Okinawa Suicides, Page 2
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"WORSE THAN DEVILS"
One reason cited for the revisions was a lawsuit by a former Japanese army officer and relatives of another charging the two men were was falsely described in works by publisher Iwanami Shoten as having ordered civilian suicides in Okinawa.
That prompted the publisher and Nobel Prize-winning author Kenzaburo Oe to send a letter of protest to the education ministry, criticizing the fact that only the views of the plaintiffs in the court case had been taken into account.
The Battle of Okinawa, which also took the lives of about 94,000 Japanese soldiers and more than 12,000 Americans, looms large in the collective memory of inhabitants of the island -- a separate kingdom until its monarch was exiled to Tokyo in 1879.
The battle, in which up to one-third of Okinawa's inhabitants died, has been described as a futile sacrifice ordered by Japan's military leaders to delay a U.S. invasion of the mainland.
Masahide Ota, a former governor of Okinawa who fought as a member of a "Blood and Iron Corps" of students mobilized to defend the island, says soldiers gave civilians two hand grenades -- "one to throw at the enemy and one to use on themselves."
Many historians and survivors blame military propaganda that sought to convince civilians they faced rape and torture if captured by Americans, as well as an education system that taught the virtue of dying for an emperor who was considered a living god.
"They were taught that Americans were fiends, worse than devils, and that if women were caught they would be raped and men would be killed," Miyazato said. "It was the same as ordering them to commit suicide. They were taught it was better to die.
Ota, a historian as well as a member of parliament, fears the lessons of Japan's wartime past are in danger of being lost.
"Education has the responsibility to convey history accurately to our children so that our country does not repeat the tragedy of the Pacific war," he said in a statement.
"Textbooks are one method of fulfilling that mission. I think that is being forgotten."
Copyright 2006 nopukob.com
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