The Economist (June 4)
“You are having too many babies. For decades that crude message was drilled into the minds of Indians by their rulers.” Slogans on schools proclaimed, “Two or three children, enough.” There were even forced sterilizations in the 1970s. “But when Indian school textbooks are reprinted this summer, they will carry a very different message. They will warn not of the dangers of having too many babies, but of the risks of having too few.” The “surprise baby bust” taking place in India “is a warning to the world. It is not just rich places that are becoming less fertile.”
Tags: 1970s, Babies, Baby bust, Children, Fertile, Forced sterilizations, India, Rich places, Schools, Slogans, Surprise, Textbooks, Warning
Wall Street Journal (August 16)
“Some Japanese complain, with justification, that no apology would satisfy critics in China and South Korea who have their own nationalist axes to grind. But reasonable foreigners—including Americans—find it hard to credit Japan’s apologies as sincere when school textbooks whitewash atrocities…. We and other friends of Japan share Mr. Abe’s desire to see it become a normal nation not shackled by its past, not least so it can be trusted to stand with other democracies against potential Chinese aggression. Mr. Abe would bring that goal closer if he took his own advice and faced history squarely.”
Tags: Abe, Apologies, Apology, Atrocities, China, Japan, Nationalists, Sincere, South Korea, Textbooks, U.S., Whitewash
