America founded on Indian slaughter and black slave labor?

I stubled across a really distorted version of American history this morning.

The Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform has been causing controversy in Japan since its inception. They've continuously tried to rewrite the national narrative to one that they find fairer and less masochistic. In particular they feel that the negative aspects of Japanese Imperialism are exaggerated and given too much emphasis. Certainly, the society has both been influenced by and has had an influence on Shinzo Abe, who once led the group. The recent controversy over Okinawan history can probably also be traced back to the group as well. So while the activities of the group have been played down because the textbooks issued by the group were rejected by most schools in Japan, I still think they are influential.

This morning researching a different topic, quite by accident, I came across the Yamagata Prefecture chapter of The Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform. There, they feature a lecture by Shouji Takahashi, which was given December 8 on the sixtieth anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack.

Allow me to translate two of the opening paragraphs:

今日は十二月八日、六十年前の大東亜戦争勃発の日でございますから、まず最初に、なぜ大東亜戦争が起こったのかという事を一通りお話を申し上げたいと思います。大東亜戦争は、真珠湾の奇襲から始まったかの如くお考えの方もおありでしょうけれども、その辺からお話を申し上げたいんです。大東亜戦争の始まりは、決して真珠湾の、いわゆる騙し討ちじゃないんです。もうそれからずーーっと昔から、この宿命が仕組まれておりました。端的に言いますと､アメリカの謀略です。アメリカの謀略によって大東亜戦争が起こったのだと、いう結論から先に申し上げておきましょう。

Rough translation: Today is December 8. This is the day that the Greater East Asian War began sixty year ago, and so first of all, I'd like to talk briefly about that. There are those who think something like this, that the Greater East Asian War began with the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. I would like to talk about that. The beginning of the Greater East Asian war was not at all the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. From long, long ago the contrivances of fate had been at work. To speak plainly, it was an American plot [contrivance/strategy]. Because of American strategies, the Greater East Asian war began. It is this conclusion I wish to talk with you about.

それにはまず、アメリカという国がどうやって興ったのかということから始めます。 アメリカの国は､今からたった二百数年前に出来たのです。日本は二千六百六十二年になりますが、アメリカができたのは二百年余り前です。イギリスのピルグリムファーザーズという宗教団体のいわゆる清教徒が、アメリカの国をつくったんです。どうやってつくったかといいますとまずひとつは、インディアンを一万名以上も殺した上、残ったインディアンは荒廃した土地に追っ払っちゃった。第二番目は、アフリカから約一万名以上の奴隷をね､お金で買ってきてその労務に服させた。これで出来たのがアメリカの国なんです。それが歴代の大統領は聖書の上に手を置いてね、「我がアメリカは神の創り賜うた国である」、こう言うとるんですよ（笑）。これが神様が創った国ですか？

Rough translation: First let's look at how the country called America came into being. America was done up about 200 years ago. Japan came into being 2662 years ago, America was done up a little over 200 years ago. The English pilgrims, who were a religious group made up of Puritans, made America. So if we talk about how they did this, first they killed well over ten thousand Indians, then they ruined the rest by running them off their land. Next, they bought well over ten thousand Africans and forced them into labor. That's how America was made. And generation after generation the American President puts his hand on the bible and says, "Our country was fashioned by God." They actually say that! (Laughter) Is that really a country made by God?

After these two paragraphs the talk moves on to discuss basically American domination in Mexico, Hawaii, Cuba, Panama, and the Philippines. We then get a discussion of sinister American Machiavellian mechanisms throughout the Japanese modern period, ranging from the gun boat diplomacy of Commodore Perry to Theodore Roosevelt's Portsmouth Peace Conference. When we get to Pearl Harbor we learn that, indeed, this was basically just one more culminating step from a long history American Machiavellian maneuvering, and that Roosevelt basically set up Pearl Harbor to be a catastrophe so he could dupe America into war.

What's fascinating here, is that so much of this history is probably borrowed from America. I have heard similar things put forth by leftists and some libertarians in America, and in Japan the right will freely borrow from this at its convenience to manufacture a history that is suitable to its needs. The message inherent in the American view is watch out for the government. Transferred to Japan the message becomes watch out for the Americans.

I freely admit that America in the past has followed policies that were often wrong and selfish. However how about Japan? For the far right, anything that might cause one to look with less than favorable views of Japan is played down and relativized. Numbers of victims are revised down and we're told that based on current mores, such activities just weren't so bad. Japan was just trying to help other countries and protect itself from evil Imperialists like America. And, when we review American history, only the most notorious aspects are brought to the forefront, and they make up that history. Often in a distorted way that doesn't represent at all what happened. Americans are slaughterers, slavers, and Imperialists and nothing but.

Anyway, to get back to the idea that America actually caused Japan to attack the US (and therefore perhaps America should as a consequence apologize for the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor) is patently absurd. It assigns almost god-like powers to FDR in his ability to be able to determine what the Japanese were going to do. I know some people in America take this view seriously and at some point I should probably review their arguments here in this blog, but I strongly disagree with what they suggest.

I agree with what a recent editorial stated in the WSJ:

Yes, the U.S. had intelligence that Pearl Harbor was a potential Japanese target. But other intelligence suggested Siberia could be a target, or the Panama Canal, or the Philippines. Previous indications of an impending attack had served, like so many false alarms, to lower America's guard. And American planners had trouble believing the Japanese would launch a war against the United States that they couldn't possibly hope to win.

Again, Roosevelt simply was not capable of pulling off such a massive duping of everyone related to the event. Moreover, this view makes Japanese out to be silly dupes, sadly misguided into helping Asia, then being punished for it, then being forced to attack America, then being punished by the worst war crime every perpetrated against any country ever, the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. (Here again, the far right borrow American views and argue the atomic bombs were completely unnecessary and basically a kind of scientific experiment.)

Anyway, who is responsible for this stuff? Shinzo Abe supports the Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform. He was their leader. This is what people are allowed to say when they deliver lectures at local chapters. Thank you Shinzo Abe.

Some how, I feel saddened that history can be made into such a battleground where all that matters in determining the facts is whether or not they suit one's particular ideology or not. The truth is determined before hand, and then the facts gathered and fitted together accordingly. Not even a pretense of self-criticism.

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised.

More related links:

• New history, old wounds: As the 70th anniversary of The Rape of Nanking approaches, China and Japan are trying to mend historical fences [Boston Globe]


• Japanese history textbook controversies


• Examining the Japanese History Textbook Controversies


• International Scholars' Appeal Concerning the New Japanese History Textbook (Inaugurated on July 10, 2001)


• Wikipedia: Saburo Ienaga


• Japanese History Textbooks (2005 edition)


• Japan's Right-wing textbook is teaching material by negative example: Comment


• Stop the fascists textbooks


• Japanese history textbook provokes sharp controversy