In South Korea, a controversy over state-authored history textbooks for secondary schools has flared up. Earlier this month, the main opposition party launched a one-week boycott of all the National Assembly's sessions. Tens of thousands of protesters, mainly teachers, made statements and took to the streets in protest against issuing the state-authored textbook.

In South Korea, it has long been debated whether history textbooks should be authored by the state. The government published school history textbooks in 1974 under the rule of Park Chung-hee and relinquished the power to private publishers in 2011.

Globally the controversy is not unique to South Korea. According to South Korea's Ministry of Education, of 34 members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, only three countries, namely Turkey, Greece and Iceland, use state-issued textbooks.

The Japanese government, which doesn't use state-issued textbooks but insists that they be checked and approved by the educational authorities, triggered wide protest from Asian countries after it suggested revisions to history textbooks as part of nationalist efforts to revive militarism. But there is a difference since Japan intends to cover up its invasions with the revision while South Korea is a victim of WWII. Their intentions vary enormously.

There are numerous causes for the dispute over textbooks in South Korea. Political contention is harsher of late. Opposition parties make use of public discontent to mar the ruling party and particularly target Park. Issuing state-authored textbooks was preliminarily proposed by Park and backed by the ruling party. It then triggered a hot debate in the country's political and academic circles.

Later the biggest opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy (NPAD) lambasted the government's textbook move a "coup on history" and threatened to stop the measure from being implemented. NPAD Chairman Moon Jae-in condemned the Park administration and the ruling party as "dictatorial forces who are threatening liberal democracy" as they neglected public opinion and forced authoring textbooks by the state. He also accused the Park administration of distorting the country's history.

Besides, the textbook controversy reflects the rise of nationalism and growing concerns about potential dictatorship in South Korea. Park Chung-hee, father of incumbent president, boosted South Korea's economic development but ran a dictatorship. Many citizens deem the textbook conflict as a test of whether Park's rule is truly democratic. If the Education Ministry adopts a harsh approach to deal with the opposition from teachers, it will spark fierce public opposition and lead to bigger social rifts.

Moreover, the controversy shows varied understandings of history and attitudes toward North Korea. Education Minister Hwang Woo-yea said he hoped that issuing national history textbooks for secondary schools can form a "unified and correct" view of the national history in the ideologically split country. However, this may be his own wishful thinking.

Park has coped with the drastic conflict calmly. According to reports citing officers from Cheong Wa Dae, so far Park has only expressed concerns for history textbooks and said that textbooks should be balanced. Although the ruling party's state-authored textbooks proposal was announced by the Education Ministry, neither Cheong Wa Dae nor the president mentioned it publicly. For Cheong Wa Dae, controversy over national textbooks originates in the divergences of ideas and it'd better observe the trend of the public opinion before working out measures.

South Korea advocates diverse thoughts on the condition of keeping social stability. It is understandable that South Koreans cherish their hard-earned democracy and stay vigilant about dictatorship. Let's hope that the dispute over history textbooks can be addressed peacefully and stability can be resumed in this country.

The author is a professor with the Liaoning Academy of Social Sciences. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn