Japan Press Weekly

Tweet

2011 July 27 - August 2 [EDUCATION]

Tokyo approves war-justifying textbooks for junior high schools

The Tokyo Metropolitan Board of Education on July 28 approved history and civics textbooks that glorify Japan’s past war of aggression to be used at 10 public junior high schools from FY 2012 to 2015.
　
The textbooks, published by Ikuhosha and Jiyusya, justify the past war as “self-defense” and “for the liberation of Asia.” The approved civics textbook praises the prewar Constitution of the Empire of Japan which had suppressed the people’s freedom and rights.

Civil organizations and labor unions issued statements in protest against the education board’s decision. Tawara Yoshifumi, secretary general of the Children and Textbooks Japan Network 21, commented that the history textbooks issued by the rightist publishers barely touch upon damages and deaths inflicted by Japanese colonialism and war on neighboring countries.

The Japan Federation of Publishing Workers’ Unions criticized the civics textbooks as stressing the “safety myth” of nuclear power plants much more than the textbooks published by other companies.

On the same day in Kanagawa Prefecture, the Fujisawa City Board of Education decided to use the controversial history and civics textbooks at its public junior high schools.