일본 역사수정주의의 내셔널리즘과 타자 인식

Nationalism and the Views on the Other in Japan’s Historical Revisionism

The world-view of postwar Japan was formed as a reaction to what it had been during the Pacific War, condemning modern Japan’s expansionism. Japan’s historical revisionism, however, is challenging the view. It argues that prewar Asia should not be seen as the victim of Japanese imperialism but as the incompetent who was in need of Japan’s help; America was not the liberator but an imperialist nation as aggressive as Japan. In short, historical revisionism is trying to challenge the basic premises of postwar Japan’s views on the past. Entering the 1990s, the growth of historical revisionism is raising serious contentions on the interpretation of the past in historical education as well as among the academics. This article focuses on the development of nationalism in postwar Japan. Although the defeat of 1945 had a serious blow to Japan’s nationalism, it survived in other forms such as the Nihon Bunkanron of the 1960s and 1970s. But as the economic growth halted in the 1990s, some in Japanese society began to search for a more direct and clearer form of nationalism. The right-wing ideologues associated with historical revisionism responded to that demand, emphasizing the pride of the Japanese nation through the reinterpretations of the Japanese past. In short, recent controversy in Japan over the past was not just a problem of historical education. It is a part of the struggles over which course Japan would take in the future.