of the 1 960s and 197 Os, the rhetoric proved disempowering. Ifmen and women were equal, then it was assumed that women had no grounds for complaints. Thus, no avenues were established to manage adequately cases of gross abuse or unfair treatment of women. By speaking for women, the CCP was quickly able to silence women with the moral assertion that ''the CCP knows best." In the case of China, the impact of this conflict between rhetoric and reality cannot be underestimated because the popu- lation had been educated to embrace slogans as unproblematic and "safe" fonns of communication. While Croll argues a con- vincing case for examining the power of rhetoric in discussions about the contemporary situation, the possibility of a disjuncture between rhetoric and reality in contemporary discussions of "traditional" China is not examined. An uncritical acceptance of a totally bleak picture of the position of women in pre-twentieth- century China equates neatly with the CCP's rhetoric of the backwardness and cruelty of the feudal order. As early as 1981, Jennifer Holmgren called into question the extent to which we Bulletin a/Concerned Asian Scholars 84 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org can generalize so blithely about "traditional" China? The accep- tance ofthe notion that "things were really bad for women in old China" can be as disempowering for contemporary women as was the rhetoric that "you were given equality in 1949." It is as if to say "even if the current situation is less than perfect, be grateful you didn't live back in those bad old days." Rhetoric about the past can be just as empowering/disempowering as rhetoric about the present. Ofconsiderable importance in Croll's volume is the section analyzing the transformation of the All China Women's F edera- tion (ACWF). Long accepted as a mere mouthpiece for promot- ing Communist Party policy among the (female) masses, the ACWF has adopted the role of advocate for women within broad political and social spheres. This reflects a fundamental and crucial change in the Chinese political structures over the past decade, as well as representing a major step forward for women's rights in China. This trend was hinted at by Honig and Hershatter in their volume Personal Voices, and later explored in Tani Barlow's chapter in Engendering China. Croll provides further evidence that the ACWF is indeed playing a much more proac- tive role in asserting and defending women's rights. 4 The appen- dices to Changing Identities include the "Law of the People's Republic of China on Protection of Rights and Interests of Women," a document that was adopted in 1992 as a result of ACWF preparation and initiative. Croll's last section, "Not the Moon," includes an examina- tion of the emergence of women's studies as a discipline within China's academic institutions. She locates the origins of women's studies, in part, in the new assertiveness of the ACWF, which encouraged the establishment of study groups, archives, and research centers on local women's history. The first tertiary institution to establish a women's studies center was at Zheng- zhou University in He'nan in May 1987; other universities have continued to establish research groups that link interested schol- ars within a range of disciplinary areas. The emergence of women's studies in China is laudable, but there are dangers if one of the main thrusts of this new area of scholarly endeavor is "to evolve a feminism with Chinese characteristics, femininity with Chinese characteristics ... [and] to emphasize the specifi- cally Chinese socio-political context of contemporary Chinese feminism and demarcate its differences from Western feminism" (p. 178). The product may be a nativist ideology that has little connection to feminism as an antagonistic political agenda, just as "socialism with Chinese characteristics" has little to do with socialism. The tag "with Chinese characteristics" can be read to mean ''whatever complies with the CCP's latest policy initia- tive." The CCP's cooption of the women's movement in the 1920s and 1930s (documented in Gilmartin's volume) and its successful controlling of the rhetoric of "sexual equality" in the post-l 949 years (explored in Croll's volume) reveal that the CCP is more than capable ofdisempowering women while pwporting to be their advocates. The ACWF is a wing of the CCP and although it may be adopting a more adversarial role in relation to the Party and government, I remain wary of heralding the emergence ofa culturalist feminism within the rubric ofwomen's studies. A version of women's studies that embraces a form of feminism that consolidates a socialist patriarchy can do as much harm as good for China's women. 3 Chineseness is a powerful ideological card; it is one that is being played more and more frequently internationally. How- Vol. 30, No.2 (1998) ever, calls for scholars to consider and incorporate alternative viewpoints have often resulted in an excessive cultural particu- larism. Recognition of the specificity of culture has the danger of becoming both a new form of "orientalism" (through the assertion of "cultural essentialism" in the case of China studies), and also a powerful legitimizing tool for the Chinese leadership (through their encouragement of cultural chauvinism in recent times). Neither the "China" nor the "Chinese culture" that claims to set the parameters for such discussions are stable or neu- tral-they have changing boundaries that respond to distinct and fluctuating political requirements. The indigenization offeminist theory may result in its neutralization. These tools offeminism's political agenda may be rendered useless for antagonistic, oppo- sitional analysis and action. The diversity of China is demonstrated in William Jank- owiak's in-depth account of life in Huhhot, the capital of the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region (IMAR). Sex, Death and Hierarchy in a Chinese City covers a range of issues including ethnicity, family relations, mortuary rites, and dispute mediation, as well as sexual attraction, romance, and mate selection. Jank- owiak spent several years in Huhhot during the 1980s and the essence of the material in this book has been drawn from inter- views and observations he made at that time. These are placed in historical context so that the interviews and statistics are understandable in a sociological sense. This a fascinating study -one that displays a disarming frankness about the process of "fieldwork" that makes anthropological studies refreshing and immensely readable. There has been little research carried out on !MAR and little is known about Minority -Han relations on a day-to-day level. For these reasons Jankowiak's contribution to the field is both valuable and timely. Understanding ethnicity is particularly important now, given the increase in inter-ethnic strife within China. . Sex, Death andHierarchy explores and details daily events in Huhhot and describes the habits ofits population. Included are reports on the resolution of disputes after bicycle accidents, the behavior of parents and children in playground settings, the frequency of marital intercourse, and patterns of mate selection. The book provides readers with a framework in which to appre- ciate the broader significance ofthese occurrences in a cross-cul- tural context. The interviews and observations paint a picture of a city in transition between the tight CCP control of the 1970s and the relative freedom of the 1980s. The chapter on hierarchy, honor, morality, and power is a particularly poignant snapshot of the increasing complexity of China. Jankowiak reports: "The public's opinion of the entire cadre stratum, as well as the small entrepreneur stratum, remains disjointed, confused, and often hostile .... In 1983 the small entrepreneur was ranked near the bottom of the occupational prestige scale, even below that of a barber and shop assistant, but in 1987 the position was elevated considerably higher, though still below both the cadre and the intellectual." Cadres, however, are feared and respected-but not admired-because the respect is based on intimidation rather than the "substantive fullness of genuine appreciation at the heart of admiration" (p. 96). This chapter documents the transitional attitudes of a population that has emerged from decades in which extensive use of class terminology reflected a cowed obedience to a notion of "rectification of (class) names" akin to time-hon- ored Confucian precepts. Jankowiak enables the voices of ordi- nary Chinese to express their perceptions of "class" as a so- 85 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org ciopolitical category rather than a political label. This is no small achievement when one considers the extent to which class was a crucial tool for exerting social and political control rather than exploration for several decades. The chapters on sex and mate selection are similarly en- lightening for their incorporation ofgender as a prime organizing category. Where the role of sex/gender was Wlderemphasized prior to the late 1970s and class was upheld as being the singu- larly most important category for understanding human relation- ships, Jankowiak documents the manner in which Huhhot's residents negotiate gender differences. Boundaries of gender are fundamental to their daily life since marriage and family life imply a daily negotiation of spheres of activities deemed mascu- line or feminine. Chapter 9 explores the attitudes of husbands and wives toward each other in relation to household power. Jankowiak notes that many men look longingly back to the days when they (supposedly) had more influence in the family. Al- though "no one in my sample believed it proper or correct for a wife to be dominant within the family," he writes, "everyone agreed that it is typically the case" (p. 236). All of the women Jankowiak interviewed stated that they were equal with their husbands, but they also noted that "men did less work and had greater freedom of movement" (p. 237). These sorts of results make for fascinating reading because they generate questions about perceptions, rhetoric, reality, and expectations vis-a-vis male-female relations in a changing China. Jankowiak opens new possibilities for the dynamic analyti- cal tool of ethnicity. Most studies of Chinese society ignore the considerable differences among the various ethnic groups within China's borders. This elides the important role that racial and cultural diversity performs in consolidating the geopolitical bor- ders of China. Jankowiak reveals how state ideology regarding racial harmony has been only partially successful in suppressing dissent. Resistance to the dismantling of Mongolian culture by the expansion of Han bureaucratic and educational institutions is evident in the city, but it faces tremendous difficulties as assimilationist tendencies dominate. For example, paths to pres- tige require success in the Han system and this means that Mongolian culture remains marginal or curiously exotic to many Huhhotians. Tensions between Han and Mongol Huhhotians are clear from Jankowiak's detailing ofthe common stereotypes each group holds about the other. The Han believe that Mongols are "simple people," "not civilized," "stupid," "drunkards," "lazy," "ugly," and "dirty," and that they "beat their wives." Mongols describe Han Chinese as "crafty," "dishonest," impolite," "dog- eating," "greedy," and "slippery." Interestingly, he notes that "both Han and Mongols believe that Mongols are more 'trust- worthy' and 'reliable' whereas the Han are more 'intelligent'" (pp. 37-38). Jankowiak's refreshing analysis reveals the strength of the anthropological method in debunking political rhetoric-{)f which there has been no dearth in China during the last few decades. The uniqueness of Huhhot as a Mongolian city with sub- stantial numbers of Han, Mongolians, and Muslims is apparent from the second chapter on; the importance of ethnicity (stereo- typed perceptions ofHan by Mongolians and vice versa) emerges in the third chapter. Huhhot is not like Tianjin, Shenyang, or Guangzhou because the Mongolian residents regard the land as their homeland. The central government recognizes this in its designation of the area as an autonomous region. While these points are clear from the outset, the remainder of the book, with the exception of the excellent chapter on mate selection, fails to expand on the ethnic distinctions it explains so well. In the chapter on hierarchy, for example, we are never told whether Mongolians and Han have identical hierarchies of respect and honor. Do the different racial groups differ in their handling of disputes? Have Mongolians in Huhhot adopted the Han style of mortuary rites described in chapter 107 Given that the case for Huhhot uniqueness and the importance of inter-ethnic distinc- tions is made in the fIrst two chapters, the issue of the presence or absence of cross-cultural differences throughout the remainder of the book would have strengthened this already important work. Clearly Jankowiak's goal was to provide a detailed picture of life in Huhhot and not to write a history of the politics of minorities in the PRC, but it was nonetheless a little disconcert- ing to read the repetition of an unproblematized "official line" on minorities at various points in the book. Jankowiak writes, for example, "The Chinese government's ethnic entitlement policy is a product of historical expediency and a genuine concern for protecting the interest of its minorities" (p. 33). The govern- ment's concern may well be genuine but its interpretation of the "interests" of the minorities is a highly contentious issue, just as its adoption of the right to speak for women is Indeed, Jankowiak documents the disputes between Han and Mongolian Huhhotians throughout chapter 3 in an explication of people's perceptions about the effects of government policy on Mongolian culture. A strong case could be mounted to show that the Chinese government's enthusiasm for speaking on behalf of the oppressed (be they women or minorities) is tempered by its overwhelming concern with maintaining its continued hold on power. The advocacy of the rights of women and minorities not only comes a distant second to this primary goal, but it also plays an important part in buttressing the CCP's claim to have the legitimate right to rule the geographic boundaries China in the 1990s. We owe Jankowiak a great debt since through his detailed and thoroughly accessible study many of these issues of inter- ethnic relations and Chinese government policy can be explored. It is extremely valuable to have access to the lived reality of cross-cultural interaction in the PRC because these insights enable us to dismantle the rhetoric. Notes 1. This point is explored more fully by Rey Chow, who writes: "The Chinese Communist government serves a good example of an agency speaking for 'minorities' in order to mobilise an entire nation. As such, its governance is in accordance with a nation of marginality 'which implicitly valorises the centre'." Rey Chow, Writing Diaspora: Tactics ofIntervention in Contemporary Cultural Studies (Bloomington: Indi- ana University Press, 1993), p. 112. 2. Elisabeth Croll, Feminism andSocialism in China (London: Routledge, 1979), and Chinese Women sinceMao (London: Zed, 1983} 3. Jennifer Holmgren, "Myth Fantasy or Scholarship: Images of the Status of Women in Traditional China," The Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs 6 (1981): 147-59. 4. E. Honig and G. Hershatter, Personal Voices: Chinese Women in the 1980s (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1988); Tani E. Barlow, ''Politics and Protocol ofFunu: (Un)making National Woman," inEngenderingChina: Women, Culture, and the State, C. K. Gilmartin eta!. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. 1994),pp. 339-359. 5. See my chapter "Consolidating a Socialist Patriarchy: The Women Writers' Industry and 'Feminist' Literary Criticism," in Female Mat- ters: The Construction ofthe Chinese Woman, ed. AntoniaFinanne and Anne McLaren (Monash University Asia Institute, forthcoming 1998), Bulletin ofConcemed Asian Scholars 86 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org for a discussion on the manner in which feminist methodologies have been ignored in studies of contemponuy Chinese literature because of the cowrtervailing discourse established by the anti-feminist "Women Writers' Industry." CJ The Fantll8tic in Modern Japanese Literature: The Subver- sion ofModernity, by Susan J. Napier (London and New York: Routledge, 1996). ~ 3 pp. Nissan Institute/Routledge Japanese Studies Series. Reviewed by Sonia Ryang Susan Napier's fashionable account of "the fantastic" in modern Japanese literature is one of the most entertaining books published in the field of Japanese studies in recent times. The Fantastic in Modern Japanese Literature introduces English- language readers to a number of important yet hitherto untrans- lated authors and books along with a strange collection of aliens and ghosts and tales of miracles and fantasy from Japanese literature published since the late nineteenth century. Napier's book includes both lesser-known "fantastic literature" tales by popular authors such as Natsume Soseki and Akutagawa Ryuno- suke, along with writings by authors whose names rarely appear in English-language studies of Japanese literature. The book is methodologically sophisticated, guiding readers through texts that range from general accounts to those by Akutagawa and Natsume, among others, that bear closer investigation through multi-faceted interpretation and multi-angled reading. Napier writes in a lucid manner and in an engaging sty Ie, but she avoids the exoticization of Japan as an entertainment kit for Western readers by emphasizing the relevance of Japan in current debates in the field of literary criticism. Napier's psychoanalytical readings of some works in this genre are insightful. Her account of Kurahashi Yumiko's Ama- nonkoku Okanki (Record ofa voyage to the country ofAmanon), is a perfect example. Amanonkoku Oktmki is a sci-fi travel story in which the protagonist-male and foreign-lands in Amanon, a country inhabited only by women. In Napier's reading, Ama- non is a womb in which the male protagonist-supposedly a drop of semen-takes it to be his mission to corrupt women by engaging in an all-out sexual orgy that is televised throughout Amanon. The women of Amanon respond positively and in the end the Amanon country-the womb-gives birth to a hideous creature. The birth is accompanied by a devastating explosion, as if the womb had become a bomb, while the semen-drop protagonist escapes with his secretary, the only Amanon woman who did not enjoy having sex with him. (In fact, she had at- tempted to cut his penis off with a pair of scissors, as television viewers watched [pp. 169-175].) Napier interprets this story as a power struggle: "All the characters ... are fighting for power, since the elite hope to ma- nipulate P [male protagonist] as much as he plans to use them. It is this struggle, endemic to humanity in general, which also characterizes the impossibility ofAmanon's continuation. In this regard it is important that the ultimate site for this fight for power is the womb" (p. 175). Placing Kurahashi's Amanon in the stream in which the logic ofthe inversion ofutopian dreams occurs, Napier illustrates the process by which what was originally a sense of optimism Vol. 30, No.2 (1998) about technological innovation and progress (as in Miyazawa Kenji's Ginga Tetsudo no Yoru [Night of the Milky Way Rail- way]) becomes scepticism about modem utopias that are des- tined to be destroyed, either by self-explosion or external force. Throughout this book, Napier's foremost concern is to make a connection between modernity and the forms the fantas- tic takes in Japanese literature. In so doing, she exhibits a pessimism that shows itself in the expression of her belief that the fantastic in the "earlier modernity" was a manifestation of nostalgia for premodernity, while the fantastic in the "later modernity" is nothing but dystopia and disillusionment amid the chaos and alienation of modern life. Indeed, her emphasis on the change offemale fantastic characters over the century following the Meiji restomtion of 1868 shows this shift consistently: Women in fantastic litemture prior to World War IT personify tradition as against modernity (a conservative position, perhaps, but one that offers a home for secure identity, in addition to being a powerful yet caring and life-giving source). By contrast, women in post- war fantastic literature, while not absent altogether, display a nihilistic indifference that is depicted to be a form of resistance and subversion to the pressures that modem-day social life inflicts on individuals. The lack of communication between the sexes and the images of sinister, soulless female characters drawn both by male and female authors alike in postwar Japan all play a part in this. The notion of modernity as something that fantastic crea- tures are supposedly reacting to or subverting is a central point of departure for Napier. Drawing on the writings of Tzvetan Todorov and Rosemary Jackson, on the one hand (pp. 7-8), and the field of psychoanalysis, on the other, Napier endorses the fantastic as the "unsaid" and "absence" and, hence, inversion of modern life. This point is more or less taken for granted in Napier's text without further theoretical ado. However, how a literary genre is connected to a history, culture, and society, either as a discursive metaphor or a linguistic strategy, and how such a genre is socio-culturally and historically made effective are not as obvious as Napier hopes the reader will assume. The category "fantastic," despite Napier's definition, remains unclear and in- herently inconsistent. For example, mimcles recorded in the Bible may be fantastic to some, including those who are not religious and those who are religious but live in the secular, "modern" period, while they may indeed be fantastic to others who are believers. Here "fantastic" can be true or false: a miracle can be fantastically truthful or fantastically false. Likewise, for a non-believer, "fantastic" miracles can be nothing but an irony. As long as Napier herself is an interpreter and a critic of a certain fInite number of texts, while she deals with a socio-historical phenomenon called Japanese modernity, there seems to be a gap that can only be f11led by accounts on culture-specific, historically deternrined conditions ofproduction, distribution, and consumption of the texts within the socio-historical realm concerned. Napier's approach raises the issue of the relation between "modernity" and the text. If modernity emerges in a historically conditioned cultural field, the discourse is not simply a verbal subversion of it; it is also a part of the modernity concerned. The term modernity and its relation to the texts-and vice versa- need to be more carefully defmed or at least elaborated. It seems that one more level of mediation is necessary in order to connect the "subversive" fantastic to the material conditions of literary production and consumption. Such an account would have to be 87 BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org supported by epistemological discussion oftextuality and repre- sentation and of the role played by the texts in production and reproduction of meanings. Napier's frequent switching between historical narrative and psychoanalytical analysis may not be helpful in this regard. In the postwar "modernity" of Japan, Napier suggests, there is no womb-no home for identity and personal security (e.g., p. 93). In her reading, as shown in Kura- hashi'sAmanon, the womb now is an explosive site where no one can feel at home and which gives birth to a horror. A historically minded feminist reading ofthis text would be that the articulation of the womb and the body of discourse emerging around it are now appropriated and redefmed by women writers. This need not be taken to be female revenge against male social domina- tion, but rather as an effort to define feminine text and women's literary field. The "struggle" Napier hopes to read resides in the text as a part of modernity. This mediation is not brought to the foreground ofher discussion. Hence, there is conflation between the text and the reality, on the one hand, and a simple dichotomy between the modernity and the text as its reflection, on the other. Neither is satisfactory; both lack theoretical elaboration. Although Napier detects gender relations and struggle for power in Kurahashi's text, her psychoanalytical register satisfies her without further exploration ofhistoricity ofthe text. The shift of the notion "womb" is a shift in discursive power relations in the literary field and not the change of ontological status of "womb" as applied, psychoanalytically, to "Japan" (as ifpsycho- analyzing a society is possible). In this particular connection, Napier's reading of the womb-as a home for identities-is essentialist in its history-less fixation of meaning. The demon- strated meaning of the notion "womb" changes depending on who uses it and under what conditions. The same problem applies to other creatures in fantasy literature: ghosts, monsters, aliens, and the rest; these are specific products and protagonists within the historically defmed power asymmetry and it may not be possible to bring them together under the banner of "anti-modernity." Napier's text also lacks a historical postulate ofmodernity. She says that women in the fantastic literature of late nineteenth/early twentieth-<lentury Japan "stand as sentries to a longed-for other world oferotic and traditional richness" (p. 45), but, by the mid-twentieth century, women disappear altogether from the fantastic genre: "There are no longer any old roads back to a past" (p. 80). The appearance and disappearance of women cannot be taken as subversion of or reaction to the one-and-the same modernity, as ifmodernity comes into being at one point in history and is existent thereafter without transforming itself. Japan went through a drastic traJlSformation following the Meiji restoration and modernization and the later period ofoppressive militarization and defeat by the BCAS BOOKS FOR REVIEW For a list of books received by BCAS 1hat are eligible for review In 1he Bulletin of ConcernedAsIan Scholas please VIsIt 1he BCAS Website at http://c&f.colorado.edU/bcas/ Con1act Fater ZarrO'll at <p.zarrow@unsw.edu.au> West. Napier tries to bridge this historical transformation with the changing contents of the fantastic. But, her approach suffers from rather a simplistic one-to-one correspondence between one particular "era" and one ethos. So, according to her, the Taisho period (1912-1926) "was a time of intense urbanization and industrialization, [in which] the initial unity of the Meiji period [was] replaced by an increasing tendency toward conflict on the part of political and other pressure groups, and by a fascination with self-discovery and self-transformation on the part of the newly urbanized, newly consuming population" (p. 118). The female fantastic that corresponds to this period is an "oasis woman" who represents "a space outside ofthe real which offers comfort and revitalization to the weary male" (p. 23). What is problematic with this kind of assumption is that this is probably the case for some (but only for some) in a given time period, in a particular place, in relative terms. The burst offree love in postwar Japan, for instance, produced hundreds of "oasis women" stories set against the backdrop of"intense urbanization and industriali- zation" of the 1 960s and 1970s. This was in marked contrast to the atmosphere of militaristic self-control throughout the nation during the war. But then again, "oasis women" were there even under the increasing militarization of the society, in the form not of free sex or libertarian lover, but of devoted, dutiful, and patriotic horne-front womanhood. The meaning of "oasis" shifts historically. The ethos of a certain historical period cannot be judged by generic statements; it needs to be explored and inves- tigated in its specificity. It is precisely here that we see the relevance of the fantastic: as a part-not a mirrored reflec- tion-of such a period. Napier appears to implicitly presuppose in her analysis an unchanging component of modernity: moder- nity has basically the same technical components including technological innovation, labor-intensive production, urbaniza- tion, and industrialization, despite historical changes that Japa- nese society went through in terms of cultural norms, political organization, and social conventions. The position taken by the fantastic goes through historical transformation-from the posi- , tive, utopian dream of Miyazawa's Night of the Milky Way Railway to the dystopian nihilism of Tsutsui Yasutaka's Ganmen , Hokai-but the components of modernity remain unchanged Technology, science, and industrialization play key roles in her notion of modernity, while modernity is never a cluster of tech- nological innovation: modernity itself is an ethos correlated with "fantastic" aspects of modernization. To oppose modernity and the fantastic, in this sense, seems not only conceptually unten- able, but also a-historical in approach because it disregards the historical change in our own perception of what is "modem" and "non-modern." Napier's accounts are not as simplistic as that, but there are underexplored aspects in her use of the term modernity, espe- cially historicization, and this fixes the image of modernity as some kind of a technologically determined phenomenon, as if history and culture are outside such a realm. o Corredion: In a review published in BCAS, Vol. 29, No.4 (1997), pp. 87-88, the author ofHong Kong in Chinese History: Community and Social Unrest in the British Colony, 1842-1913, Jung-Fang Tsai, was mistakenly said to be a female. We regret the error and extend our apologies to (Mr.) Jung-Fang Tsai. Bulletin a/Concerned Asian Scholars 88 I BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial use only. www.bcasnet.org
(Cambridge Studies in Population, Economy and Society in Past Time) Roger S. Bagnall, Bruce W. Frier, Ansley J. Coale - The Demography of Roman Egypt - Cambridge University Press (1994)