Japan Times When a public junior high school teacher in Tokyo teaches about Japan's
acts of wartime aggression, some of her students ask why they should feel
responsible for what people did 60 years ago
As a european I would say the responsibility is to remember so as never to repeat the horrors of the past. That does not mean the youth of today are responsible for those horrors, obviously!"I think junior high school students need to learn a positive view
of history so that they can nurture a positive self-identity," he said. "They
can learn how to view history critically at the high school level."
History is history.You can't invent history or make it sound positive. European countries have a history of colonialism. Nothing can morally justify colonialism today, even if we accept that some positive things came out of colonialism, such as the melting-pot society we live in today. Furthermore, as I pointed out above, the generations born after the war are not responsible for the atrocities of their forefathers, and therefore being taught about those acts of aggression shouldn't have a negative effect on how they view themselves. We are not defined by our nationality.
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