The first step toward correct history education

Guidelines for writing new history textbooks for middle school, which will be used after 2013, have been established. The expression “The Republic of Korea is the only legitimate government on the Korean Peninsula” has been retained but “Free Democracy” and “Free, democratic basic order” will be used concurrently. The description of administrations shifting to dictatorship was not in the first draft, but has been added. Guidelines for writing history textbooks for high school to be adopted next month will also likely be based on a similar standard.

As for the description of free democracy, certain critics say the change from “Free democracy” into a “Free, democratic basic order” constitutes a setback. The majority view, however, is that “Free, democratic basic order” means free democracy from a bigger perspective. Scholars were in intense dispute over whether to use “free democracy” or “democracy” in the course of adopting the guidelines, but compromise should be accepted to a certain degree.

The attempt to deny the Republic of Korea as the only legitimate government on the Korean Peninsula was ill-advised in the first place. This was irrational and unilateral at best. Also, what is the motivation behind the claim is that the Republic of Korea is the only legitimate government below the 38th parallel, rather than on the peninsula. It disregarded the 1948 U.N. General Assembly resolution and instead interpreted the resolution literally. Under this line of reasoning, it is impossible to explain why U.N. forces intervened in the Korean War to protect the South Korean government.

“Dictatorship,” an expression that was not in the first draft but led to a dispute after the history community raised issue with it, has been accepted through the expression “shift into dictatorship.” If the process in which free democracy undergoes hardship due to a government shift to dictatorship due to prolonged one-man rule is described in the textbooks, power succession within the Kim Il Sung family of North Korea to the third generation should be more clearly emphasized and highlighted.

The adoption of guidelines for writing history textbooks is only the first step, rather than the end goal. In 2008, the Education, Science and Technology Ministry presented guidelines for history textbooks that have been used at high schools since early this year. At the time, the guidelines also included “History is described impartially rather than biased toward a certain ideology, but the Korea Institute for Curricula Evaluation,” which was in charge of reviewing textbooks, failed to push through the rules. As a result, textbooks that despise the Republic of Korea and side with the North were published.

The Education Ministry plans to receive applications for review of new history textbooks for middle and high school set for adoption in April next year. Unlike the Korea Institute for Curricula Evaluation, the National Institute of Korean History should conduct a thorough review of textbooks in line with the guidelines for writing history textbooks. History is a required subject in middle school and will be one in high school from next year. Ideological confusion in South Korean society, in which the Republic of Korea is self-afflicted by critics and pro-North Korea ideology openly prevails, can be blamed in large part to the overturning of history by left-leaning forces in the name of self-claimed progressivism since the 1980s. The new history textbooks should remove all such distortions.

Some teachers who seek to instill students with biased ideology and historical views are really problematic. No matter how well history textbooks are written, it is meaningless if teachers who are controlled by an anachronistic ideology that denies the Republic of Korea continue to teach the country`s children.