Citizens and history textbook authors petition Education Ministry for retraction of order

Citizens and history textbook authors, along with Okinawa’s five Dietmembers, on December 4 visited the Education Ministry to request that its order to remove from history textbooks accounts that the Japanese army forced civilians to commit “mass suicides” during the Battle of Okinawa in WWII be revoked.

An education ministry official said to the petitioners, “Given the historians’ theories (concerning the ‘mass suicides’ during the Battle of Okinawa), it is hard to conclude that in all cases of ‘mass suicide’ people were ordered by the Japanese army to kill themselves.”

The official also said, “The textbook examiners reached the conclusion based on the discussion at the examiners’ panel, so it is impossible for the Ministry to revoke it.  Redrafted textbooks submitted by publishers are being examined.”

At a news conference on the same day, Ishiyama Hisao, a history textbook author and chairman of the History Educationalist Conference of Japan, criticized the ministry for repeating the same response as the one it gave in July to an Okinawan delegation.

Tawara Yoshifumi, a member of the Tokyo Metropolitan Association on the Battle of Okinawa, a group supporting the effort to disseminate factual information about the Battle of Okinawa, said, “I felt that the Education Ministry is trying to settle this dispute through allaying Okinawans’ indignation by allowing publishers to submit redrafted textbooks for approval, while refusing to revoke the opinion the examination panel has given. This response is clearly contradictory. If this contradiction is to be solved, the examination panel’s opinion must be revoked.”

   Six publishers have so far redrafted their textbooks to include accounts that “mass suicide” had been forced on Okinawans by the Japanese Army, and submitted them to the ministry for approval. Experts have given their opinions at the request of the ministry.

After the news conference, petitioners and supporters held a rally in the Diet. Matsuda Hiroshi, the chair of Okinawa-ken High School and Handicapped People’s School Teacher’s Union, said, “As an educator, it is our duty to correct mistakes. We can not evade this duty.”

Participants included JCP members of the House of Representatives Akamine Seiken, Ishii Ikuko, Kasai Akira, and Kokuta Keiji and JCP members of the House of Councilors Kami Tomoko, Hini Souhei, and Yamashita Yoshiki. Dietmembers from the Social Democratic Party and the Democratic Party of Japan as well as progressive independent member Itokazu Keiko attended the rally.
-Akahata, December 5, 2007