Towards a ‘common’ view of difficult past? The representation of atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in trilateral teaching materials

Abstract

The centrality of atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japanese collective memory has been often perceived by the country’s neighbours, i.e. the People’s Republic of China and South Korea, as a pillar of the country’s (alleged) ‘victim consciousness’ and amnesia in regard to the suffering inflicted on others. For this reason, the matter of how Hiroshima and Nagasaki’s fate is discussed on the pages of joint teaching materials is an interesting puzzle. The article uses two supplementary history teaching materials published within a framework of trilateral cooperation between non-governmental actors from the PRC, South Korea and Japan (History that Opens the Future [Mirai o hiraku rekishi] and The New Modern and Contemporary History of East Asia [Atarashi Higashi Ajia no kingendaishi]) as case studies to investigate how the fate and meaning of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are represented in the above-mentioned books. The article discusses traces of contestation and negotiation over the representation of the atomic bombings emerging from relevant descriptions, and the extent to which the narrative on Japanese wartime suffering is included in these materials. The findings concerning the atomic bombings are discussed in relation to broader topic of reconciliation and alleviating the burden of wartime past in East Asia for the purpose of building peaceful future.