I really think some of you are missing the point - this is about Japan changing their school curriculum to alter the perceptions its people have about the past in an effort to move the country forward out of a post WW2 imposed pacifist democracy, not about the atrocities that every other nation has ever committed.
I don't think they're doing it the right way, but in saying that I haven't read the changes made myself so it's hard to say on the merits of one article.
The past should NEVER be forgotten - how can you say that 'it will just go away' - that doesn't change what happened and in order to help prevent what happened from occurring again it is IMPERATIVE that it is never forgotten and should be taught to all students.
As a historian myself I know it's hard to stomach some of the atrocities - in such cases I can understand teachers glossing over some of the finer points and perhaps teaching them to students that are of a reasonable age and in an elective class.
But to remove it completely is not the way to respect and honour the dead.
You must also understand that we are talking about the history of a very different world, with a very different Imperial Japan - 'Nuke' was not in the common vernacular - and i'm not trying to defend the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki but the public was not aware of the full devastation of war until the war in Indochina in the 1960's; through television.
It is my hypothetical belief that if citizens of countries participating in WW2 were given the whole truth about what their nations armed forces were doing, in vivid colour, then there is a chance that things might have been very different.
Did you know that up until Germany's 11th hour in 1918 the German people were convinced that the war was going well and their boys would be home by Christmas?
Even in our digital age though, with war presented (or NOT presented, in the case of the heavily censored Iraq conflict that continues as I type this) on LCD screens, atrocities CAN STILL occur, and sadly will - all we can do is try and prevent that through the education and preservation of accurate history.
Lest we forget.
Last edited by neon_flux601 (2007-04-01 16:59:13)
