Peace Education on the Example of Poland and Japan

Abstract

The outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian war has sparked a quite intense debate in Japan about war, peace and security. Fears of a nuclear World War III have caused speculations about the possibility of Japan’s nuclear weapons (supported mainly by right-wing politicians), the issue of maintaining peace education and the broadly understood culture of peace (Article 9 of the Constitution of Japan, Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, Treaty on the Prohibition of Proliferation). Meanwhile, the full-scale aggression against Ukraine was and still is in Poland a confirmation of existing fears about the threat from Russia as a state with neo-imperial ambitions. Poland has transferred a significant part of its military arsenal to the attacked Ukraine and has intensified the process of arming and modernizing its own army. Poland also counts on support in the event of a conflict from other member states of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, of which it is a member. The article aims to compare – based on the curriculum content, the content of history and citizenship education textbooks and the museum narrative – teaching about peace in Poland and Japan. In both countries, the memory of World War II is a key event shaping the historical awareness of society and a point of reference for the existing historical narrative. The way of talking about peace and pacifism is quite similar. Both the narrative of the Japanese exhibition at the Osaka Peace Museum and the one presented in school textbooks in Poland strive to condemn war as a destructive force and thus fit into the idea of peace education.