Essay 2

Arin Jang

Prof. Kyle Brebner

IERW (03)

26 November 2015

 

A nation that forgets its past has no future

 

            On November 14th, there was a huge demonstration in Gwanghwamun Plaza in central Seoul. A lot of people and policemen pushed and attacked each other, which caused heavy casualties. Why did the people get so mad? That is because the South Korean government has recently announced plans to publish new history textbooks issued by the government in middle and high schools, ignoring public opinion. So, recently in South Korea, there are strong arguments, both for and against the government-published textbooks. The government should not publish these textbooks, considering the right to interpret the history freely, concerns about being distorted, needlessness of using government-issued textbooks – because Korea is neither dictatorship nor developing country – , and public sentiment.

            First of all, interpreting historical events must be free and depend on each student, not uniformly through only one textbooks. Each student has the right to be taught various aspects of historical facts. No one has the right to deprive them of this right. The people who agree on unified textbooks claim that middle and high school students were being confused about different descriptions of different textbooks, so only a single history textbook is needed to solve this problem. However, this confusion can raise more discussions, which are helpful to revise wrong description like glossing over Japan’s wartime atrocities. Then, the more discussions that are raised, the better history textbooks can become.

             The next reason why unified history textbook are opposed comes from a concern that government-issued textbooks would be distorted textbooks, which would contain left-leaning contexts, and used to indoctrinate a particular ideology. Governmen-issued textbooks should not be used as means to promote the government. While supporters may insist it is impossible to distort history in the information society like today, we can know it is enough possible according to the past elementary textbooks government published. These textbook included distorted contexts that Japan-Korea Treaty of 1905 was concluded successfully, exported rice to Japan, and suppression of resistance army to Japan. Japan-Korea Treaty of 1905 was a national tragedy, so it should not be depicted successfully. Korea‘s rice was plundered by Japan, not exported, and resistance army to Japan was a proud army, not a target to be suppressed. After knowing these facts, how can we agree on government-issued textbooks?

            Moreover, government-issued textbooks are used only in dictatorships and developing countries that do not have the economic capacity to publish private textbooks. In fact, while government-issued textbooks are used in North Korea and Bangladesh, authorized textbooks, issued by a lot of private publishers and just approved by the government, are used in the USA, the UK and France. Is South Korea a dictatorship or developing country like North Korea and Bangladesh? No, the Republic of Korea has developed a vigorous democracy and also made economic development greatly. Then, why do we need one government-issued textbook? Even the UN has opposed government-issued textbooks. The UN advised Vietnam to abolish government designated textbooks and change it to authorized textbooks, and Vietnam accepted that advice.

The most important problem about this issue is that this unilateral decision by the government is going against public sentiment. Professors do not want to write that textbook, teachers do not want to teach that textbook, and students do not want to learn from that textbook. They are evem passionately demonstrating against the government’s decision. In the democratic state, it has to be impossible to implement a policy that the public oppose fiercely.

             For these reasons, I don’t agree with one government-issued history textbook! Do you still agree on making this textbook absolutely? Whether you did not know about this issue or agreed on it before, now, you can understand why people disagreed and came out to join the demonstration opposing the government-issued history textbooks. Anyway, regardless of these pros and cons, the government has already began to carry forward the scheme. So, people might think these arguments are no use anymore. By expressing opposing opinions consistently, however, we can preclude the government from abusing political authority. We must keep being concerned about this issue, government-published history textbook, for education of our future generation. If there were not any action, in the future, everyone would have the same historical interpretations, be left-leaning and believe the distorted history is a real Korean history.