South Korea recently announced plans for a revisionist textbook that will whitewash that country¡¯s history and has the academic community outraged over political meddling. At least the move gives South Korean President Park Geun-hye something in common with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
Park has often admonished Abe to embrace a ¡°correct view¡± of history, but it was never clear what that entailed. As of 2017, however, South Korean schools will ditch privately published textbooks and replace them with a single state-produced tome conveniently titled ¡°The Correct Textbook of History.¡± So Abe will now know where to look.
Park clearly rejects ¡°Abenesia,¡± which downplays the suffering and indignities Japanese colonial authorities inflicted on her nation between 1910 and 1945. This year, Japan¡¯s education ministry began imposing strict ¡°Big Brother¡± guidelines that require textbook publishers to conform to the government¡¯s views on historical and territorial controversies, alienating East Asian neighbors. But following Japan down this Orwellian road relinquishes any advantage South Korea might have enjoyed from Abe¡¯s promotion of patriotic education.
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