The Lee Myung-bak administration began its tenure with a controversial revision of school textbooks five years ago. Now, it is finishing its term by trying to establish the government's right to do so in law. Will Koreans again elect an administration as shamelessly blind to its own mistakes as this one in so many aspects? We doubt it.
One of the first things the conservative administration did upon taking office in 2008 was to wipe out the ideological remnants of a decade-long rule by liberal governments. So the education ministry encouraged the ''new right" ideologues to play down the original authors' criticism of pro-Japanese collaborators and military dictatorships, in what it saw as the left-leaning historical and social textbooks.
In the most glaring example, the revised textbooks eliminated pictures of Kim Ku, Korea's most famous independence fighter, and Lee Han-yeol, who died while protesting against military dictators. ''We must be free from a masochistic historical view," the new rightists said.
Ordinary Koreans are not mistaken if they find this excuse strikingly familiar. The Japanese ultra-rightists are still making similar remarks in denying their country's disgraceful past and whitewashing its historical wrongs.
The government should stop its legislative attempts right away.
Above all, textbook writing should be left to academics and educators, not politicians and bureaucrats.
The proposed bill allows education ministers to revise textbooks when they find parts academically incorrect, educationally inappropriate, politically biased, and ''if otherwise needed." If the nation is to allow unwarranted intervention by public officials, elected or appointed, in making textbooks it had better go back to state-published textbooks, the vestige of an authoritarian era. And if education should be based on a hundred-year plan, textbooks cannot be rewritten every five or 10 years.
By most appearances, the outgoing government's efforts are for the incoming one, more specifically its chief executive. One of the popular concerns about Park Geun-hye's presidency was the possibility of her reinterpreting the nation's modern history, including the part concerning the 19-year rule of her father, the late former President Park Chung-hee. If Park decides to not just reinstate her father but to glorify him, the military coup of May 16, 1961 can turn into ― once again ― a revolution.
The younger Park changed her evaluation of the coup from an ''inevitable choice" to an incident that hurt the nation's constitutional values. People will want to know whether the shift of position reflected her changed mind or just a vote-getting scheme. They will also be curious whether the next president really wants social unity or division.
Which shows why Park must make clear her position on the controversial bill, sooner rather than later.
One of the first things the conservative administration did upon taking office in 2008 was to wipe out the ideological remnants of a decade-long rule by liberal governments. So the education ministry encouraged the ''new right" ideologues to play down the original authors' criticism of pro-Japanese collaborators and military dictatorships, in what it saw as the left-leaning historical and social textbooks.
In the most glaring example, the revised textbooks eliminated pictures of Kim Ku, Korea's most famous independence fighter, and Lee Han-yeol, who died while protesting against military dictators. ''We must be free from a masochistic historical view," the new rightists said.
Ordinary Koreans are not mistaken if they find this excuse strikingly familiar. The Japanese ultra-rightists are still making similar remarks in denying their country's disgraceful past and whitewashing its historical wrongs.
The government should stop its legislative attempts right away.
Above all, textbook writing should be left to academics and educators, not politicians and bureaucrats.
The proposed bill allows education ministers to revise textbooks when they find parts academically incorrect, educationally inappropriate, politically biased, and ''if otherwise needed." If the nation is to allow unwarranted intervention by public officials, elected or appointed, in making textbooks it had better go back to state-published textbooks, the vestige of an authoritarian era. And if education should be based on a hundred-year plan, textbooks cannot be rewritten every five or 10 years.
By most appearances, the outgoing government's efforts are for the incoming one, more specifically its chief executive. One of the popular concerns about Park Geun-hye's presidency was the possibility of her reinterpreting the nation's modern history, including the part concerning the 19-year rule of her father, the late former President Park Chung-hee. If Park decides to not just reinstate her father but to glorify him, the military coup of May 16, 1961 can turn into ― once again ― a revolution.
The younger Park changed her evaluation of the coup from an ''inevitable choice" to an incident that hurt the nation's constitutional values. People will want to know whether the shift of position reflected her changed mind or just a vote-getting scheme. They will also be curious whether the next president really wants social unity or division.
Which shows why Park must make clear her position on the controversial bill, sooner rather than later.
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