Historical Distortion in South Korean Textbooks —The Reality of Education That Implants Anti-Japanese Sentiment in Children—

Drawing on material published in Hanada Selection: Korea, Two Lies — Forced Labor and Comfort Women, this passage criticizes South Korean elementary, middle, and high school history textbooks as tools used to implant hatred and resentment toward Japan in children through emotionally charged and historically inaccurate narratives.
It argues that textbook descriptions of the Japan–Korea Annexation, the March First Movement, the Women’s Volunteer Corps, and the comfort women issue are filled not with fact-based history education but with distortions and fabrications aimed at stirring anti-Japanese sentiment.
The passage also expresses strong anger toward Japanese media, especially NHK, for discussing Japan–South Korea relations without first reading such documents published through the United Nations framework.

2019-03-01
Arima and Kuwako should know that they themselves are the lowest and most malicious of human beings, and that nothing awaits them but the torments of hell.
You are the filthiest traitors and奸民 of all.

The following is from page 226 of the monthly magazine Hanada Selection: Korea, Two Lies — Forced Labor and Military Comfort Women (926 yen plus tax, Asuka Shinsha).
Published on the official website of a United Nations committee.
The Reality of Anti-Japanism in South Korea.
Japan NGO Network Against Racial Discrimination.
Preface omitted.

III. Background.

  1. History textbooks filled with anti-Japanese descriptions.

1-1. Completely different from historical fact.
In the state-authorized South Korean elementary school social studies textbooks used in the 1990s, Japan’s “atrocities” were written about everywhere, and for example there were passages such as the following, which drive children toward anti-Japanese behavior.
“Japan joined our country to its own, took everything from us, and oppressed our people.”
“Let us discuss how we should face Japan, which committed atrocities.”
However, this historical understanding is completely different from historical fact.
In reality, the Empire of Japan and the Korean Empire, in accordance with international law and domestic law, concluded the Japan–Korea Annexation Treaty by their respective wills, and the “annexation” of the two countries was realized, just as in the “union” of England and Scotland.
As a result, the people of the Korean Empire acquired rights and duties as Japanese subjects.
After annexation, just as the former West German regions did for the former East German regions after German reunification, Japan, both government and private sector, made tremendous investments for the modernization of the Korean Peninsula.
Because the Korean people also actively accepted this, it is a fact that the Korean Peninsula achieved modernization in only thirty-five years, at a speed without parallel anywhere in the world.

1-2. Anti-Japanese middle and high school textbooks.
The history textbooks for middle school and high school are likewise filled with anti-Japanese descriptions, and for example, a state-authorized middle school national history textbook from the 1990s contains the following description of the so-called March First Movement that occurred in 1910.
“Girls under ten, adult women, and female students devoted their passion to their motherland, and for the simple charge of crying out for independence, they were subjected to humiliating treatment and beaten. We were told that three hundred little girls under the age of seven had already been shot to death.”
It is propagandistic writing that appeals to the emotions of children and stirs up hatred and resentment toward Japan.
However, this too has no basis whatsoever and is not historical fact.
The March First Movement initially began with students and religious figures seeking independence from Japan, but soon developed into a nationwide riot involving arson, looting, murder, and other acts.
However, by the ruling of the Supreme Court, the crime of insurrection was not applied to this riot, and only the Security Law and the Publication Law were applied.
Naturally, not a single person was arrested merely for shouting for independence.
In the March First riot, six Japanese gendarmes and two police officers were massacred, and many buildings were set on fire, yet there was not a single death sentence, no prison term of more than fifteen years, and only eighty people received prison terms of more than three years.
Moreover, their sentences were reduced to less than half by the general amnesty of 1920.

1-3. Distortion of history.
Furthermore, a state-authorized middle school national history textbook from the 1990s contains the following description.
“During the Second World War, even women were mobilized under the name of the Volunteer Corps and became victims as comfort women for the Japanese military.”
This description too is clearly a distortion of history.
The Volunteer Corps were women who worked in factories during the war, and they were not forcibly gathered; on the Korean Peninsula, all of them were volunteers.
Of course, they had absolutely nothing to do with comfort women, and among those who came forward claiming to be former comfort women, not a single one testified that she had been forcibly taken as part of the Volunteer Corps and turned into a comfort woman.
As seen above, South Korean textbooks are full of historical distortions and fabrications, and are being used as tools to plant hatred and resentment toward Japan in children.
And this continues even now.
To be continued.

Arima and Kuwako of News Watch 9 should read this document posted through the United Nations before speaking about Japan–South Korea relations.
NHK should be ashamed.
Arima and Kuwako should know that they themselves are the lowest and most malicious of human beings, and that nothing awaits them but the torments of hell.
You are the filthiest traitors and奸民 of all.

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