No country in the world entrusts history education to the "autonomy" of historians. The objective of education is to raise healthy prospective citizens who will lead the country in the future. Healthy citizenship is founded on a sense of balance in the history of one's country. Accordingly, it is natural for the state and society to involve themselves in education in general and history education in particular. For this reason, the state is given the power to review textbooks under the government-designated and -approved textbook system.

Ordinary children's history books can be written from the perspective of any minority: "U.S. history as seen by African or Native Americans," "British history as seen from the viewpoint of laborers," and "Chinese history seen through the eyes of ethnic Koreans." As far as history textbooks are concerned, however, a comprehensive and balanced perspective is essential in any country. Even if a minority viewpoint is taken into account, there is a red line that must not be crossed. "The political situation upon liberation as experienced by South Korean Communist Party members" and "the Korean War as seen by Kim Il-sung" cannot form a legitimate textbook for children.

Yet textbooks published by the leftwing firm Kumsung Publishing do cross the red line. When they were reviewed in 2002, seven out of the 10 reviewers gave a C grade and three a B grade for the category of "errors in content, biased theory, perspective and expression." As a matter of fact, the books were disqualified. Textbooks that should not have been born to begin with passed the review on account of flaws in the review system. Then they were adopted by more than half of the country's classrooms with the full support of the Korea Teachers and Educational Workers Union.

All that time, academic historians kept mum while young schoolchildren learned from textbooks that denied the legitimacy of the Republic of Korea. Indeed, several academic societies issued defenses of the textbooks, claiming there were just fine. Did the academic societies and historians who lent their names to Wednesday’s statement actually read the Kumsung textbooks carefully, and do they agree with the contents? Academic societies that defended or ignored these poisonous textbooks now say problems must be revised after being thoroughly reviewed “by their authors and other historians.” They should be ashamed of themselves.

It is clear that we cannot leave the education of the nation’s future leaders in the grip of academics inflamed by populism or associated with the so-called 386 generation of former student activists who now occupy key posts in academia.