Saburo Ienaga

Saburo Ienaga (家永 三郎 Ienaga Saburō?, September 3, 1913 - November 29, 2002) was a Japanese historian famous for controversies regarding school history textbooks. In 1953, the Japanese Ministry of Education published a textbook by Ienaga, but censored what they said were factual errors and matters of opinion, regarding Japanese war crimes. Ienaga undertook a series of law suits against the Ministry for violation of his freedom of speech. He was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1999 and 2001 by Noam Chomsky among others.[1][2]

Contents

Life

Ienaga was born in Nagoya. He entered Tokyo's Kudan High School in 1926, and graduated from the University of Tokyo in 1937. Following his graduation, he served as a professor at Tokyo University of Education (東京教育大, today's University of Tsukuba) from 1949 to 1977, and at Chuo University from 1977 to 1984. [3] In 1948, he was awarded the Japan Academy Prize and became professor emeritus at Tokyo University of Education.

Background of the lawsuit

In April 1947, Ienaga published New Japanese History (新日本史) as a general history book. Upon request from Sanseido, Ienaga wrote a draft of a Japanese history textbook for high school based on his New Japanese History. The draft was however rejected by the Ministry of Education at the school textbook authorization of 1952. The reasons for rejection included such grounds as the claim that the description of the High Treason Incident (大逆事件) was not appropriate, and that the draft did not clarify the fact that the Russo-Japanese War was supported by the Japanese people. Ienaga reapplied for authorization without any corrections, and the draft somehow passed authorization and was published as a textbook for the school year of 1953, under the same title, "New Japanese History."

After wholly revising the first edition of the textbook, Ienaga applied again for authorization of the textbook in 1955. The draft passed authorization on the condition that 216 items in the draft be corrected. The Ministry of Education demanded that Ienaga correct the suggested elements two times subsequently. Ienaga corrected what he could, and refused correction on other parts. The revised New Japanese History was published in 1956. After the curriculum guidelines (学習指導要領) for high school social studies changed in 1955, Ienaga applied for authorization for the third and fourth editions of his textbook in November 1956 and May 1957. They went through the same process as the 1955 edition and were authorized for publication in 1959 and 1962 respectively.

First lawsuit

On June 12, 1965, Ienaga filed the first suit against the government of Japan. He demanded 1,000,000 yen under State Redress Law (国家賠償法) for the psychological damage that he suffered through his experience that the government's allegedly unconstitutional system of school textbook authorization made him correct the contents of his draft textbook against his will and violated his right to freedom of expression. Ienaga claimed that the system of textbook authorization, which is based on Article 21 and 51 of School Education Law (学校教育法) among others, was unjust and unconstitutional because:

The authorization system was against Article 21 of the constitution that guarantees the freedom of speech and expression. Writing and publication of history textbook is a form of speech that is protected by the Constitution; however, the system of school textbook authorization as it was practiced in 1965 conducted thought control and prohibited publication and use of textbooks at schools that were deemed inappropriate according to a particular political ideology held by the government. According to Ienaga this falls under the category of censorship (検閲) that is prohibited by Section 2, Article 21 of the Constitution of Japan. Article 21 specifically prohibits censorship in an independent section because it is the principle of the democratic constitution of Japan that the people are guaranteed the opportunities to freely enjoy the results of scholastic researches, be exposed to all sorts of ideas and opinions, and know socio-political reality and historical truth through various media such as press, radio, and television.
The authorization system was against Article 10 of Fundamental Law of Education (教育基本法) that states that education shall not submit to unjust control. This is from reflection on the past that the pre-war education system of Japan attempted to control thought by standardizing and uniforming education. Therefore, the content of education ought to be left unstandardized and be free from uniformalization by the political authority, ienaga argued.

Second lawsuit

Ienaga filed an administrative lawsuit to demand the Ministry of Education to reverse the rejection of his New Japanese History at the textbook authorization in 1966.

Third lawsuit

Ienaga filed a suit against the government of Japan to demand state compensation for the result of textbook authorization in 1982 that rejected his draft textbook.

Bibliography

References

  1. ^ "Obituary: Saburo Ienaga: One man's campaign against Japanese censorship" Jonathan Watts. The Guardian. London (UK): Dec 3, 2002. p. 22
  2. ^ "Persistence of memory: Saburo Ienaga insists Japan remember an unsavoury war to ensure dreams of peace" John Price. The Vancouver Sun. Vancouver, B.C.: Mar 7, 2001. p. A.13
  3. ^ Ienaga, Saburō (2004). Japan's Past, Japan's Future: One Historian's Odyssey. Rowman and Littlefield. ISBN 0742509893. 

External links