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Japan Press Service Co., Ltd. is the only news agency providing information of progressive, democratic movements in Japan

Historians call for rejection of history textbook contemptuous of Asian neighbors

Eleven historians' groups jointly called on the nation's boards of education to not adopt the history textbook glorifying the Japanese wars of aggression for junior high schools next year.

On July 4, representatives of the Historical Science Society of Japan and the History Educationalist Conference of Japan held a news conference in Tokyo to publish their joint statement.

In the statement, they said that the textbook written by the Society for History Textbook Reform (SHTF) "glosses over Japan's war and colonial rule of neighboring Asian countries and sticks to its emperor-centered, nationalistic view of history."

The statement also said:

"After Japan's defeat in the war, reflecting on their inability to stop the Japanese war of aggression against and colonization of Asian countries as well as the growth of Japanese militarism and the general mobilization for the war, Japanese historians and history educators in the quest for peace have made strenuous efforts to build friendships with Asian neighbors through establishing historical truths. In complete disregard of these efforts, the SHTF textbook arbitrarily distorts Japan's wartime past. If it is to be used at schools, it will hinder the effort to teach junior high school students about the importance of developing peaceful relations and friendships with the rest of Asia and may plant notions of self-righteousness and superiority leading to an isolationist view."

The education ministry approved this controversial history textbook in its screening in April. - Akahata, July 5, 2005