Abstract
History is an important academic discipline that has been a key concern for states. The task of writing independently about history is complicated because interpretations of the past are often “imagined, studied and constructed” under the influence of states and ruling governments to aid them with the prolongations of national identity and political order.2 As such, history can through its teaching materials and narratives impinge on the lives, memories and relations of the community of peoples. In particular, history education plays an increasingly important role in upholding sustainable peace, security and humanity. While acknowledging this fact, it is yet difficult or impossible for different nations to reach or bridge international understandings about their contested histories and conflicting collective memories. The discretion of history education and textbooks, which serve as a principal basis for any successful post-conflict reconstruction, would today seem even greater in the context of past East Asian historical interpretations. This chapter, while dealing with the issues of painstaking reconciliation between Japan and the Republic of South Korea (hereafter Korea), aims to reflect the role of UNESCO in the region’s most complicated disputes relating to history textbooks. In what way has UNESCO contributed to the improvements in regional international understandings and textbook revisions since 1945? Does it today play a sufficient role in those improvements?
I should like to thank the Academic Council for the UN System (ACUNS) for an opportunity to present these ideas first at the ACUNS-ASIL Workshop held at The Hague Institute for Global Justice in summer 2014, and the Danish Research Council for generous funds to support the larger project on UNESCO, of which the current chapter forms a part. I am also grateful to Alistair Edgar, the executive director of ACUNS, and Poul Duedahl, the director of the Global History of UNESCO Project, for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this chapter.
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A. Kulnazarova, “The Formation of the Post-colonial Indian State in Soviet Historiography: The Interplay Between the Ruling Ideology and the Writing of History”, Journal of Management and Social Sciences 5:1 (2009): 1.
C.P. Hill, Suggestions on the Teaching of History (Paris: UNESCO, 1953).
John Stuart Mill, Considerations on Representative Government, ed. Currin V. Shields (New York: The Liberal Arts Press, 1958), 229.
F. Pingel, “Can Truth be Negotiated? History Textbook Revision as a Means to Reconciliation”, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 617 (2008): 182.
Y. Nozaki, War Memory, Nationalism and Education in Postwar Japan, 1945–2007: The Japanese History Textbook Controversy and Ienaga Saburo’s Court Challenges (New York: Routledge, 2008), xii.
Y. Nozaki, War Memory…, xiii. Generally, on the textbook controversy, see H. Bando, “History Teaching and Historiography: The Textbook Controversy”, Historical Studies in Japan VII: 1983–1987 (Tokyo: Yamakawa Shuppansha, 1990); C. Barnard, Language, Ideology and Japanese History Textbooks (London: Routledge, 2003); K.B. Pyle, “Japan Besieged: The Textbook Controversy: Introduction”, Journal of Japanese Studies 9:2 (1983): 297–300;Y. Zhao and J.D. Hoge, “Countering Textbook Distortion: War Atrocities in Asia, 1937–1945”, Social Education 70:7 (2006): 424–430; T. Yayama, “The Newspapers Conduct a Mad Rhapsody over the Textbook Issue”, Journal of Japanese Studies 9:2 (1983): 301–316; Chunghee Sarah Soh, “Politics of the Victim/Victor Complex: Interpreting South Korea’s National Furor over Japanese History Textbooks”, American Asian Review 21:4 (2003): 145–178; C. Rose, “The Textbook Issue: Domestic Sources of Japan’s Foreign Policy”, Japan’s Forum 11:2 (1999): 205–216; T. Sedden, “Politics and Curriculum: A Case Study of the Japanese History Textbook Dispute”, British Journal of Sociology of Education 8:2 (1982): 213–225.
Soon-Won Park, “The Politics of Remembrance: The Case of Korean Forced Laborers in the Second World War” in Rethinking Historical Injustice and Reconciliation in Northeast Asia: The Korean Experience, ed. Gi-Wook Shin, Soon-Won Park and Danqing Yang (Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2007), 55–74.
Chunghee Sarah Soh, “The Korean ‘Comfort Women’ Tragedy as Structural Violence” in Rethinking Historical Injustice and Reconciliation in Northeast Asia: The Korean Experience, ed. Gi-Wook Shin, Soon-Won Park and Danqing Yang (Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2007), 17–35; B-S.L. Yoon, “Imperial Japan’s Comfort Women from Korea: History & Politics of Silence-Breaking”, The Journal of Northeast Asian History 7:1 (2010): 5–39.
Julian Dierkes, Postwar History Education in Japan and the Germanys: Guilty Lessons (New York: Routledge, 2010), 5.
RethinkingHistorical Injustice and Reconciliation in Northeast Asia: The Korean Experience, ed. Gi-Wook Shin, Soon-Won Park and Danqing Yang (Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2007), 3.
T. Berger, “The Constitution of Antagonism: The History Problem in Japan’s Foreign Relations” in Reinventing the Alliance: US-Japan Security Partnership in an Era of Change, ed. John Ikenberry and Takashi Inoguchi (New York: Palgrave, 2003), 63–90; T. Christensen, “China, the U.S.-Japan Alliance, and the Security Dilemma in East Asia”, International Security 23:4 (1999): 49–80;J. Lind, “Apologies in International Politics”, Security Studies 18:3 (2009): 517–556.
Nozaki, War Memory …See also S. Ienaga, “The Historical Significance of the Japanese Textbook Suit”, Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars 2 (1970): 3–12 and S. Ienaga, “The Glorification of War in Japanese Education”, International Security 18:3 (1993): 113–133.
Sven Saaler, Politics, Memory and Public Opinion: The History Textbook Controversy and Japanese Society (Munich: Iudicium, 2005), 120.
UNESCO. Organizing Programmes of Education for International Understanding (Paris: UNESCO, 1965), 32. When UNESCO began to develop its program on textbook revisions, it took into account past experiences, particularly those undertaken by the League of Nations’ International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation, which was responsible for international textbook revisions between 1925 and 1945.
“UNESCO. General Conference First Session, Held from 20 November to 10 December 1946”, Records of the General Conference, First Session, Proceedings (UNESCO, Paris, 1947): 151, UNESCO Archives; A Handbook for the Improvement of Textbooks and Teaching Materials (Paris: UNESCO, 1949).
Better History Textbooks (Paris: UNESCO, 1950), 21–22.
Falk Pingel, “Old and New Models of Textbook Revision and Their Impact on the East Asian History Debate”, The Journal of Northeast Asian History 7:2 (2010): 15.
School Textbooks in Japan: A Report of a Survey from the Standpoint of Education for International Understanding and Cooperation (Tokyo: Japanese National Commission for UNESCO, 1958), 97–98.
H. Mitani, “Japan’s History Textbook System: Creation, Screening and Selection”, http://www.nippon.com/en/in-depth/a00701/. See also H. Mitani, “Writing History Textbooks in Japan” in History Textbooks and the Wars in Asia: Divided Memories, ed. Gi-Wook Shin and Daniel C. Sneider (New York: Routledge, 2011).
Falk Pingel, UNESCO Guidebook on Textbook Research and Textbook Revision (Paris: UNESCO, 2010), 62.
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© 2016 Aigul Kulnazarova
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Kulnazarova, A. (2016). UNESCO’s Role in East Asian Reconciliation: Post-war Japan and International Understanding. In: Duedahl, P. (eds) A History of UNESCO. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-58120-4_13
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