Well, on the face of it, this doesn’t look good:
Miyako Masuda is a 23-year veteran of public schools here. Like many Japanese history teachers of her generation, she dislikes new textbooks that frame Japan as the victim in World War II. It bothers her that books claiming America caused the war are now adopted by an entire city ward. In fact, Masuda disapproves of the whole nationalist direction of Tokyo public schools.
Yet until last year, Masuda, who calls herself "pretty ordinary," rarely went out of her way to disagree. Few teachers do.
But when a Tokyo city councilman in an official meeting said "Japan never invaded Korea," her history class sent an apology to Korean President Roh Moo-hyan - an action that sparked her removal from her classroom.
The war history dispute in Asia is now so front-and-center that appears it was cited by South Korea as a reason to avoid an upcoming December visit to Japan by Mr. Roh. Alongside the diplomatic row, the Masuda case shows how nationalist policies are creeping into the minutiae of daily life in Japan’s capital city.
Masuda, who says her two sons have Korean friends, got censured after her class did a study group on Japan’s occupation of Korea. Her social studies class wrote a letter of apology to Roh, and sent it to the Korean Embassy in Toyko. In a cover letter, Masuda said that councilman Koga Toshiaki’s remarks were "a disgrace" by objective historical standards, but "regrettably [they] can be presented proudly as a triumph in the assembly of Tokyo, the capital of this country."
The class never heard from the Korean consul. But Masuda did hear from the Tokyo Board of Education. Her letter was discovered by a Yasukuni shrine support group and they complained to city officials. Masuda was told that while Mr. Koga did speak in public, it was "inappropriate" for Masuda to repeat his name in a letter that was not private, and a violation of city employee codes.
Masuda is now ordered to spend her days in a small room studying public servant regulations, a serious humiliation she says. She in turn is trying to fight in court.
Hard to tell if this is political in nature or a more mundane legal issue that’s being politicized–perhaps bloggers more familiar with the situation could lend some insight.
(Hat tip to Far Outliers)
21 Comments
It’s just human stupidity - clinging to the past and racial pride - on BOTH sides of the pond. Korea and Japan are both equally guilty of nationalist historical distortion amd arguing over matters far in the past that really don’t matter.
Due to the unbreakable law of statistics known as the Bell-shaped curve, there is 1% of Japanese people who are endowed with honesty and fairness. Ms. Masuda belongs to that group. She is more brave than the Yasukuni group put together. A light shining in the darkness.
Learn the golden rule: “Do unto others as you wish they would have done unto you”.
This should be surprising, Japan is tilting hard to the right. Just wait until Koizumi is out of the office and Ishihara comes to power. He is extremely anti-American, anti-Asian. With China and North Korea threatning, Japan is ripe for Ishihara’s militarist right. Ishihara’s party tolerates America because they have a common enemy. The US is making a huge mistake by supporting Japan’s military build up because they never learned their lessons of history (on the contrary the Japanese right are proud of what they did in WWII) so they will end up making the same mistakes. Docile democratic Japan today. Militarist quasi-democratic right wing Japan tommorow.
The result, with the combination of weakening US power, is a continuing destablizing of East Asia.
Kushibo, I hate to say it, but you must be smoking something funny or not know anything about Japanese politics. Ishihara is a lone wolf - he doesnt stand a chance in the national scene.
The issue here is that she sent a letter ‘from her class’, which means she basically forced her students to take a political position. That is the problem.
Shakuhachi wrote:
Kushibo, I hate to say it, but you must be smoking something funny or not know anything about Japanese politics. Ishihara is a lone wolf - he doesnt stand a chance in the national scene.
Shakuhachi, and I don’t hate to say it, you really are smoking something funny or don’t know how to read. I haven’t posted anything here about Ishihara, so unless you think I am posting as Kimbob, Mizar5, or Baduk, set the record straight.
‘Bo knows Japanese politics.
So whether Japan has ever invaded Korea is not a matter of historical accuracy but a mere political position?
If a mayor or senator in the American South (to use that analogy) were to deny that slaves were maltreated in the American South, would that be a mere political point, or would that be a historical inaccuracy?
Do you, Shakuhachi, think that the Tokyo city councilman’s assertion that “Japan never invaded Korea” is correct?
If it’s not going to be Ishihara, then it’s going to be someone just like him. You can’t deny that the Right Wing in Japan is riding an all time popularity ride.
Kimbob, not all of the right-wing’s popularity is because they’re promoting a sanitized view of imperial Japan’s past as one of victimhood. There are economic issues that are also important, probably more so.
Ishihara would get picked despite his right-wing political/historical views, not because of them. But I think that his views might make him too radioactive for some politicos in Japan to elevate him to PM.
Ms. Masuda was well-intentioned but used poor judgment in having the students write a letter of apology to President Roh. They are not responsible for the remarks of an ignorant politician, and encouraging students to publically criticize a government official is not professional for a classroom teacher. It is unfortunate that a progressive thinking teacher has been removed from the classroom for making an error in judgment.
I think it’s kinda sad that a lot of Korean people won’t be reading this news. Had the Japanese teacher told the kids to write a letter to Roh, “Takeshima is ours!” I think a lot more people would have read it.
Even if they do read it, a lot will read it with the wrong angle.
Obviously kids have no obligation to write anything to the president of another country apologizing for historical reasons. But I do think, it speaks volumes about the spirit of education in Japan as compared to that run by certain teacher’s unions in some other country.
I wonder, if a Texan teacher made her class kids write a letter to President Fox of Mexico about the US-Mexican war or if she made her students write a letter to the mayor of Gallop on US Army actions against native americans, I wonder, if she would have gotten the same flack.
On the otherhand, if she were to make her students write to the US president about Intelligent Design…
Which makes me ponder, had she made her students write a letter to Koizumi to place Intelligent Design, I wonder what kind of flack she would have received…
Ms. Masuda’s class letter on Japanese colonization obviously hit a political nerve. However, she also directly criticized a government official who’s still in office. That is a big no-no for teachers.
The war with Mexico is a forgotten conflict for Americans, whereas the wounds of WWII still fester in Asia.
If Ms. Masuda had written a letter to Koizumi in support of Intelligent Design, she probably would have been pulled from the classroom for teaching kids pseudoscience.
Relations between Native Americans and Whites are still an issue in states with large reservations; The hypothetical letter to the mayor of Gallup could anger parents and put the teacher’s job in jeopardy.
A closer analogy than the ones given by Virtual Wonderer would be a Korean teacher having her students write a letter of apology to Bush over the tearing down of MacArthur’s statue. Imagine how the Korean teachers’ union would react, considering their recent infamous video.
I think the lack of good analogies simply underscores that looking at the Korea-Japan problem in American terms (I’m not saying “American” to exclude everyone else, but virtually all of the analogies have been America-related) doesn’t work very well.
Stuff is too far away from the collective memory, few acts came even close to Imperial Japan’s horrific misdeeds during the first half of the 20th century, especially where America was the aggressor.
Virtual wonderer wrote:
I think it’s kinda sad that a lot of Korean people won’t be reading this news. Had the Japanese teacher told the kids to write a letter to Roh, “Takeshima is ours!” I think a lot more people would have read it.
I’m not so sure it hasn’t been in the media. But if it does end up there, I think there would be a lot of people focusing on the incendiary stupidity of the Tokyo councilman’s remarks just as much as what Ms Masuda did about them. Then there’s the whole issue of what then happened to her.
I don’t think there are a lot of positives for the average Korean to extract from this story. If anything, it illustrates why and how Japan might be going to the far right in a handbasket.
Miyako Masuda has been fired from the middle school in Adachi-ku for discriminating Half-American student.
http://www5b.biglobe.ne.jp/~no....._index.htm
She is typical pro-Pyongyang teacher. (ex:Japan teachers union)
She sent letters which insulted the Half-American student’s family to all the parents of the school.
Her student describes “She was insane”
http://www5b.biglobe.ne.jp/~nomaki/oshiego.html
A student asked “Why are you always talking about Amrican troops?”
Masuda said “You are moron”
http://www5b.biglobe.ne.jp/~no.....ikata.html
Do you have anything in English on that?
As with any teacher being fired, there are more details than those published on the internet.
Japanese hubris brought the diastrous defeat in 1945. Since they apparently didn’t learn the first time, they’ll repeat.
Heck, their economy is poised on a knife edge, ready to implode like the Korean economy did in the late 90s…
Wait a few more years and you’ll be ablew to trate won and yen at 1=1…
Because of false pride…
kushibo
i checked but could not find relevant english documents. anyway if you can read some japanese, please google ?????and you can find tons of pages, and you really dont want your kids being taught by her for sure.
please dont consider her an innocent peace loving history teacher.
Miyako Masuda has been fired from the middle school in Adachi-ku for discriminating Half-American student.
http://www5b.biglobe.ne.jp/~no....._index.htm
She is typical pro-Pyongyang teacher. (ex:Japan teachers union)
She sent letters which insulted the Half-American student’s family to all the parents of the school.
Her student describes “She was insane”
http://www5b.biglobe.ne.jp/~nomaki/oshiego.html
A student asked “Why are you always talking about Amrican troops?”
Masuda said “You are moron”
http://www5b.biglobe.ne.jp/~no.....ikata.html
Gorea, thanks for the interesting link. For anyone that wants to know, the site tells of egregious abuses by Japanese teachers of the civil and political rights of their students, often politically motivated.
It doesnt matter if you agree with the personal opinion of this teacher or not. She badly abused her students by forcing them to take a political position that many probably did not want to take. It was extremely inappropriate behavior, and she is unrepentant. I hope they never allow her to be in the classroom again.
The above post is me.
Umm.. Wiesunj, jtb-in-texas was Korean? Didn’t know that.
Guys becareful when you say anything “bad” about Japan, they might think you’re Korean. Shhh……
Wiesunj, your post was the perfect example of how pent up, frustrated “Koreans” express themselves. You must be Korean!