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COMMENTARY
The West rewrites
history, too
By Alexander Bukh
TOKYO - The issue of revisionist textbooks
and what is perceived to be the "whitewashing" of
history in Japan has received tremendous attention
from regional and international media alike. As a
result of numerous geopolitical and domestic
factors, not only in Japan but also in its former
colonies, the war over what is the correct view of
20th century history in Asia is far from over, as
the regional powers present conflicting historical
narratives, each one driven by emotional,
political and strategic calculations.
At
the same time, the Western media, faithful to
their long tradition of upholding the rights of
the weak and the oppressed, have taken a strong
anti-Japanese stance, vigorously condemning Japan
for rewriting one of the most shameful parts of
its history.
However, few bother to
mention that the history of the European phase of
World War II was rewritten, and the modified
Anglo-Saxon version has been permanently
solidified with the collapse of the Soviet Union
in 1991.
For two years I have led seminars
in international relations at one of the most
prestigious social science educational
institutions in Europe. Twice around May 9, the
60th anniversary of the end of World War II in
Russia, I had the chance to pose the question,
"How was World War II in Europe won?". This to
four groups of first-year undergraduate students
representing the intellectual elite of Western
European youth.
I received varying
answers; some brought up the role of the British
Air Force as the major factor, some talked about
the bravery of the French Resistance, and some
explained that the landing in Normandy led by the
US had dealt the decisive blow to the Nazi war
machine. The latter argument was usually
accompanied by a slightly embarrassed smile, as
these days it is considered politically incorrect
to talk about the US in favorable terms,
especially in progressive intellectual circles in
the United Kingdom.
Not surprisingly, none
of the students mentioned the Soviet Union as
having played some kind of role in the victory
over Nazi Germany.
This is a perfect
reflection of the dominant historical narrative
regarding World War II that is taught in Western
European and probably also American schools and is
shared by the majority of the population in those
countries. The West won the Cold War, and
consequently the victory of the Soviet Union 60
years ago has become the Allied victory, while the
contribution and the sacrifice of the Soviet
people have been conveniently omitted from memory.
During the May 9 celebrations a couple of
weeks ago, the mainstream English-language media
presented the anniversary as a highly
controversial issue, focusing on the Baltic states
that were occupied by the Soviet Union and the
Eastern European states that suffered under the
yoke of communism for more than four decades.
True, the Soviet victory could be a
controversial issue for these nations that were
liberated against their own will, annexed to the
Soviet Union or had one oppressive regime replaced
with another. However, the major newspapers,
magazines and television channels - following the
long tradition of siding with the victims of
history - completely forgot that for Western
Europe, the Soviet victory meant only one thing:
regaining or preserving its freedom, and,
ironically, democracy.
Unfortunately, very
few among the general population in Western Europe
and the US seem to know that historians do not
debate whether the war was won by the Soviet or
Anglo-Saxon effort, but on how long the Soviet
victory would have been postponed if the landing
at the beach in Normandy, France, had not taken
place. How many know that at the time of the
celebrated landing, in June 1944, four-fifths of
the German forces were on the Eastern front,
trying in vain to stop the mounting Red Army
offensive? How many of those Western European
international relations or history students know
that 27 million Soviet citizens lost their lives
in this war, compared to the 295,000 Americans
killed mostly in the war against Japan and the
380,000 British civilians and soldiers killed on
both fronts? How many Western school textbooks
teach about the strong pro-Nazi sentiments in
Europe and the US, the collaboration with the
Nazis and the indifference with which news about
the mass killings of Jews, Slavs and Romanians was
treated in the US and the UK?
These white
spots in the narrative are not due to the lack of
interest or the intellectual abilities of the
people, but result from the way the memory of the
war has been constructed and presented to the
population by the governments, media and other
national and international institutions that
participate in the broadly defined education
process.
For me and numerous other
ex-citizens of the ex-Soviet Union, the issue of
this blunt and self-righteous hypocrisy is not
only a matter of historical accuracy, but also a
deeply personal issue.
Russia's victory in
the Great Patriotic War, as World War II is known
in that country, was probably the most important
national celebration during Soviet times, and the
"historical memory" related to the "great victory
of the Soviet people" has been hammered into the
minds of the citizens of the Soviet Union starting
from kindergarten. I spent only the first third of
my life in the Soviet Union, but the grandiose
parades, the never-ending stories about heroes who
sacrificed their lives on the front, the patriotic
war movies, the songs ... all these memories are
still very vivid in my mind.
A couple of
decades later, with great disappointment, I and
many other ex-citizens of the former Soviet Union
have learned that many of the heroes we worshipped
did not exist at all. We have discovered that many
of those so-called heroes actually were not killed
by the Nazis, but died at the hands of the NKVD
(Soviet police) or as the result of poor strategy
on behalf of the Soviet generals. We have realized
that the movies were just movies, made to order
for the party-led effort to present the war in a
heroic light, and many of the songs were composed
much later as part of the same propaganda machine.
At the same time, for me and many others
of the second/third generation, the war also
occupies totally different memories. It lives in
the stories of our parents, stories about
destroyed childhoods, about hunger and fear, about
bombers with swastikas and devastated cities and
villages, about relatives and parents leaving for
the front never to come back. It lives in old
black-and-white photos of people who look so
familiar and so dear but whom we never had the
chance to meet. It lives in old boxes full of
medals that bear magic inscriptions - "For
Stalingrad", "For Defense of Moscow", "For Berlin"
- and official Soviet telegrams on old yellowing
paper with only two lines: " We regret to inform
you, that your husband/son has fallen in the
battle for ..."
Might is right as the old
saying goes, and this can be said about historical
narrative as well. The Soviet Union has
disappeared from the face of the Earth and with it
all the related historical memories that do not
fit into the self-indulgent historical narrative
of the West. At the same time, the reasons for the
fierce criticism of Japan's historical revisionism
on behalf of the Western media are unclear to me.
Is it because it brings up uncomfortable memories
about the rewriting and "whitewashing" of history
at home or the colonial policies of the Western
powers that were hardly more humane than those of
imperial Japan? Or is it because it fits perfectly
into the image of the cunning and bloodthirsty
samurai who, along with the exotic and obedient
geisha, has dominated Western perceptions of
Japan?
Alexander Bukh is a
research fellow at Hosei University, Tokyo, and a
PhD candidate in international relations, London
School of Economics. He has worked and studied in
Japan for nine years and in 2000 earned a master's
degree in international law from Tokyo University.
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