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Why the hell isn't the Rape of Nanjing required learning in public schools?

jamejame · 2009-10-29 09:07:44

I just learned about this horrible incident last week in my eleventh grade history class. What a despicable event in human history. Apparently its not required curriculum for public schools, but my teacher thought the event so disgusting that he teaches on it for a few days anyway. In case you didn't know, the Rape of Nanjing (appropriately labeled) was an incident that occurred in 1937 I believe, when Japan invaded Nanjing, China over a territory war. China's army wasn't well prepared, and the Japanese quickly overwhelmed them when they ran out of ammunition. The Japanese then occupied the city for over a year all the while slaughtering over a million innocents in the most brutal ways possible. All women were raped daily, but the beautiful ones were raped up to 50 times a night, for weeks tied to a chair, where they would eventually die of the rot the STD s on their insides caused. The Japanese would play games based around killing as many innocents as they could by slicing their heads off with bayonets, or cutting off their penises and forcing them to eat them. Children weren't spared. Babies were ripped from their mothers arms, tossed 20 feet in the air, and sliced in half by bayonets as they came down. Bodies in the city piled up, literally thousands were littered across every square mile, all killed in the most brutal way the Japanese could conceive. It was nothing but a game to them. These aren't just stories, as the slide-shows my teacher showed had accompanying pictures. You can see them on the net, but I'd recommend you didn't as they're possibly soem of the most disturbing pictures I've ever seen. It was just horrible.My question is simply, why is this not required learning? The bombs killed around 25,000 - 30,000, and we all learn about those by 7th grade. Here, over a million people are raped and killed BRUTALLY, yet you likely won't even hear of it unless you take a class on Chinese history in college. What do you think? Has anyone here learned of this event?

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one_plum

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#101 one_plum

Member since 2009 • 6825 Posts

[QUOTE="Ontain"]mostly because we're in the west and we only really learn about what the west had involvement in. I'll tell you that anyone in china will know about the Rape of Nanjing though.Ceneb

This.

I'm sure most Chinese people know about Holocaust though.

15 years ago

ariz3260

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#102 ariz3260

Member since 2006 • 4209 Posts

I thought it was in the 1960's or am I wrong?
gotdangit

It was during WWII. Germany was fighting Europe while Japan occupied itself with Asia and Australia.

15 years ago

Kenny789

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#103 Kenny789

Member since 2006 • 10434 Posts

Darn Japanese!! They conqured us either!! I hate them!!! I am ready to defend 3 stars and a sun!!
CaptRex

Yeah but they were bombed twice. They had it coming to them! By the way, I'm filipino too :P

15 years ago

Yandere

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#104 Yandere

Member since 2009 • 9878 Posts

[QUOTE="CaptRex"]
Darn Japanese!! They conqured us either!! I hate them!!! I am ready to defend 3 stars and a sun!!
Kenny789

Yeah but they were bombed twice. They had it coming to them! By the way, I'm filipino too :P

I don't see how, a group of peoples actions shouldn't effect the country as a whole.

15 years ago

AFraud

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#105 AFraud

Member since 2004 • 1500 Posts

[QUOTE="AFraud"]
[QUOTE="clubsammich91"]2 words: Hiroshima and Nagasaki. What goes around comes around.one_plum

Exactly. When you brutalize civlians and unarmed POWs, don't be surprised when your enemy does something just as awful to you.

We let the Japanese off way too easy after WW2. A good portion of their military probably should have been lined up and shot as war criminals.

Japanese civilians aren't the ones who did the raping. Only the military should have been punished.

They brought it on themselves, and I have absolutely no sympathy. They routinely beheaded our POWs or used them as slave labor until they starved to death. They raped and brutalized civilians. They murdered women, children and infants. They conducted unethical medical experiments.

If they didn't want their civilians nuked, their army should have conducted itself in a civilized fashion.

After the way they behaved, they're lucky they only got nuked twice. We should have wiped them from the face of the earth.

15 years ago

MrLions

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#106 MrLions

Member since 2007 • 9833 Posts

Theres a lot of things in history class you don't learn about. :(

15 years ago

one_plum

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#107 one_plum

Member since 2009 • 6825 Posts

They brought it on themselves, and I have absolutely no sympathy. They routinely beheaded our POWs or used them as slave labor until they starved to death. They raped and brutalized civilians. They murdered women, children and infants. They conducted unethical medical experiments.
If they didn't want their civilians nuked, their army should have conducted itself in a civilized fashion.
AFraud

- People would be outraged if someone said American civilians should be punished for their governments' careless actions on Iraq.

- Terrorists in the middle east: why don't the US just nuke everyone there? (/Sarcasm)

15 years ago

AFraud

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#108 AFraud

Member since 2004 • 1500 Posts

[QUOTE="AFraud"]
They brought it on themselves, and I have absolutely no sympathy. They routinely beheaded our POWs or used them as slave labor until they starved to death. They raped and brutalized civilians. They murdered women, children and infants. They conducted unethical medical experiments.
If they didn't want their civilians nuked, their army should have conducted itself in a civilized fashion.
one_plum

- People would be outraged if someone said American civilians should be punished for their governments' careless actions on Iraq.

- Terrorists in the middle east: why don't the US just nuke everyone there? (/Sarcasm)

Not even close to being on the same scale or level of brutality.

Moreover, I do consider the Bush Administration war criminals.

15 years ago

gotdangit

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#109 gotdangit

Member since 2005 • 8151 Posts

[QUOTE="Kenny789"][QUOTE="CaptRex"]
Darn Japanese!! They conqured us either!! I hate them!!! I am ready to defend 3 stars and a sun!!
Yandere

Yeah but they were bombed twice. They had it coming to them! By the way, I'm filipino too :P

I don't see how, a group of peoples actions shouldn't effect the country as a whole.

But didn't the group of Japanese, effect China as a whole??? I'm sure it effected all of China, it goes both ways.

Although I agree it's terrible that Japan was bombed.

15 years ago

one_plum

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#110 one_plum

Member since 2009 • 6825 Posts

[QUOTE="one_plum"]
[QUOTE="AFraud"]
They brought it on themselves, and I have absolutely no sympathy. They routinely beheaded our POWs or used them as slave labor until they starved to death. They raped and brutalized civilians. They murdered women, children and infants. They conducted unethical medical experiments.
If they didn't want their civilians nuked, their army should have conducted itself in a civilized fashion.
AFraud

- People would be outraged if someone said American civilians should be punished for their governments' careless actions on Iraq.

- Terrorists in the middle east: why don't the US just nuke everyone there? (/Sarcasm)

Not even close to being on the same scale or level of brutality.

Moreover, I do consider the Bush Administration war criminals.

Okay, so let's pretend Japan "deserved" the two nukes; then should many countries deserve a single one for their less brutal acts? Seeing how the criteria here appears to be quantitative.

15 years ago

Commander-Gree

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#111 Commander-Gree

Member since 2009 • 4929 Posts

I remember learning about it in my 10th grade World History class.

15 years ago

Gamerz1569

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#112 Gamerz1569

Member since 2008 • 2087 Posts

No one deserves to get bombed but they got what was coming. You know the golden rule "Do not do unto others what you do not want others to do to you".

Quantitatively it isn't even fair, Japan just lost 2 cities few million civilians is quite less to the damage they caused to Asia. The wounds may have healed but the scar is still there.

15 years ago

the_kidisblack

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#113 the_kidisblack

Member since 2008 • 1184 Posts

I study Chinese History in Uni. It's interesting, like a car crash, shocking, but you can't help but look.

15 years ago

shoot-first

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#114 shoot-first

Member since 2004 • 9788 Posts

No one deserves to get bombed but they got what was coming. You know the golden rule "Do not do unto others what you do not want others to do to you".
Quantitatively it isn't even fair, Japan just lost 2 cities few million civilians is quite less to the damage they caused to Asia. The wounds may have healed but the scar is still there.
Gamerz1569

I don't think war is ever fair to either sides of the battle. :(

15 years ago

Danm_999

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#116 Danm_999

Member since 2003 • 13924 Posts

History, especially as it's taught in schools, is a tool to instill nationalism and civic values. Unless you've got a particularly enlightened (or maybe jaded) teacher, you're going to learn history that mostly puts your own country in a good light, which highlights its achievements, its uniqueness and its virtues, and will mostly justifies or omits its uglyness or failures. There are exceptions of course, but from North Korea, to France, to China, to the USA, pretty much all the world's nations do the same thing. The Rape of Nanjing is not taught widely in American schools, because it did not assist this instillation of national values. Following WW2, America entered the Cold War where Japan was an ally, and China was an enemy. It made no sense to raise a generation of citizens who would view Japan as a monster and China as a victim. Similarly in Japan, the event has been very contentious; the Japanese government often actively involved itself in blocking unfavourable history. This is really no different than anywhere else. In Israel, if you mention population transfer of Palestinians in 1948, it will not go well. In the USA, if you question that the use of atomic weapons on Japan at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was anything but just and absolutely necessary, it will not go well. In Britain and France, highlighting the cruelty and exploitation of their colonial empires produces a similar result. In Australia and New Zealand, focusing on the dispossession of indigenous inhabitants, and in the former's case, the stolen generation, is also hotly contested, even today.

15 years ago

jimmyjammer69

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#117 jimmyjammer69

Member since 2008 • 12239 Posts

[QUOTE="Danm_999"]History, especially as it's taught in schools, is a tool to instill nationalism and civic values. Unless you've got a particularly enlightened (or maybe jaded) teacher, you're going to learn history that mostly puts your own country in a good light, which highlights its achievements, its uniqueness and its virtues, and will mostly justifies or omits its uglyness or failures. There are exceptions of course, but from North Korea, to France, to China, to the USA, pretty much all the world's nations do the same thing. The Rape of Nanjing is not taught widely in American schools, because it did not assist this instillation of national values. Following WW2, America entered the Cold War where Japan was an ally, and China was an enemy. It made no sense to raise a generation of citizens who would view Japan as a monster and China as a victim. Similarly in Japan, the event has been very contentious; the Japanese government often actively involved itself in blocking unfavourable history. This is really no different than anywhere else. In Israel, if you mention population transfer of Palestinians in 1948, it will not go well. In the USA, if you question that the use of atomic weapons on Japan at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was anything but just and absolutely necessary, it will not go well. In Britain and France, highlighting the cruelty and exploitation of their colonial empires produces a similar result. In Australia and New Zealand, focusing on the dispossession of indigenous inhabitants, and in the former's case, the stolen generation, is also hotly contested, even today.

History lessons may help to instill a localised cultural perspective on the past, but given the influence of the international mass media on every one of our lives, that needn't be seen as a necessarily bad thing.

15 years ago

Danm_999

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#118 Danm_999

Member since 2003 • 13924 Posts

[QUOTE="jimmyjammer69"] History lessons may help to instill a localised cultural perspective on the past, but given the influence of the international mass media on every one of our lives, that needn't be seen as a necessarily bad thing.

It depends, it can lead down dark roads. There's nothing wrong with being proud in your nation's achievements, you just don't want to go off the deep end like North Korea.

15 years ago