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The North Korean Abductions…and the rewriting of Japanese history

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 May 2025

Takashima Nobuyoshi
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The return to Japan last October of five citizens who had been abducted by North Korea sparked extraordinary media attention, both as human interest story and as a topic of heated political discussion. The return of the five and their reunions with family and friends after more than two decades of absence generated great sympathy, especially for the suffering of the families. Conservative forces in Japan have attempted to utilize this outpouring of sentiment to further their own political agendas. As journalist Fukatsu Masumi commented, the right is “taking advantage of the unusual passions surrounding the abduction issue … to mount an offensive aimed at destroying the liberal wing,’ especially through revision of the fundamental law on education. Of particular interest is the link between abductee-support organizations and the ongoing effort to rewrite Japan's history and social studies texts, which is described here. Takashima Nobuyoshi is a professor of education at Ryukyu University. He is the plaintiff in the Takashima textbook suit. The article appeared in Kinyobi 24 January 2003.

Type
Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 1 , Issue 3 , March 2003 , e1
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2003

Footnotes

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Editor's Note: The symposium entitled “A Meeting to Hear from the Families of the Kidnapping Victims,” was held in Tokyo on December 26, 2002. There, the key words “family, state, and patriotism,” and the importance of teaching these to children, were stressed. Tanaka Hidemichi, chairman of the textbook reform society, noted that “sympathy for the families of the abductees had shown us in a personal way the source of the Japanese way of thinking,…the incident made clear that the role of the state is to protect the people, … and brought home the criminality of socialist states.” Another director of the textbook reform society declared that “this problem presents an opportunity to restore Japanese national consciousness and fraternal consciousness, and it should thus be more widely addressed [in the schools].”Yokota Shigeru, father of one of the abductees who has been declared dead, encouraged teachers to use the incident to “discuss what the Japanese state should be and, in broad terms, stress such issues as defense and the prevention of spying. I would like to see students learn patriotic love for Japan, and be taught about the ideals of the family.” (Details from accompanying Kinyyobi article by staff writer Takeuchi Kazuharu).