Newsletter No. 261
May 7, 2006

 

THE PERCEPTION OF ISLAM IN JAPANESE SCHOOLS

Toru Miura (Shingetsu Member No. 8) is a Professor at Ochanomizu University in Tokyo, and has been serving this past year as President of the Japan Association for Middle East Studies (JAMES). In the most recent issue of AJAMES -- the main journal of this academic society -- Professor Miura and Takaaki Matsumoto, a high school teacher, have published the results of their surveys on the image of Islam in Japanese schools.

Clearly, this is a very important branch of study that has important ramifications for present and future Japanese-Islamic relations. Together with the media, it is perhaps our schools that do the most to shape public views about the world beyond our immediate experience. What did Miura and Matsumoto find?

There are three short articles in AJAMES No. 21-2 on this topic. The first is a short introduction by Professor Miura. He calls attention to public statements issued by JAMES in recent years. Immediately after September 11, this scholarly community issued a statement that read, in part:

“We suggest that our attitude towards the Middle East and the Islamic World thus far, characterized by unconcern and inadequate understanding, may have played a part [in the tragedy]. And sadly, the event of September 11 may cause even more apathy and less understanding, instead of marking a change in attitude.”

At the time of the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, JAMES issued another statement bewailing the quality of the discussions on the Iraq issue:

“The same is true for Japan, where it was discussed in the frame of Japan-U.S. relations and international cooperation either for the war or against it. The discussion among politicians and specialists continues to depend on the simple categories of dictatorship, terrorism, and Islam, and they do not pay attention to the complex realities in the Middle East.”

After the introduction comes Professor Miura’s main study.

The surveys were conducted at both the high school and university levels in the Tokyo area. He found that about half of the students were interested in September 11. No less than 92% of high school students and 78% of university students said that television was their main source of media information about these issues.

In high school, only 39% of students could identify Muhammad, Mecca, and the Koran, but the figure rose to 95% in the university survey. High school students had trouble identifying which countries are Muslim: Only 61% knew that Egypt was a Muslim-majority country, and only 42% knew that Indonesia had a Muslim majority.

The high school students commonly held negative images of Islam, as follows:

75% -- Aggressive
72% -- Strange Customs
70% -- Unfree
69% -- Mysterious
59% -- Intolerant
54% -- Rigid Doctrine
53% -- Backward

On the other hand, the survey found that student images of Christianity and Buddhism were much more positive. Interestingly, the students whose basic knowledge about Islam was somewhat stronger tended to have more negative views of Islam than those young ones who knew almost nothing.

Miura points out that some high school textbooks on religion and ethics have descriptions like, “the belief and doctrine of Islam has been established in severe natural conditions (of the desert) and characteristics of strictness and strength, quite different from the Japanese preference for mildness, warmth, and ambiguity.”

And yet, by and large the high school textbooks surveyed by Miura seemed to offer a basically fair description of medieval Islam, although they were much weaker on modern history.

Miura concludes by attempting to answer why the generally decent textbooks have not changed negative student attitudes toward Islam. He points to several issues, but his most interesting statement is the following:

“One reason is the gap between the school textbook and information on the contemporary Muslim world in the mass media -- in other words, a gap between scholarship and Japanese society. The scholars have been isolated from the mass media, insisting on accurate knowledge to understand Islam and the Middle East, while journalists are in turn isolated from scholarship even when it is in Japan. School teachers are isolated from them both and have no way to bridge the gap of the two worlds. The stereotyped images and knowledge are therefore reproduced in each world.”

The third paper is written in Japanese by Takaaki Matsumoto, but has a brief English summary. This paper describes the survey that was conducted among high school students in Tokyo and Kanagawa. It was this survey that formed the basis for much of Professor Miura’s discussion above.

Matsumoto does make one interesting point in his paper. He clarifies that Japanese high school students have four predominant images of Islam:

1) Rigid, many commandments, and not free
2) Strange and incomprehensible
3) Intolerant and aggressive
4) Bearded people living in desert areas

The Shingetsu Institute was founded in part to try to create a more positive relationship between Japan and the Islamic world. Our statement in this respect is available on the front page of our website. The studies of Professor Miura and Mr. Matsumoto are sobering reminders of how much still needs to be done.