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Enough With the Textbooks, Already: Not quite. This is the first article I’ve read on the subject that isn’t steeped in the nationalism of one of the protagonists. Interesting. The Chosun Ilbo seized on one bit of criticism, which I think the Chosun blows out of proportion by taking as a slam against Korea rather than as a simple statement of the fact that on the distortion of history, everyone’s full of it:
In South Korea, which democratized in the late 1980’s, textbooks have improved, though certain taboos remain, such as any mention of Koreans who collaborated with Japanese colonizers. Shin Ju Baek, an education expert at Seoul National University, said that descriptions of the colonial period used to focus only on Japanese exploitation and Korean resistance, ignoring the role of Japanese colonialism in Korea’s modernization.
I can already see poor Ms. Shin having to ask for political asylum for these fairly benign comments, which will surely be blown way out of proportion by the Red Guards and other “usual suspects.” What she didn’t mention of course, is . . . yeah, you already see where I’m going here. But if that’s not a distortion worthy of outrage, I’m not sure why anyone needs to reach back to the past here.