When I was in China, I'd noticed anti-Japanese sentiment. I'm not saying all Chinese hated Japanese, but simply that some did. However, some Esperanto-speaking Chinese friends of mine praised Hasegawa Teru, a Japanese Esperanto-speaker who fought on the Chinese side against the atrocities of the Japanese Imperial Army.
I later had the opportunity to meet Japanese Esperanto-speakers, and they too praised Hasegawa Teru. One of them explained that due to so many Japanese having committed so many attrocities in Japan's name at that time, many Japanese don't know how to deal with that history other than to simply ignore it or mythologize it to their liking. He'd found that instead, he preferred to focus on those Japanese of the time who did the right thing rather than on those who didn't and to identify with the former and not with the latter. In that way, he could accept that part of Japanese history far more comfortably and thought that teaching the story of people like Hasegawa Teru in Japanese public schools could help to do that.
This got me thinking. While Germans are rightfully not proud of the Nazi regime, they can certainly be proud of the Hans and Sophie Scholl and the White Rose movement.
In Canada too, some Whites appear to have difficulty accepting Canada's involvement in cultural genocide and the active participation of many of our founding fathers in that genocide. Just as Japanese can rightfully be proud of Hasegawa Teru and Germans of Hans and Sophie Scholl and the rest of the White Rose movement, so why can English and French Canadians not be proud of Dr. Peter Bryce and his renunciation of the Indian residential school system in 1907 and others who had spoken out against it even before him? In short, rather than presenting Whites as villains, why not just shift our attention in school history classes towards the heroes who stood up against the oppression as people students and Canadians can proudly identify with?
I later had the opportunity to meet Japanese Esperanto-speakers, and they too praised Hasegawa Teru. One of them explained that due to so many Japanese having committed so many attrocities in Japan's name at that time, many Japanese don't know how to deal with that history other than to simply ignore it or mythologize it to their liking. He'd found that instead, he preferred to focus on those Japanese of the time who did the right thing rather than on those who didn't and to identify with the former and not with the latter. In that way, he could accept that part of Japanese history far more comfortably and thought that teaching the story of people like Hasegawa Teru in Japanese public schools could help to do that.
This got me thinking. While Germans are rightfully not proud of the Nazi regime, they can certainly be proud of the Hans and Sophie Scholl and the White Rose movement.
In Canada too, some Whites appear to have difficulty accepting Canada's involvement in cultural genocide and the active participation of many of our founding fathers in that genocide. Just as Japanese can rightfully be proud of Hasegawa Teru and Germans of Hans and Sophie Scholl and the rest of the White Rose movement, so why can English and French Canadians not be proud of Dr. Peter Bryce and his renunciation of the Indian residential school system in 1907 and others who had spoken out against it even before him? In short, rather than presenting Whites as villains, why not just shift our attention in school history classes towards the heroes who stood up against the oppression as people students and Canadians can proudly identify with?
