Editing Okinawa

[GuyJean]

[YT]ZRB-WONKYT4[/YT]
Okinawan State of Mind
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/eo20070924kh.html

... Nevertheless, education ministry censors of high school history textbooks scheduled for use beginning next year ordered revisions in all passages stating that mass suicides of Okinawan local residents during the Battle of Okinawa were ordered by the Japanese military. The revisions, the first of their kind ever ordered by the ministry, made many Okinawans very angry.

To obtain ministry approval, textbook publishers changed the passages, with the revised versions saying ambiguously that some residents were "forced" to commit mass suicides.

In the mass suicides, relatives killed one another or parents killed their children before killing themselves as they were cornered by the horrors of war. The mass suicides are the worst tragedy of the Battle of Okinawa, and Okinawans have tended to treat the topic as taboo. All Okinawans agree that people would have never killed their loved ones if it had not been for the Japanese military's involvement (orders, pressure, inducement, indoctrination, etc.)

Since March, when the results of the textbook screenings were known, there have been growing demands in the prefecture to have the screening results rescinded. The prefectural assembly twice adopted a written opinion demanding the withdrawal of the screening results. All municipalities in Okinawa Prefecture have taken similar action.

On Sept. 29, some 50,000 Okinawans are expected to hold a rally to demand the nullification of the screening results. Gov. Hirokazu Nakaima, who was reportedly reluctant to attend the gathering, changed his mind and decided to take part. Most of the mayors of the 41 municipalities in Okinawa Prefecture decided to attend the rally. Their attendance will turn it into a prefecture-wide protest against the education ministry....

GJ

[Midwinter]

Wonderful! It's good to know that the citizens of Japan will make a stand when the government tries to change history that impacted on them, but won't even lift an eyebrow when it comes to rewriting it for the rest of Asia.

GJ Japan!

[American Oyaji]

Wonderful! It's good to know that the citizens of Japan will make a stand when the government tries to change history that impacted on them, but won't even lift an eyebrow when it comes to rewriting it for the rest of Asia.

GJ Japan!

Ummm. Okinawa does NOT consider itself Japanese.

[Midwinter]

Ummm. Okinawa does NOT consider itself Japanese.

It doesn't have to so long as Japan itself does.

[Takechanpoo]

Needless to say, Okinawa is Japan's colony.
So it is natural for us to make their history.
(Okinawa could had chosen whether they get independent from Japan or not. But they chose to continue being part of Japan as colony by themself)

[Mike Oxlong]

Needless to say, Okinawa is Japan's colony.
So it is natural for us to make their history.
(Okinawa could had chosen whether they get independent from Japan or not. But they chose to continue being part of Japan as colony by themself)

I'm sure there are others who know the history much better, but my impression was that Okinawa was extremely divided on whether to revert back to a prefecture of Japan, or continue under US occupational dictatorship (democracy was preached, dictatorship practiced). In the end, those wanting a piece of Japan's ever increasing economic pie won out, but it wasn't a huge majority that wanted to be Japanese again. In then end, who knows if it was better. The pave & build policies of the central government have all but destroyed the natural beauty of central and south Okinawa Island. Most of the tourist money is taken by big Japanese companies, and funneled right back to the Tokyo headquarters, while a few locals draw bellhop and waitress salaries. A lot of Okinawans want bases gone, but they have no plans in place to replace the jobs lost when they go. Just more mainland style and owned shoping centers. A few locas will get some minimum wage jobs, some construction jobs temporarily, but no long-term benefit for the prefecture. The bases do employ a lot of locals, and at fairly decent salaries by local standards.

There is a long history of trade with Japan, and some mixing of locals with Japanese at various points in history. While some Okinawans hate the Japanese for being considered second-class citizens during the annexation years of Meiji and Taisho, and the Japanese Imperial Army atrocities, and recently the textbook revisions, many of the younger generations feel and act quite Japanese, virtually indistinguishable from their mainland contemporaries.

[GuyJean]

I guess I missed the news last weekend..


Protest in Okinawa
http://english.donga.com/srv/service.php3?biid=2007100196438

.. On September 29, some 110,000 people rallied in Kaihin Park in Ginowan City in the Okinawa prefecture to protest against the government? omission. It was the largest protest since the 1972 reversion of the prefecture to Japan.

GJ

[Mulboyne]

Asahi: After rally, review urged for textbooks

Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura on Monday told the education ministry to review its decision to remove from high school textbooks references to the Japanese military's role behind wartime civilian suicides in Okinawa Prefecture. "There is room for those concerned to make efforts and exercise wisdom to see whether it is possible to make changes, taking into consideration the feelings of the people of Okinawa," Machimura told a news conference Monday. His remarks came two days after an estimated 110,000 people gathered in Ginowan, Okinawa Prefecture, to protest the government's instructions to textbook publishers to rewrite passages touching on accounts of Imperial Japanese Army soldiers forcing islanders to commit mass suicide in the closing days of World War II. The rally adopted a resolution calling for the education ministry to retract its decision. "I instructed the education minister, as the ministry in charge (of textbook screenings), to responsibly consider the issue," Machimura said in his news conference. "I understand that there were many people who suffered greatly"...more...

[dimwit]

Does anyone actually know who exactly are the members of this textbook review committee are? Do they consist of real academics? Is there anonymity a way of protecting them from being international recognized as being as credible as say David Irving?

[Mulboyne]

Kyodo via Japan Today: Textbook publishers to reinsert military's coercion of mass suicides

Several publishers of high school history textbooks are preparing to ask the education ministry to allow them to revise the textbooks to reinsert mention of how the Japanese military forced civilians to commit mass suicide during the 1945 Battle of Okinawa, industry officials said Wednesday. Authors of the textbooks have already started to draft phrases such as "forced by the military," and the publishers are expected to file their requests possibly from late October to early November, the officials said. The rare move comes in the wake of growing expressions of anger from residents in Okinawa Prefecture at the ministry's instruction during the previous screening process to publishers to rewrite or delete descriptions indicating that the Japanese military forced the mass suicides.

[unkosando]

Does anyone actually know who exactly are the members of this textbook review committee are? Do they consist of real academics? Is there anonymity a way of protecting them from being international recognized as being as credible as say David Irving?

My Japanese is shit but I am sure if you translate the side of this bus it says "Textbook Review Committee."

[Mulboyne]