Monday, April 18, 2005
There's an interesting story developing in the Far East that I rather intended to blog about earlier than this but events ruled otherwise. There is a growing dispute between China and Japan, ostensibly about an historical textbook published in Japan, although I agree with Chrenkoff that it's more about China flexing its new muscles rather than an actual argument about historical facts. The facts are these: the recently published history textbook in Japan glosses over (to put it lightly) the barbaric details of the Rape of Nanking. They still refer to it as Japan's "liberation" of China--a liberation in which over ten million people died, I might add. The Chinese are upset about that and millions of them are protesting the new Japanese ambassador in the streets of Beijing. It is a strange thing that Japan, while pretending to be a western country, does not have the sense of shame that western countries have for their history. Europe thinks it should apologize for the Crusades. The US thinks they should repay black immigrants from Africa for what people in no way related to them suffered during slavery. The Japanese think they "liberated" southeast Asia.
Now I wonder a bit how this becomes a diplomatic issue, but I feel torn. Japan has been a good ally to the US and deserves our support in any contest with our enemy China. Nevertheless China has a valid point (if, at least, that's really what this is all about). Of course, the Chinese haven't exactly been honest about their own history. But still, one needs to sympathize with them. It's like a new book about US History describing the "enlightened bondage" of the southern slaves. Or a new book on Islamic History not talking about the wars that prompted the Crusades or the religion of the 9/11 hijackers. Oh wait. Islamic textbooks already don't. But if one is going to teach history, one must teach it rightly. It doesn't mean that we must attack and undermine everything. That is, "History of the US" need not become "History of African-Americans and Their Misery." But it should be taught, warts and all. C.S. Lewis has an interesting comment concerning this in his book The Four Loves:
Now I wonder a bit how this becomes a diplomatic issue, but I feel torn. Japan has been a good ally to the US and deserves our support in any contest with our enemy China. Nevertheless China has a valid point (if, at least, that's really what this is all about). Of course, the Chinese haven't exactly been honest about their own history. But still, one needs to sympathize with them. It's like a new book about US History describing the "enlightened bondage" of the southern slaves. Or a new book on Islamic History not talking about the wars that prompted the Crusades or the religion of the 9/11 hijackers. Oh wait. Islamic textbooks already don't. But if one is going to teach history, one must teach it rightly. It doesn't mean that we must attack and undermine everything. That is, "History of the US" need not become "History of African-Americans and Their Misery." But it should be taught, warts and all. C.S. Lewis has an interesting comment concerning this in his book The Four Loves:
The actual history of every country is full of shabby and even shameful doings. The heroic stories, if taken to be typical, give a false impression of it and are often themselves open to serious historical criticism. Hence a patriotism based on our glorious past is fair game for the debunker. As knowledge increases it may snap and be converted into disillusioned cynicism, or may be maintained by the voluntary shutting of the eyes.
He goes on to say that this history has sometimes allowed a country's citizens to act according to their vision of the past and to behave much better than otherwise would have. But since the Rape of Nanking is hardly the kind of behavior we want to be encouraging, it probably doesn't apply to this situation. People think that because I am what's known as a patriotic American I must be in favor of whitewashing our history to make us look angelically good all of the time. But nothing could be further from the truth (there was this time back in the late '70s, following the '76 election, oh never mind). I'm all for telling students how bad the slaves had it, or how unjust the removal of the Cherokee Indians was (I just don't want to portray the slave owners or Andrew Jackson as soulless monsters bent on exterminating races of people either). To teach history honestly, one has to actually be honest, both about the bad (which Japan, China, and any Islamic country have to learn) and about the good (which western historians have to learn). My favorite historians are those like Yeshiva chairman Albert Marrin whose "sympathetic yet unsympathetic" approach to everyone, whether it's Robert E. Lee or whether it's Hitler, can tell the whole truth. He doesn't excuse Hitler on the basis of his background, nor does he deny that this impacted him hugely. He doesn't put Lee on a pedastal but nor does he sling undeserved mud at him. Perhaps we should translate some of his books into Japanese. I think they need a little help in the history department.
// posted by The Pendragon @ 6:53 PM 
