Australia and Japan, Parallel Histories From Textbooks to Truth Boxes

An age-old chestnut within the Western world is that Japanese junior school and high school history textbooks are full of revisionism. As an Australian, I've always found that amusing. Australia's history is largely absent from the curricula of Australian junior high schools and high schools and I've never seen an Australian history text. The high school-age children of my school friends are not seeing them now. In Australia, we know little of our country's history. We know even less about the history of Australia and Japan together.

Students manage to pick up that the Englishman Captain [James] Cook "discovered" Australia. "Discovered" is the standard verb used when white people encounter colored societies. 

It is also hard to avoid learning that on April 25, 1915, the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) troops gloriously stormed the beaches and cliffs of Gallipoli. We know that because April 25 is a commemorative public holiday. As to why the ANZACs were there (and where on the world map Gallipoli is), that is less clear. 

But no matter, these were the early days of Australian nationhood. Australia became a federated nation in 1901.  and you can't be a real nation until your soldiers have fought and died on the fields of valor. 

Knowing More About Others Than Oneself

Australians, however, are not totally ignorant when it comes to historical facts. We know who the first American president was: George Washington. Pretty much any Australian can tell you that. But the first Australian prime minister? That's more of a mystery. 

A part of the reason for this anonymity may be that he is most famous for declaring that the "doctrine of the equality of man was never intended to apply to the equality of the Englishman and Chinaman." He said that when he successfully argued for the adoption of the "White Australia Policy." That is the policy that barred non-white immigration. But still, surely Australians should be able to recite his name. (It is Edmund Barton.)

Geronimo was one of the resistance leaders of the American frontier wars. What Australian hasn't heard of him? But of the Australian frontier? "What frontier?" would probably be the most frequent reply. "Didn't progress just sort of pass First Nations Australians by?" 

Accordingly, there is little chance of most Australians being able to name an Aboriginal resistance leader. Many, indeed, would likely have trouble naming a single historically significant Aboriginal at all. 

A First Nations War Hero

In truth, until a couple of months ago, I was one such Australian. That ended after being given a book titled, Tongerlongeter, by an old school friend, a sculptor named Simon Normand. 

Tongerlongeter was an aboriginal leader who waged a war of resistance along the east coast of Tasmania. For those who don't know, that is the large southern island off mainland Australia. His campaign was particularly successful, though ultimately doomed to fail. Nonetheless, in successfully waging a guerrilla war for close to ten years, Tongerlongeter could easily have taught Geronimo a trick or two. 

Teaspoon Depictions 

Normand recently held an exhibition in Melbourne called "Teaspoon Colony." The decorative teaspoon was a standard souvenir of the 1950s, 60s, and 70s — something like the key ring or refrigerator magnet of the present day. The images depicted on the spoons are like time capsules. They demonstrate how the Australian towns and regions of that era wanted to be perceived, and of what they were most proud.  

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Normand came across a stunning enamel model at his parent's home. He had never noticed it before. The teaspoon was from the Cann River region in eastern Victoria State and depicted a bulldozer flattening old growth forest. No town of the present day, no matter how proud of its logging heritage, would represent itself in that way. Normand wondered how other towns chose to visually depict themselves in the 50s, 60s, and 70s, and how dated were these depictions.

Down the rabbit hole, Normand went. The spoons were readily available from second-hand shops. His collection quickly grew, ultimately topping 3,000. 

Women were notably absent from the teaspoon images, other than those clad in bikinis. Aborigines were inevitably shown in the guise of the noble savage. Aboriginal women did not feature at all. There was nothing to suggest that frontier wars had been fought, even in the towns best associated with Tongerlongeter himself. 

Truth Boxes

Normand's exhibition featured maps of Australian regions with teaspoons inserted into aboriginal tribal boundaries, rather than upon their western place names. Also included were three-meter tall teaspoon replicas, and a series of "truth boxes." A tourist bureau-style blurb of the region was on the outside of the boxes. The handle of the box was that area's souvenir teaspoon. When the box was opened, an alternative history was revealed, typically including discrimination, dispossession, and massacre of First Nations Australians. 

Truth About the Little-known Links With Japan

The truth box concept is an interesting one, and likely more appealing to school students than a history text. If applied to nations, rather than Australian towns and regions, one can't help but wonder what Australia would put on the exterior of a box about Japan. And what would be inside? 

The dated exterior blurb might concentrate on how feudal Japan dramatically changed course in the middle of the nineteenth century with the Meiji restoration, before descending into emperor worship and militarism. Reference to the mythical 300,000 at Nanjing and army of Korean sex slaves would be followed by the attack at Pearl Harbor, characterized by the fiction of total surprise. The treatment of Western POWs during the Asia-Pacific War would be highlighted, charcterized as unique and beyond the pale. 

My personal choice for the interior would be the little-known connections between Australia and Japan. That is the largely unknown ways in which those two nations have traveled on parallel paths. 

Japanese Escort ANZAC Troops

The first revelation would be Japanese participation in the iconic Gallipoli campaign. Australia and Japan were allied during the First World War. Moreover, a Japanese warship, the Ibuki, escorted the ANZAC troops to Europe. In truth, Japanese participation in the annual ANZAC day parade, while unthinkable for the war veteran associations, would not be out of place.

Treaty of Versailles's Missing Racial Equality Clause

An additional revelation would have to do with the Treaty of Versailles negotiations that concluded the First World War. Australian lobbying brought down a Japanese proposal for a racial equality clause within the Covenant of the League of Nations. That was the charter being drawn up for the League of Nations, forerunner to the present United Nations. 

This was a huge irritant to Japan. As a victor of the First World War, it had every expectation of being treated with a measure of equality by the Western powers. The Versailles snub, and likeminded affronts, were highly instrumental in pushing the Japanese down a reactionary road.

White Australia Policy

A third would be about the White Australia Policy that Edmund Barton shepherded into law. It eventually fell, not due to Japanese negotiations for equality at Versailles, nor as the result of Japanese military might. It was because Australians participating in the postwar occupation of Japan who married Japanese brides wanted to return with them to Australia. 

Japanese women broke the racial barrier, leading inexorably to the multicultural Australia of the present day. The Meiji restoration of the mid-nineteenth century did indeed bring monumental changes to Japan. The transition within Australia, from the petri dish of eugenic experimentation to genuine multiculturalism, was little less dramatic. It was a process in which Japan, by default, played a pivotal role. 

The Teaspoon Handle on Japan's Truth Box

But what should comprise the handle that opened the Japanese truth box? What should substitute for the souvenir teaspoon handles in the boxes created by Normand? 

In lacking storage space for mementos, the Japanese often opt for souvenirs in the form of snacks or region-specific consumable foodstuff. Perhaps the best option, therefore, would be a simple pair of chopsticks. Or even, perhaps, a plastic piece of confectionary, designed and made for display. 

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Author: Paul de Vries
Find other reviews and articles by the author on Asia Pacific history on JAPAN Forward.