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2010 Special Issue Int'l J. Educ. L. & Pol'y 64 (2010)
Politics, Memory and Historical Consciousness in Japan

handle is hein.journals/ijelp2010 and id is 64 raw text is: SVEN SAALER Chapter 4: Politics, Memory and Historical Consciousness in Japan Sven Saaler Abstract This article explores the political and social background of the ongoing history textbook controversy in Japan. As a consequence of the strong connection between conservative historical revisionism, which has initiated renewed debates about history education and historical memory since the late 1990s, and the conservative establishment in Japanese politics, the view of Japan's recent history presented in memorials, museums and ceremonies, or in other words in that part of the public 64 sphere concerned with the culture and politics of memory, increasingly reflects that advocated by historical revisionists. This is a view that depicts the Asian-Pacific War (1931-1945) as a defensive war waged against the West, or as a war waged for the liberation of Asia. This position amounts to an apologetic legitimisation of Japan's wartime past. However, it does not reflect societal consensus in Japan: opinion surveys indicate instead that revisionist views face an uphill battle, and remain, at least at present, minority views. This also explains why the revisionist textbook published by the Association for the Creation of New Textbooks (Atarashii Rekishi Ky6kasho o Tsukuru-kai, commonly known as Tsukuru-kai) has been selected for use in classrooms by no more than a tiny minority of junior high schools in Japan. Rien Entry in Louis XVI's diary for 14 July 1789, the day the Bastille was stormed Introduction Historical events often appear in a different light to later generations than to those who live through them. When Louis XVI wrote Nothing as his diary entry on 14 July 1789, was he merely displaying ignorance, or could we conclude that the storming of the Bastille was not accorded much significance in the context of other events at the time? The notion popularised by French historians in the meantime, that this event IJELP - 2010 - SPECIAL ISSUE

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