Honest Debate

This week has been an interesting one in the land of Nippon for the first time I witnessed a heated debate (amongst my students) which resulted in one of them walking out of the classroom. It was rather surprising as the debate popped out of a very pleasant conversation about this and that. The issue of sex slaves in China and Korea however has had a high profile in the media and so it was not altogether unsurprising that the issue came or rather bolted out into the classroom
The argument became surprisingly agressive as one student viewed the issue as blown out of proportion which enraged the other student into a very agressive riposte.
Despite the uncomfortableness of the situation I was a little stunned (and pleasantly so in a rather strange way) that this debate was taking place at all. The issue of sex slaves is a very important one and yes certaintly there is some debate within the high quality oasis of programming on Japanese TV. Nevertheless as a debate conducted amongst society as a whole, particularly amongst the young, it is not so much poor as pathetically poor for such an important historical, political and social issue. I have hardly spoken to anyother Japanese person about it and often feel i am encroaching on an uncomfortable subject if I do so.
Amongst the younger generation the lack of debate about anything let alone world war two sex slaves is painful and reflects in many ways the complete failure in the educational system to encourage discussion and intellectual dialogue. I have come to think of the education system as of the pate de fois gras style. Students are passively force fed massloads of miscellany and random facts and are not empowered to analyse criticise or think for them selves. Their throats are "held" by the system and then are further squeezed to choking point by the juku and other various extracurricular educational establishments.
In short its utter bollocks.
Sometimes I feel like screaming out, for god sakes we have got to talk about this openly and objectively and without fear of the discomfort that truth brings. For accepting the truth is far better than being in denial of the situation which I think what Japan as a society is both passively and unintentionally (among the younger generation) and more proactively denied amongst the scarred war generations. In Europe no one seriously contests the holocaust and the genocides of other ethnic minorities, homosexuals and handicapped people. To do so is to stand up to ridicule and in some countries can lead to a prison sentence. You can imagine how dysfunctional German society would be if it was the norm to deny or at least be ignorant of Nazi atrocities. Society would be out of touch with reality. But this is what is happening in Japanese society and explains to some degree why it is a country that does seem so out of touch with "reality" at times and the mentally disturbed nation that it is today.
Sorry for the rant but its an important one I think.
In other news I will be coming back to England in late July. I also maybe chaperoning my Japanese landlord to Israel to visit his penfriend sometime in the summer too.