United Nations wants to tell Japan what to write in history books

[Genx87]

I don't know about you but I was taught about that stuff in school.
The Trail of Tears, the Wounded Knee Massacre, all of it there.

Same, granted it wasnt an indepth study. But we were taught about displacement of Indians and the wars we waged and manifest destiny.

 

[Munky]

Do you want to support this? The US covers slavery and the American indians as far as I know.

That's the generic US history. But I don't remember history textbooks covering inconvenient bits like the US trying its best to provoke the Japanese into attacking before Pearl Harbor, that the Vietnam War started over a falsified attack in the Gulf of Tonkin, and I doubt they will cover the fact that Gulf War II got started over a false WMD scare.

 

[Craig234]

That's the generic US history. But I don't remember history textbooks covering inconvenient bits like the US trying its best to provoke the Japanese into attacking before Pearl Harbor, that the Vietnam War started over a falsified attack in the Gulf of Tonkin, and I doubt they will cover the fact that Gulf War II got started over a false WMD scare.

There are things the US textbooks cover better and worse - they are a bit whitewashy, but not nearly at the level of 'let's say this genocide didn't happen', at least outside of the Native Americans, who are the silent victims of the United States' expansion with some bland information.

Howard Zinn made the point of 'untaught history' in the US with his 'People's History of the United States'.

The labor wars and history are very little taught - just sort of a 'workers demanded more rights and some of the adminstrations helped them get more'.

Especially striking is his telling of the real history of Columbus - why I no longer celebrate 'Columbus Day' and would like it removed - how Columbus' voyages, financed with promises of gold to be found, had him target all natives for subjugation from the first minute he met them, and wiped out over 90% brutally in a short period, with forced searched for gold (if you return with enough gold in the next 6 months, you get a necklace, in 6 months if you don't have one you will be killed).

It's just politics, parents who would say "I don't want my kid being taught that truth".

 

[peonyu]

Who cares... Japan can do what it wants, look at thier country. Bombed to hell and back in WW2, nuked even, and it rebounded in 30 years to become a Juggernaught again. Except this time in the field of Economics as opposed to Military might. If they want to whitewash some of thier history then so be it...

Id rather see the UN press on nations that cant get thier shit together at all [despite having 10000x more natural resources than Japan]...Such as any African nation. The Muslim states are fucked up to.

 

[peonyu]

There are things the US textbooks cover better and worse - they are a bit whitewashy, but not nearly at the level of 'let's say this genocide didn't happen', at least outside of the Native Americans, who are the silent victims of the United States' expansion with some bland information.

Howard Zinn made the point of 'untaught history' in the US with his 'People's History of the United States'.

The labor wars and history are very little taught - just sort of a 'workers demanded more rights and some of the adminstrations helped them get more'.

Especially striking is his telling of the real history of Columbus - why I no longer celebrate 'Columbus Day' and would like it removed - how Columbus' voyages, financed with promises of gold to be found, had him target all natives for subjugation from the first minute he met them, and wiped out over 90% brutally in a short period, with forced searched for gold (if you return with enough gold in the next 6 months, you get a necklace, in 6 months if you don't have one you will be killed).

It's just politics, parents who would say "I don't want my kid being taught that truth".

Our history is white washed to a degree...but the Columbus bit is exaggerated. Columbus himself did not kill many native Americans, though it is popular to accuse him of killing off the Indians [or to blame other white men for it].

The real killer was Disease. 90%+ of the Native-Americans were killed by disease, and there was no way to prevent that. That is not anyone's fault. Even today, isolated tribes in Brazil that have had 0 contact with people outside of thier tribe for centuries, get nearly wiped out once they make contact with westerners for the first time...They have 0 immunity to most diseases from Africa, Europe and Asia.

Its PC to say Columbus was a bad man and killed the Indians off, but its not true. And your claim of Columbus killing 90% of the Indians is the PC garbage...disease did that. You cant say that if 90% of a population died by Small pox that it was Columbus's personal fault. No one even knew of Germs or microbes in those days.

And the diseases Columbus and other Europeans brought with them [unknowingly] spread to North America and S.America pretty quickly...Its common for our history books today to state that the English literally stole land from the Natives in the US [and butchered the natives]...But there were not many people living in the Eastern US at all by the time the colonies were founded. There are tons of English accounts stating abandoned native villages, to them the land appeared largely uninhabited [with extremely small numbers of natives spread out over large distances]. Diseases wiped them out before the English even considered forming colonies in the US.

 

[dahunan]

Who cares... Japan can do what it wants, look at thier country. Bombed to hell and back in WW2, nuked even, and it rebounded in 30 years to become a Juggernaught again. Except this time in the field of Economics as opposed to Military might. If they want to whitewash some of thier history then so be it...

Id rather see the UN press on nations that cant get thier shit together at all [despite having 10000x more natural resources than Japan]...Such as any African nation. The Muslim states are fucked up to.

a lot of truth there... we are too afraid to take on REAL topics so these elitist types have us run around playing duck duck goose and never staying focused on the real cesspools of humanity..

 

[kylebisme]

...the real cesspools of humanity..

One can find a comprehensive and entertaining summary of that here.

 

[ElFenix]

There are things the US textbooks cover better and worse - they are a bit whitewashy, but not nearly at the level of 'let's say this genocide didn't happen', at least outside of the Native Americans, who are the silent victims of the United States' expansion with some bland information.

Howard Zinn made the point of 'untaught history' in the US with his 'People's History of the United States'.

The labor wars and history are very little taught - just sort of a 'workers demanded more rights and some of the adminstrations helped them get more'.

we got most of that here in texas in high school. maybe AP classes, being more advanced, covered these subjects better than the regular classes.

Especially striking is his telling of the real history of Columbus - why I no longer celebrate 'Columbus Day' and would like it removed - how Columbus' voyages, financed with promises of gold to be found, had him target all natives for subjugation from the first minute he met them, and wiped out over 90% brutally in a short period, with forced searched for gold (if you return with enough gold in the next 6 months, you get a necklace, in 6 months if you don't have one you will be killed).

It's just politics, parents who would say "I don't want my kid being taught that truth".

didn't get much about columbus, but trying to cram world history into 1 year of school is an impossible task and other than the fact of his voyages it wasn't discussed much in high school at all.

 

[Craig234]

Our history is white washed to a degree...but the Columbus bit is exaggerated. Columbus himself did not kill many native Americans, though it is popular to accuse him of killing off the Indians [or to blame other white men for it].

The real killer was Disease. 90%+ of the Native-Americans were killed by disease, and there was no way to prevent that. That is not anyone's fault. Even today, isolated tribes in Brazil that have had 0 contact with people outside of thier tribe for centuries, get nearly wiped out once they make contact with westerners for the first time...They have 0 immunity to most diseases from Africa, Europe and Asia.

Its PC to say Columbus was a bad man and killed the Indians off, but its not true. And your claim of Columbus killing 90% of the Indians is the PC garbage...disease did that. You cant say that if 90% of a population died by Small pox that it was Columbus's personal fault. No one even knew of Germs or microbes in those days.

And the diseases Columbus and other Europeans brought with them [unknowingly] spread to North America and S.America pretty quickly...Its common for our history books today to state that the English literally stole land from the Natives in the US [and butchered the natives]...But there were not many people living in the Eastern US at all by the time the colonies were founded. There are tons of English accounts stating abandoned native villages, to them the land appeared largely uninhabited [with extremely small numbers of natives spread out over large distances]. Diseases wiped them out before the English even considered forming colonies in the US.

You should read the Zinn chapter I'm talking about.

You're right that disease was a huge killer that was mostly unintentional.

But you're wrong on many counts. For example, from the moment Columbus met the natives. His own diary says how the first meeting went - the natives were warm and friendly, rushing to meet the ships and people and treat them well, I think there were gifts; Columbus on the other hand, had his men show the natives steel swords to see if they were familiar with them, and seeing they weren't, estimated it would not take many armed Spaniards to put all the natives into subjugation.

If you're broadening the topic to North America, disease killed many - but was not the issue in massive campaigns of burning native villages, men women and children, shooting any who ran away from the fires, and other such genocide. Disease does not make the real history 'PC' or 'false', it's just one part of the story that goes alongside the rest.

See my anecdote about Columbus's successors who wanted there to be gold so much they forced the natives to find the non-existent gold or be killed.