Focused woman choosing a book in a university library, exploring materials related to Anti-Japan Tribalism and historical studies.
What do children actually learn from a history textbook? In a middle school classroom in Busan, a 13-year-old girl reads about the comfort women, a story of suffering woven deeply into Korea’s national memory. She closes the book carrying not only facts but a grievance, absorbed almost unconsciously.
From Seoul to Sana’a, governments shape young minds through selective narratives. The real question isn’t whether history is taught, but whether it’s used as a tool for understanding, or as a weapon.
Contents
History as a Weapon
In Korea’s Gyeonggi Province, students learn about Japanese brutality but rarely see mention of Korea’s own wartime actions, including its role in Vietnam and the story of the Lai Dai Han. According to Comfort Women of the Japanese Empire, the comfort women narrative is more complex than most textbooks allow, involving layers of coercion, agency, and painful ambiguity.
Anti-Japan Tribalism argues that these educational choices cultivate a “perpetual victimhood,” reinforcing collective resentment instead of encouraging critical thought. A 2024 Japan Times analysis warns this approach only deepens distrust between Korea and Japan.
Global Memory Manipulation
This isn’t unique to Korea. In China, the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests are conspicuously missing from school curricula, replaced by stories of economic growth and national strength. In Yemen, Houthi-controlled schools portray the rebels as liberators, erasing their role in prolonging the civil war, encouraging them to turn to weapons the moment they lay down their school pens. Much in the same fashion, the narrative instilled in South Korean children places a strong emphasis on a curated version of history. One that can easily evoke a sense of grievance and mistrust.
A peer-reviewed article in OpenEdition Journal observes that South Korean textbooks present the comfort women narrative in “dogmatic” terms that “reduce students’ ability to engage in critical reflection or comparative historical analysis.” By framing the women solely as “symbols of national suffering under Japanese colonial rule,” the curriculum reinforces a unidimensional narrative of victimhood, weaponized to build national identity. When did schoolbooks become shields for grievance instead of lanterns for understanding?
The Price of a Single Story
Does a child leave class prepared to understand the world, or armed with a grievance fixing a rigid outlook? In South Korea, history textbooks highlight Japanese wartime abuses but sidestep the complexities of the region’s past, including Korea’s own actions abroad. This selective narrative instills a durable sense of victimhood, an emotional lens that research shows can have measurable political effects.
A multi-country study summarized in Victimhood: The Most Powerful Force in Morality and Politics (Bruneau et al., 2023) found that exposure to exclusive victimhood narratives significantly increased prejudice against out-groups (r ≈ 0.45–0.60) and decreased support for reconciliation efforts (r ≈ –0.40 to –0.55). These effects held across Israeli, Palestinian, and Polish contexts. As the authors write, “by valorizing suffering without encouraging self-critique, group victim narratives may paradoxically perpetuate cycles of conflict.”
We know that history lessons shape the worldview of young, malleable students. What, then, should a history class offer, if we have the choice? Healing through understanding, or an inheritance of unexamined pain?
Facing Reality Over Myth
History requires courage. Imagine a Busan classroom where students learn about the comfort women, the Lai Dai Han, and Japan’s recent reparations efforts in the same lesson. Both Comfort Women of the Japanese Empire and Anti-Japan Tribalism urge us to favor reality over myth, even when it isn’t comfortable.
Complexity doesn’t weaken a nation. It builds a deeper, more resilient sense of identity, one capable of empathy and forward-looking dialogue rather than perpetual outrage.
Why This Matters
China’s censorship of Tiananmen leaves generations unable to question authority. Yemen’s distorted lessons produce ideological loyalty at the expense of independent thought. Korea’s endless replay of victim narratives risks closing doors to future reconciliation with Japan and beyond.
When children are taught a single story, they inherit not just a version of the past but a roadmap for the future, one that often leads to division rather than understanding.
The Case for Honest Education
Real education prepares students to grapple with uncomfortable truths, to reason by weighing all the evidence, all perspectives. It equips them not to protect national myths but to understand human complexity. If Korea, and every nation, wants a future based on dignity rather than grievance, that change must start in the classroom.
Imagine a generation taught to question, compare, and reflect rather than inherit resentments. Such a curriculum doesn’t dilute patriotism; it refines it.
Join the Movement for Honest History. Shape a future where history fosters understanding, not division:
- Contact your school board or education ministry to demand curricula that prioritize critical thinking and balanced perspectives.
- Support organizations like Facing History & Ourselves (facinghistory.org) or the National Council for History Education (ncheteach.org) that promote nuanced, evidence-based history education.
- Share this article on social media with #HonestHistory to spark dialogue.
- Discuss with educators and parents: Are we teaching kids to question or to resent?
Support organizations that promote balanced, nuanced historical education. Share this article, discuss it, and encourage schools and policymakers to prioritize honesty over propaganda. Together, let’s build classrooms that inspire truth and empathy.
