Foreign historians cry foul against textbook plan

Students protest against the government’s plan to revive the state-authored history textbooks, in Seoul on Oct. 31. / Yonhap

By Kang Seung-woo

• Published Nov 16, 2015 4:19 PM KST
• Updated Nov 16, 2015 4:19 PM KST

By Kang Seung-woo

Foreign historians maintain that President Park Geun-hye’s plan to renationalize the writing of content for secondary school history textbooks is an anti-democratic move that will prevent citizens from gaining a balanced understanding of the past.

Earlier this month, the government announced that it will reintroduce state-authored history textbooks for middle and high schools in 2017 out of concern that privately published textbooks reflect leftist views and promote pro-North Korea sentiment.

History textbooks for secondary schools are now published by eight private publishing companies and are subject to government approval.

“The government must abandon the fundamentally flawed policy and leave it up to educators to select history textbooks informed by lively debates and consensus among historians, as is the case in most democratic countries,” said Eugene Park, Korea Foundation associate professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania.

He said history is a professional discipline that requires professional historians “to undergo years of training to read and critique relevant historical sources, study a broad range of interpretations and debates, draw empirically sound conclusions from the sources and present their findings in narratives accessible to a broader audience.”

“In most democracies, only the more fringe elements or extremists, such as the Tea Party in the United States and the far right in Japan, question the integrity of history as a profession and a discipline,” he said, adding that the government’s decision will make Korea an outlier among democracies.

“It is deplorable that Korean officials and politicians supportive of President Park claim that 99 percent of Korean historians are leftists and that 99.9 percent of high school history textbooks are biased.”

Andre Schmid, associate professor of East Asian studies at the University of Toronto, echoed Park’s views.

“I do not think it is the responsibility of a democratic government to control textbook content,” he said.

The Canadian academic said the fundamental responsibility of any democratic government is to trust the people, and this follows for the writing of history as well.

“The idea of unifying history and instilling every citizen with the same vision of national history is one that does not show trust in the people. It assumes they cannot think critically about their nation’s past and, in effect, infantilizes the very people the government claims to represent,” he said.

Those who oppose the textbook plan are worried that a single government-issued history textbook would not offer a balanced narrative of history.

“There is no such thing as a single, correct history,” said Alexis Dudden, a professor of history at the University of Connecticut.

Citing characters in the works of renowned Korean novelist Jo Jung-rae as examples of people who have been led to believe one thing about themselves and their surroundings, she said that at the height of the stories, everything unravels around these people when they learn a very different truth about their personal and national history.

“Like good histories, Jo’s fictional accounts make clear the impossibility of a single view, especially when other truths are known to exist,” she said.

“The best way I have found as a teacher to have students gain a balanced understanding of the past is to expose them to multiple versions of it.”

Schmid said, “There are slightly different views in different textbooks. That is the point ― the diversity of opinion.”

Despite escalating protests against the single history textbook, President Park continues to push for the plan, which is due to her sheltered upbringing, Eugene Park noted.

“Most humans temper a respect for one’s parents with a healthy dose of criticism, but the sheltered environment in which the President was raised was not the kind that fostered individualism, pluralism or debate,” he said.

President Park has criticized Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s revisionist historical stance that attempts to water down Japan’s wartime acts of aggression, including its sex slavery during World War II. However, Eugene Park said the president’s move will weaken Korea’s moral standing in its ongoing struggle against Japan’s historical revisionism.

“If President Park were to insist on the new policy, she will be joining a long list of political leaders who, throughout history, have tried to rewrite history to suit their needs and all failed,” he said.

Overseas professors, lecturers and instructors whose research or teaching involves Korean studies signed and issued a joint statement on Oct. 29 to articulate their concern over the plan.

“All agree that the government’s controversial decision to impose state-issued history textbooks violates principles of democracy and academic freedom,” Eugene Park said.

“As of Monday, we have 216 signatories, and I keep receiving messages from scholars wishing to sign the joint statement.”