The education ministry has publicized the screening results for new textbooks, most of which are scheduled for use at junior and senior high schools starting in April 2008. Conspicuous is the government's efforts to impose its historical view of the mass suicides among Okinawan residents during the Battle of Okinawa.
Screeners told the authors of history textbooks aimed at senior high-school students to remove phrases that originally said, in effect, that the Imperial Japanese Army forced the suicides on local residents. As a result, phrases referring to coercion by Japanese forces have disappeared. Through last year, screeners had not objected to such phrases.
Screeners examined the textbooks from the viewpoint of whether specific Japanese army units issued concrete orders for mass suicide. This was too narrow an approach, as it is historical fact that Japanese militarist indoctrination, which prohibited Okinawan residents from surrendering to the enemy and led them to think that suicide was the only option, had a crucial effect on the mind-set of local residents.