¹ This research was financially supported by the Resona Asia-Oceania Foundation and the Czech Science Foundation under reg. no 18-05339S.

² Elizabeth A. Cole, “Introduction: Reconciliation and History Education,” in Teaching the Violent Past: History Education and Reconciliation, ed. Elizabeth A. Cole (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007), 1-28; Joseph A. Favazza, “Reconciliation: On the Border between Theological and Political Praxis,” Journal for the Study of Religions and Ideologies 3 (Winter 2002): 52-63; and Gardner-Feldman, Germany's Foreign Policy of Reconciliation: From Enmity to Amity (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2012).

³ Andrew Schaap, Political Reconciliation (New York, NY: Routledge, 2005), 18.

⁴ Reuters, “Sarkozy Tells Algeria: No Apology for the Past,” Reuters, July 10, 2007.

⁵ Marc Howard Ross, “Ritual and the Politics of Reconciliation,” in From Conflict Resolution to Reconciliation, ed. Yaacov Bar-Siman-Tov (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 197–224.

⁶ The accurate term would be ‘reconciliation between nation-states,’ and not inter-state or inter-national, to describe cases of country-to-country reconciliation process including both government-to-government and people-to-people levels. However, for the sake of convenience, this paper interchangeably uses the term ‘interstate’ and ‘international’ referring to reconciliation between two sovereign countries.

⁷ Pierre Hazan, “Reconciliation,” in Post-Conflict Peacebuilding: A Lexicon, ed. Vincent Chetail (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 256-67.

⁸ United Nations, General Assembly Official Record on the Draft Resolution of International Year of Reconciliation 2009. 61st General Assembly, Plenary 56th Meeting, A/61/PV.56. November 20, 2006.

⁹ For instance, see Kora Andrieu, “‘Sorry for the Genocide’: How Public Apologies Can Help Promote National Reconciliation,” Millennium: Journal of International Studies 38, no. 1 (2009): 3–23.

¹⁰ For a list of reconciliatory leaders, see Seunghoon Emilia Heo, “Assessing International Reconciliation in Europe: Towards the South, Towards the East,” Sophia Journal of European Studies 7 (2014): 39–58.

¹¹ For a detailed analysis on the concept of a state of war, a state of peace and the transformational aspect of reconciliation, see “Defining reconciliation,” in Reconciling Enemy States in Europe and Asia, Seunghoon Emilia Heo (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 61-71.

¹² Cited in Virginie Ladisch, “Toward the Reunification of Cyprus: Defining and Integrating Reconciliation into the Peace Process,” Journal of Public and International Affairs 17 (2006): 119.

¹³ Giandomenico Picco, “La Réconciliation et Les Nations Unies [Reconciliation and the United Nations],” Politique Étrangère 58, no. 4 (1993): 877–84.

¹⁴ Charles Villa-Vicencio and Erik Doxtader, Pieces of the Puzzle: Keywords on Reconciliation and Transitional Justice (Cape Town: Institute for Justice and Reconciliation, 2005), 5.

¹⁵ For instance, see Hizkias Assefa, “Reconciliation,” in Peace-Building: A Field Guide, ed. Luc Reychler and Thania Paffenholz (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2001), 336-42; Daniel Bar-Tal and Gemma H. Bennink, “The Nature of Reconciliation as an Outcome and as a Process,” in From Conflict Resolution to Reconciliation, ed. Yaacov Bar-Siman-Tov (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 11-38; Jacob Bercovitch and Richard Jackson, “Reconciliation and Justice,” in Conflict Resolution in the Twenty-First Century: Principles, Methods, and Approaches, (Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press, 2009); Hazan, “Reconciliation”; Oliver Ramsbotham, Tom Woodhouse, and Hugh Miall, “Reconciliation,” in Contemporary Conflict Resolution (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2016); and Valérie Rosoux, “Reconciliation as a Peace-Building Process: Scope and Limits,” in The SAGE Handbook of Conflict Resolution, ed. Jacob Bercovitch, Victor Kremenyuk, and I. William Zartman (London: SAGE Publications, 2009), 543-63.

¹⁶ Oliver Richmond, Peace (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014).

¹⁷ Frank Chalk and Jurt Jonassohn, The History and Sociology of Genocide (Yale University Press: New Haven and London, 1990).

¹⁸ For concrete cases, see: Daniel Chirot, Shin Gi-Wook and Daniel Sneider, Confronting Memories of World War II: European and Asian Legacies (Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 2014); Sara McDowell and Máire Braniff, Commemoration as Conflict: Space, Memory and Identity in Peace Process (New York and London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014); and David Rieff, “The Cult of Memory: When History Does More Harm Than Good,” The Guardian, March 2, 2016b.

¹⁹ Ingvild Bode and Seunghoon Emilia Heo, “World War II Narratives in Contemporary Germany and Japan: How University Students Understand Their Past,” International Studies Perspectives 18, no. 2 (2017): 131–54.

²⁰ United Nations, Cultural rights, General Assembly, 68th Session on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights: Human Rights Questions, Including Alternative Approaches for Improving the Effective Enjoyment of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. A/68/296, August 9, 2013, page 17.

²¹ Marie Lall, “Educate to Hate: The Use of Education in the Creation of Antagonistic National Identities in India and Pakistan,” Compare 38, no. 1 (2008): 103–19.

²² Takayama Keita, “Globalizing Critical Studies of ‘Official’ Knowledge: Lessons from the Japanese History Textbook Controversy over ‘Comfort Women,‘” British Journal of Sociology of Education 30, no. 5 (2009): 577–89.

²³ For instance, see William Callahan, “History, Identity, and Security: Producing and Consuming Nationalism in China,” Critical Asian Studies 38, no. 2 (2006): 179–208; Karl Gustafsson, “Memory Politics and Ontological Security in Sino-Japanese Relations,” Asian Studies Review 38, no. 1 (2014): 71–86; Hong Kal, “The Aesthetic Construction of Ethnic Nationalism: War Memorial Museums in Korea and Japan,” in Rethinking Historical Injustice and Reconciliation in Northeast Asia, ed. Gi-Wook Shin, Soon-Won Park, and Daqing Yang (New York, NY: Routledge, 2007), 133–53; Lall, “Educate to Hate”; Gotelind Müller, Designing History in East Asian Textbooks: Identity Politics and Transnational Aspirations (London and New York: Routledge, 2011); and Takayama, “Globalizing Critical Studies of ‘Official’ Knowledge,” 577-89.

²⁴ Johan Galtung, “Twenty-Five Years of Peace Research: Ten Challenges and Some Responses,” Journal of Peace Research 22, no. 2 (1985): 148.

²⁵ Pal Ahluwalia et al., Reconciliation and Pedagogy (New York NY: Routledge, 2012); and Birgit Brock-Utne, “Introduction: Education for Reconciliation and Conflict Resolution,” International Review of Education 55, no. 2–3 (2009): 145–56.

²⁶ Mark Baildon et al., Controversial History Education in Asian Contexts (London and New York: Routledge, 2014); and Karina Korostelina and Simone Lässig, History Education and Post-Conflict Reconciliation (New York, NY: Routledge, 2013).

²⁷ Cole, “Introduction: Reconciliation and History,” 1-28.

²⁸ Zvi Bekerman and Michalinos Zembylas, Teaching Contested Narratives: Identity, Memory and Reconciliation in Peace Education and Beyond (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2012).

²⁹ Class observations are limited to peace-related undergraduate courses I taught in English at Sophia University (2013-2016), Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University (2016-current) in Japan and in Korean at the School for Politics (MPPU), registered as a research unit in the Korean national assembly (2010-2015). Sophia University lectures include Introduction to Global Studies, International and Global Affairs, and Seminar on Reconciliation and Peace Studies. Most students were from the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Faculty of Foreign Studies with a large majority of Japanese nationals. Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University lectures include International Peace Studies, International Relations in the Asia Pacific, Regional Systems in the Asia Pacific and Peace, Humanity, Democracy. Coming from more than 30 nationalities, most students are majoring in International Relations and Peace Studies while liberal arts subjects such as Peace, Humanity, Democracy comprises students majoring in Environment and Development, Culture Society and Media, Tourism, Economics and Management. The School for Politics (MPPU) is a three-month intensive program aiming at educating youth on how we can contribute to the common good for humanity through politics. All participants were Korean. All names used in this study are pseudonyms. The assessment and interpretation are based on my own experience.

³⁰ Ministry of Foreign Affairs Japan, “Statement by the Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono on the Result of the Study on the Issue of ‘Comfort Women’,” August 4, 1993; Ministry of Foreign Affairs Japan, “Statement by Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama on the Occasion of the Establishment of the ‘Asian Women's Fund’,” July 1995.

³¹ Takayama, “Globalizing Critical Studies of ‘Official’ Knowledge,” 582.

³² Cited in Nicholas D. Kristof, “The Problem of Memory,” Foreign Affairs 77, no. 6 (1998): 41.

³³ Aoki Mizuho, “Abe Pledges to ‘Correct’ the Record on Wartime Sex Slaves,” The Japan Times, January 29, 2015.

³⁴ Chunghee Sarah Soh, “Politics of the Victim/Victor Complex: Interpreting South Korea's National Furor over Japanese History Textbooks,” American Asian Review 21, no. 4 (2003): 145-77; and Zheng Wang, “History Education: The Source of Conflict Between China and Japan.” The Diplomat, April 23, 2014.

³⁵ Students raised in a biracial family or with experience of studying abroad during their secondary education have often different reflections. For more details, see Seunghoon Emilia Heo, “Through the Eyes of Others: Postwar Reconciliation Narrative in Contemporary Japan,” in Identity, Culture and Memory in Japanese Foreign Policy, eds. Michal Kolmaš and Sato Yoichiro (Peter Lang, 2021). forthcoming.

³⁶ To review the project for promotion of global human resource development and global 30 project (establishing university network for internationalization), see the MEXT (Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology)'s official website and this pdf. Both Sophia University and Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University in which class observations are made for this research are selected for the global 30 projects.

³⁷ Stuart Foster, “Teaching Controversial Issues in the Classroom: The Exciting Potential of Disciplinary History,” in Controversial History Education in Asian Contexts, ed. Mark Baildon et al. (London and New York: Routledge, 2014), 19-38; and Suzanne Goodney Lea and Taiyi Sun, “Diversity and Controversy in the Facilitated Classroom,” in Controversial History Education in Asian Contexts, ed. Mark Baildon et al. (London and New York: Routledge, 2014), 248-64.

³⁸ For details on the difference, see Jae-Jeong Chung, “Historical Conflict and Dialogue Between Korea and Japan: A Focus on Japanese History Textbooks,” in Designing History in East Asian Textbooks: Identity Politics and Transnational Aspirations, ed. Gotelind Müller (London and New York: Routledge, 2011), 207-28; Takuya Kitazawa, “Textbook History Repeats Itself,” Japan Quarterly 48, no. 3 (2001): 51-7; Wang, “Old Wounds, New Narratives”; and Daqing Yang, and Ju-Back Sin, “Striving for Common History Textbooks in Northeast Asia (China, South Korea and Japan): Between Ideal and Reality,” in History Education and Post-Conflict Reconciliation, ed. Karina Korostelina and Simone Lässig (New York, NY: Routledge, 2013), 209-29.

³⁹ Various interpretations exist of Japan's apology politics regarding the comfort women issue, which goes beyond the topic of this article. For further details, See for instance Stefan Engert, “Japan - China and the Two Koreas: The Apologia syndrome,” in Apology and Reconciliation in International Relations: The Importance of Being Sorry, ed. Christopher Daase et al. (Routledge: London, 2016), 237-58; Jennifer Lind, Sorry States: Apologies in International Politics (Cornell University Press: Ithaca and London, 2008).

⁴⁰ For the danger of hero-victim narrative to the exclusion of alternatives see Catriona Pennell, “Learning Lessons from War,” History & Memory 28, no. 1(2016): 36-71; For a discussion on victor/victim narrative versus reflective narrative in East Asia, see Wang, “Old Wounds, New Narratives,” 101-26; For how efforts to include other narratives helped the shift from enmity to amity, respectively in Northern Ireland and between France and Germany; see Brian Conway, “Active Remembering, Selective Forgetting, and Collective Identity: The Case of Bloody Sunday,” Identity: An International Journal of Theory and Research 3, no. 4(2003): 305-23, Valérie Rosoux, “Epilogue: Memory versus Reconciliation,” in Reconciliation in Global Context: Why It Is Need and How It Works, ed. Björn Krondorfer (SUNY Press: New York, 2008), 199-215, and Valérie Rosoux “National Identity in France and Germany: From Mutual Exclusion to Negotiation,” International Negotiation 6 (2001): 175-98.

⁴¹ For examples of non-reflective or victimized Japanese student narratives about World War II see Bode and Heo, “World War II Narratives in Contemporary Germany and Japan.”

⁴² Sol Han and James Griffiths, “Why This Statue of a Young Girl Caused a Diplomatic Incident,” CNN, February 10, 2017.

⁴³ Satoko Oka Norimatsu, “Amidst an Explosion of Anti-Korean Hate: Thoughts on Overcoming Colonialism and Bringing Peace to the Korean Peninsula,” The Asia Pacific Journal | Japan Focus 17, no. 21-3 (2019): 1-8; and Shaun O'Dwyer, “Korean Nationalism and the ‘Comfort Women’ Issue,” The Japan Times, September 23, 2019.

⁴⁴ Author's translation: “曇の下の真実を、知ってください。忘れないでください。伝えてください。”

⁴⁵ During his visit to Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park and Peace Memorial Museum on May 27th in 2016. Message exhibited in the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum.

⁴⁶ Selected essays submitted on 18 May 2018 for International Peace Studies class assignment.

⁴⁷ Gustaffson, “Memory Politics and Ontological Security in Sino-Japanese Relations,” 79.

⁴⁸ Cited in Seunghoon Emilia Heo, “Challenges of Teaching International Reconciliation in Japan and Korea: A Comparative Perspective,” in Reconciling with the Past: Resources and Obstacles in a Global Perspective, ed. Annika Frieberg and C. K. Martin Chung (London and New York: Routledge, 2017), 110–21.

⁴⁹ David Rieff, In Praise of Forgetting: Historical Memory and Its Ironies (New Haven and London: Yale University Press 2016a), 144, 122.

⁵⁰ Nadim N. Rouhana, “Group Identity and Power Asymmetry in Reconciliation Processes: The Israeli-Palestinian Case,” Peace and Conflict 10, no. 1 (2004): 43.

⁵¹ A final research project for seminar students in the research methodology class during the fall semester 2017. Their task was to conduct a survey on the South Korean-Japanese reconciliation, interviewing Korean and Japanese university students. The result was presented on 24 January 2018.

⁵² For life experience, see Seunghoon Emilia Heo, “Two to Tango: A Life Journey Towards Reconciliation,” Waseda Asia Review 18 (2016): 82-5. [In Japanese] For English translation, see here.

⁵³ For examples, see: Thomas U. Berger, War, Guilt, and World Politics after World War II. War, Guilt, and World Politics After World War II (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012); Ian Buruma, The Wages of Guilt: Memories of War in Germany and Japan (London: Vintage, 1995); Lily Gardner-Feldman, “German-Polish Reconciliation in Comparative Perspective: Lessons for Japan?” Japan Focus 8, no. 16 (2010), (accessed on 10 July 2020); Mayer Hartmut, “Historical Narratives as Normative Drivers of Integration and Disintegration in Europe and Asia,” in Drivers of Integration and Regionalism in Europe and Asia: Comparative Perspectives, ed. Louis Brennan and Philomena Murray (London: Routledge, 2015), 52-68; Andrew Horvat, “A Strong State, Weak Civil Society, and Cold War Geopolitics: Why Japan Lags behind Europe in Confronting a Negative Past,” in Rethinking Historical Injustice and Reconciliation in Northeast Asia, ed. Gi-Wook Shin, Soon-Won Park, and Daqing Yang (New York, NY: Routledge, 2007), 216–34; Yinan He, “Comparing Post-War (West) German-Polish and Sino-Japanese Reconciliation: A Bridge Too Far?” Europe - Asia Studies 63, no. 7 (2011): 1157–194; Lind, Sorry States; and Justyna Szczudlik-Tatar and Piotr Mejssner, eds., “Polish Experience in Reconciliation: A Model for Rapprochement in East Asia?” Post-conference Report, The Polish Institute of International Affairs, Warsaw, 2014.

⁵⁴ Just like global peace index (Institute for Economics and Peace, see here) or global happiness report (United Nations, “Happiness: Towards a Holistic Approach to Development.” Resolution adopted by the General Assembly on 19 July 2011. A/RES/65/309. August 25, 2011), there have been attempts at creating a reconciliation index while some scholars consider reconciliation impossible to measure. See Yehudith Auerbach, “The Reconciliation Pyramid - A Narrative-Based Framework for Analyzing Identity Conflicts,” Political Psychology 30, no. 2(2009): 291–318; Hazan, “Reconciliation,” 259; Jens Meierhenrich, “Varieties of Reconciliation,” Law and Social Inquiry 33, no. 1(2008): 195–231.

⁵⁵ United Nations, “Cultural rights,” 16.

⁵⁶ Seunghoon Emilia Heo, “Between Tokyo and Berlin: The Art of Dialogue in Reconciliation,” AICGS Issue Brief, American Institute for Contemporary German Studies, Johns Hopkins University, March 2014.

⁵⁷ Annika Elisabet Frieberg, Peace at All Costs: Catholic Intellectuals, Journalists, and Media in Postwar Polish-German Reconciliation. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2019.

⁵⁸ Mohammed Harbi and Benjamin Stora, La guerre d'Algérie [The Algerian War] (Paris: Hachette, 2004).

⁵⁹ Elazar Barkan, “Introduction: Historians and Historical Reconciliation,” The American Historical Review 114, no. 4 (2009): 899–913.

⁶⁰ Matthew Day, “Russian Orthodox and Polish Catholic Church Heads Aim to Reconcile,” The Telegraph, August 17, 2012.

⁶¹ UN News, “Cyprus: UN Expert Praises Muslim, Greek Orthodox ‘Breakthrough’ in Religious Contact,” October 22, 2013.

⁶² Bar-Tal and Bennink, “The Nature of Reconciliation as an Outcome and as a Process,” 21.

⁶³ John Torpey, “Dynamics of Denial: Responses to Past Atrocities in Germany, Turkey, and Japan,” in Rethinking Historical Injustice and Reconciliation in Northeast Asia: The Korean Experience, ed. Gi-wook Shin, Soon-won Park, and Daqing Yang (London and New York: Routledge, 2007), 173-91.

⁶⁴ Cited in Kate Connolly, “Britain's View of Its History ‘Dangerous’, Says Former Museum Director,” The Guardian, October 7, 2016.

⁶⁵ Ibid.

⁶⁶ Tim Adams, “Neil MacGregor: ‘Britain Forgets Its Past. Germany Confronts It,‘” The Guardian, April 17, 2016.

⁶⁷ Sarah Hucal, “Why a German Museum Is Exploring Its Colonial Past,” Deutsche Welle, August 7, 2017.

⁶⁸ Conway, “Active Remembering,” 317.

⁶⁹ Rosoux, “Epilogue: Memory”; and Rosoux, “National Identity”.

⁷⁰ Neil MacGregor, “What Britain Forgets about Remembrance.” The Financial Times, November 9, 2018.

⁷¹ Ibid.

⁷² Richard J. Evans, “Introduction - Redesigning the Past: History in Political Transitions,” Journal of Contemporary History 38, no. 1 (2003): 5–12.

⁷³ Halstead Huw, “‘Ask the Assyrians, Armenians, Kurds’: Transcultural Memory and Nationalism in Greek Historical Discourse on Turkey,” History & Memory 30, no. 2 (2018): 3–39.

⁷⁴ Barbara Gruber, “Joint German-French History Book A History-Maker Itself,” Deutsche Welle, October 7, 2006.

⁷⁵ Sara Clarke-Habibi, “Transforming Worldviews: The Case of Education for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina,” Journal of Transformative Education 3, no. 1 (2005): 33–56.

⁷⁶ Scherto Gill and Ulrike Niens, “Education as Humanisation: A Theoretical Review on the Role of Dialogic Pedagogy in Peacebuilding Education,” Compare 44, no. 1 (2014): 10-31.

⁷⁷ Jodi Halpern and Harvey M Weinstein, “Rehumanizing the Other: Empathy and Reconciliation,” Human Rights Quarterly 26, no. 3 (2004): 561–83.

⁷⁸ Scherto Gill, “Universities as Spaces for Engaging the Other: A Pedagogy of Encounter for Intercultural and Interreligious Education,” International Review of Education 62, no. 4 (2016): 483–500.

⁷⁹ H. B. Danesh, “Towards an Integrative Theory of Peace Education,” Journal of Peace Education 3, no. 1 (2006): 55-78.

⁸⁰ Daniel Bar-Tal, “From Intractable Conflict through Conflict Resolution to Reconciliation: Psychological Analysis,” Political Psychology 21, no. 2 (2000): 351–65.

⁸¹ Charalambous, Constadina, et al., “Reconciliation Pedagogies and Critical Ambivalence in Teacher Professional Development: Insights from a Case Study in Cyprus,” Journal of Peace Education 17, no. 2: 208-33.

⁸² Gesine Schwan, “The Role of Education in German Polish Reconciliation,” Presentation delivered the Stockholm International Forum Conference, 2002.