A push for patriotic content on the ethics syllabus on Japanese schools is rekindling fears that children will be taught\u2026<\/b>
TOKYO \u2014
A push for patriotic content on the ethics syllabus on Japanese schools is rekindling fears that children will be taught to take a less critical view of the country\u2019s militarist past and a more submissive attitude to government.
The campaign to put patriotism back in schools has been a key part of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe\u2019s agenda since his first one-year term from 2006, when parliament revised a law setting out the goals of education to include nurturing \u201clove of country\u201d and respect for tradition and culture.
That and amending the country\u2019s postwar, pacifist constitution have been key goals for Abe and many conservatives in his ruling Liberal Democratic Party.
The most recent flashpoint was sparked this week when top government spokesman Yoshihide Suga said schools were free to use the 1890 Imperial Rescript on Education, which also stresses Confucian values such as filial piety, as teaching material.
In the charter, Emperor Meiji exhorted subjects to \u201coffer yourselves courageously to the State; and thus guard and maintain the prosperity of Our Imperial Throne coeval with heaven and earth\u201d. It was rejected after World War Two as having functioned as an incubator for militarism.
The pronouncement coincides with plans for government-approved textbooks that critics say paint a narrowly traditional view of Japanese culture, and a scandal over a nationalist private school with ties to Abe\u2019s wife.
Abe has denied that he or his wife, Akie, helped the school operator, Moritomo Gakuen, get a cut-price parcel of government land for the school, but has told parliament he shares Moritomo Gakuen\u2019s views on education, which include reciting the Imperial Rescript.
From next year, students at state-run schools will be assessed for ethics courses on their overall performance in 22 areas including \u201cfreedom and responsibility\u201d and \u201clove of country and homeland\u201d.
Advocates of the reforms deny they are intended to impose uniform values and stress that guidelines call for discussion to develop critical thinking.
\u201cIt is in no way a return to prewar-style moral education,\u201d Hakubun Shimomura, a former education minister and Abe ally, told Reuters. \u201cIt is only natural to love one\u2019s country, and to love one\u2019s country does not mean denigrating other countries.\u201d
Disputes over wartime history have long soured Tokyo\u2019s relations with regional neighbors Beijing and Seoul, and textbooks – which are even more heavily controlled in China and South Korea – are a frequent bone of contention.
China took direct aim at recent developments in a commentary in state-run Xinhua news agency this week.
\u201cFrom relaxing (the) post-war constitution that bans its military from fighting abroad to ambitious overseas military presences, and now from the military to national education, the steps taken by the Abe administration reveal Japanese far rightists\u2019 attempt to revive pre-war militarism,\u201d it said.
Some domestic voices are also critical.
\u201cPatriotism exists within each individual\u2019s thoughts, and it is totally inappropriate to evaluate it,\u201d Akira Nagatsuma, an opposition Democratic Party lawmaker, told Reuters.
\u201cThe lesson of the pre-war era is that a country where people forgot how to criticise committed a big mistake. We must ensure this does not happen again.\u201d
Lawyer Keiko Ota said there was a common thread running through the LDP\u2019s draft constitutional changes, the Moritomo Gakuen affair, and the government\u2019s classroom interventions.
\u201cThe prime minister and those close to him want to implant the notion that the individual should sacrifice for the sake of the nation,\u201d she said.
Since Abe\u2019s return to office in 2012, other educational changes include directives to textbook publishers to include the government stance on touchy historical topics including territorial rows with China, South Korea and Russia.
Changes in ethics textbooks approved in March are by no means the stuff of militarism.
In one case, a publisher swapped in a picture of a maker of traditional Japanese \u201cwagashi\u201d sweets instead of a bakery in a section on getting to know one\u2019s neighbourhood, while another replaced a jungle-gym at a park with a shop selling traditional Japanese musical instruments.
But critics say such changes seek to impose an exclusive definition of \u201cJapanese culture\u201d and foster narrow patriotism.
\u201cMore than actual content, we know this is part of the bigger picture … so of course, \u2018wagashi\u2019 fits that picture,\u201d said Sophia University professor Sven Saaler.
More jarring was a decision announced last Friday to include \u201cjukendo\u201d, a martial art based on bayonet fighting, among sports that can be taught in junior high schools, a step that one local governor tweeted showed a \u201cnostalgia for militarism\u201d.
\u201cThe idea to include jukendo in middle-school sports activities is a clear indication that the current government is tilting towards more affirmative attitudes regarding Japan\u2019s militarist past,\u201d Saaler said.
(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2017.<\/p>\n