The Han Breeds a New Monster: Anti-Semitism
[Update: Little Green Footballs has a post up, and it looks like another beating for South Korea’s image, judging by the comments. A few aren’t of much higher caliber than those on Naver, but it’s mostly a collective “WTF did Jews ever do to Koreans?“]
[Update 2: LGF readers take note. More troops who need our support.]
Rhie apologized for hurting Jewish feelings and said he was neither anti-Semitic nor out to criticize Jews. “I drew the cartoons based on data I gathered while living in the U.S. for two years,” he said.
Research? WTF? Lee is really reaffirming, as opposed to retracting, this slander. Is Lee actually suggesting that he went around to the different news media organizations and performed circumcision inspections? Is he talking about same media that compares a wall meant to keep out bus bombers to the Berlin Wall, which ignores atrocities in China and North Korea, and which reported Israeli attacks against Hezbollah terrorists who were rocketing Israeli territory this way? I certainly had my own criticisms of some of Israel’s target selection in the past, but if the Zionist conspiracy that this drooler claims to have “researched” exists, I can only say that it needs to start tightening up its operation, beginning with the BBC, The Guardian, CNN, and all of the wire services. While conceding the limitations of fisking an apology I only see translated and excerpted, this sure doesn’t look like one:
Rhie added the hope that the matter will not damage relations between Jews and Koreans and promised to revise the offending parts.
This isn’t an apology to Jews. This is an apology to Koreans for attracting the attention of the evil Zionist conspiracy. If that’s pretty mild comfort, the comments on one story about this (translated by Sonagi) will turn your stomach:
“ìœ íƒœì¸ì€ ì„¸ê³„ì˜ ì‚¬ì•…í•œ 민족” Jews are the world’s most evil race.
“í¬ê²½ìˆ˜ìˆ í•œ ë†ˆë“¤ì€ ì „ë¶€ìœ íƒœì¸ì´ë‹¤” Circumcized bastards all Jews.
“ìœ ëŒ€ì¸=잡종민족.. Jews are a mongrel race.
“ìœ ëŒ€ì¸ë“¤ì€ ì¸ê°„ ì“°ë ˆê¸°ë“¤ì´ë‹¤!!!” Jews are human trash.
“히틀러는 ì˜ì›…ì´ì£ “ Hitler is a hero.
“ìœ ëŒ€ì¸ ì“°ë ˆê¸°ë“¤ì„ ëª°ì‚´í•˜ë¼!하ì¼!히틀러” Exterminate Jewish trash! Heil Hitler!
“ìœ íƒœì¸ í•™ì‚´ ìœ íƒœì¸ë„ ì±…ìž„ 있다” Jews are also responsible for the Holocaust.
“대대ì ì¸ í™€ë¡œì½”ìŠ¤íŠ¸ë¥¼ 다시 한번 해야 한다”¦. We need another large-scale Holocaust.
Pause here, just long enough to consider that this was probably written in some chatroom no more than 50 miles from a large-scale Holocaust in progress, about which no one in South Korea honestly cares.
Safe to assume, 99.7% of these condom malfunctions have seen a Jew in their bitter lives. As Robert and others point out, you can get some pretty awful comments on Yahoo threads, too, but I’ve never any with the degree of nearly unanimous venom you see here. I doubt that even Europe would be capable of such a display; once again, Korean views seem more in line with those in the Middle East than with those in the civilized world.
Until this moment, I really had never considered anti-Semitism to be widespread in Korea. The standard-issue stereotypes are widely held, yes. For blacks, Hispanics, and South Asians, and sometimes for whites, it often came out as racism and outright discrimination. In the case of Jews the stereotypes thankfully didn’t seem to have a particularly negative tint. What I perceived (admittedly, to my face) was 90% admiration for Jews — as stereotyped — and 10% envy. Of course, anyone can see how treachous such things can be. It’s a very fine line between “good dancers” and “good for dancing.” Knowing how quickly hatreds coalesce on the Korean Street, I now suspect for the first time (but without statistical evidence) that anti-Semitism has found a host in the Han and mutated into something monstrous. It certainly sharpens the desire to disengage from such a logical vacuum.
I’m still waiting for that “silent majority” to speak up, but I’m not holding my breath.