Scribblings of the Metropolitician: "Sieg, Heil!" Korean Style

What's anti-semetic about "Jew" and "Jew Power"? It's a bit lacking in nuance but it is true that the Jewish state of Israel has enormous influence in Washington - they receive more US foreign aid than any other country in the world. ($3billion annually). Jewish-Amercians are a powerful force in US policy formation and the politics of 'anti-semeticism' has often been used to silence critics of Israel and its criminal occupation. The US vetoes almost every UN Resolution critical of Israel. I'm sure you've read the Mearsheimer and Walt article 'The Israel Lobby'..?

I agree though that the Nazi and Hitler theme bars are grossly insensitive and I still can't fathom why they appear here. The Nazis were allied with Japan after-all..

Posted by: Rosalind | December 19, 2007 at 02:09 PM

Koreans Nazis? Oh...you've definitely hit the idiot jackpot this time. Yes, I have heard koreans saying jews control america....yadi yadi yada. It's just them regurgitating what they've heard from the foreign media. Why is it that any time someone says anything about jews or isreali, they are automatically anti-semitic. Koreans have nothing against jews maybe some rivalry in business. Some koreans have married jews. Most koreans didn't even know about anti-semitism until the west had taught them about it. The truth of the matter is jewish lobbysts do indeed control and have a very powerful voice in america. Most of the major movie studios and media outlets are jewish owned. As many financial companies are definitely owned by them. Ok, is that a bad thing. The jews definitely worked hard and overcame racism in europe. They should be proud of what they have accomplished. I give my hat off to them. What irritates about the jewish lobbysts is their incessant support of the state of isreal, who, constantly terrorizes the palestinians. Evey country in the whole wide world knows about america's blind support for isreal. The isrealis and the americans are being no better than fascists they suffered from and fought against in ww2.

Posted by: quius | December 19, 2007 at 02:28 PM

It's nice that Mr. Hurt amuses his readers with these "Koreans=Nazi" posts. After all, great fictional yarns have been spun from such source material (Indiana Jones, Hellboy anyone?).

However, one starts to wonder whether he needs to be introduced to or reminded of Godwin's Law and it's corollary: As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of comparisons involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one. And whoever mentions the Nazis or Hitler during the course of an argument automatically loses said argument.

Posted by: J.J. Hunsecker | December 20, 2007 at 03:00 AM

If the Arabs hadn't launched a 100 year war to drive the Jews into the sea, I'm guessing you'd hear a lot less about the pernicious influence of Jews on American foreign policy.

The Korean media has consistently highlighted the plight of the poor Palestinians and have as far as I know, never reported on the vicious hatred of Jews inculcated into the Palestinian people, particularly its children. Maybe it wouldn't matter even if they did, as they'd probably recognize themselves in the way kids here are raised to hate their own neighbors.

Posted by: mytwowonsworth | December 20, 2007 at 04:11 AM

Mytwowonsworth I could not agree more and let's not forget that America has given Palestine over 500million dollars of aid hardly chump change.If people knew what Hitler was about they wouldnt be having bars in his honor nor praising him as from what I've read he was an Austrian of Jewish decent.

Posted by: DWILLIAMS | December 20, 2007 at 04:40 AM

Or, JJ, as a country filled with Hitler bars (once quite popular), inexplicably anti-Semitic popular books and newspaper articles (Rhie Won-bok, every other article having to do with the state of Israel), popular intellectuals who continue on about the "international Jewish conspiracy" (Jo Jeong Rae), as well as clear historical ties with overtly anti-Jewish Japanese rightists (read David Goodman's books and articles on Japanese anti-Semitism), as well as countless comments about this from students who hear such anti-Semitic garbage from their teachers...

Yes, it's a "fictional yarn" like Hellboy and Indiana Jones. Do you have anything substantial to say, JJ, or will it be just more snide sophistry from you, without an actual, concrete point? How about a concrete, fact-based refuting of my argument, or pointing out an inherent logical flaw based on your own observations/evidence relevant to the subject?

So far, your comments are just more sophisticated (in the old sense of the word) versions of those made by Quius – there's not much substance to them, although yours are better written and obviously benefit from a much larger vocabulary.

But there's not much more than that. And I grow tired of wasting my time with both him and you. You can go and parrot again "oh, Metro can't stand the heat" or "can't bear to take criticism" but that's an empty cop-out, since that's not the issue at all. Say something significant for once. I grow tired of this intellectual playa-hatin' without saying anything substantial.

Posted by: The Metropolitician | December 20, 2007 at 09:57 AM

Mr. Hurt:

You requested a "concrete, fact-based refuting..." or an exposition "pointing out an inherent logical flaw..." of your trite "Koreans=Nazis" schtick. Here it is: Attempts to equate Hitler Bars, comments by Cho Cheong-Rae, portions of Rhie Won-bok's work, news articles about Israel, and etc. as proof-positive of Korean Naziphilia is an utterly procrustean, clumsy and hysterical reading of the situation.

To begin with, when you take the above mentioned situations and attempt to fit them into your "all racist or preceived to be racist comments are signs of proto-Nazi behavior" rubric, it becomes clear that you've totally failed to realize how truly and unqualifingly unique the Nazis were as a historical force.

Let me give you a precis of what precipitated in Germany during the 1930's: The Nazis seized the mantle of power by way of chicanery and thuggery. In the wake of their victory, they proscribe or outright ban rival political parties, kill and violently suppress any manifestation of dissent and ensconce themselves into every nook and cranny of German society. All the while planning for and acquiring the necessary accoutre to launch a war that, when all is said and done, enslaved, exterminated, and killed millions of civilians, ethnic minorities and soldiers in uniform.

I understand that much of this is tautological for you, but the reason I mention all this is to edify you to a fact that is entirely elided by your "Koreans=Nazis" rhetoric: The Nazis, for whatever they said and wrote, at the end of the day, were violent gangsters with a nihilistic bent. As the Cambridge University historian Richard Evans trenchantley noted in his marvelous work "The Third Reich in Power", "The cult of death" and the view that incarnadine imbued cataclysm was an ablution was what placed the Nazis in a seperate league from the other anti-Semitic nationalist groups.

After all, during the 1920's, German belles-lettres such as Arthur Moeller von den Bruck and Ernst Junger penned prodigous amounts of books and essays espousing many of the similar memes found in say "Mein Kampf", Julius Streichers "The Stormer" or "Triumph of the Will". Under the appellation of "revolutionary conservatism", men such as Moeller and Junger expatiated carefully and subtely over the need to safeguard the nations Wesen-Urgestein (the original essential stone)from the pernicious influence of mixed blood. Never, however, was the idea of mass murder on their minds. No, nebbish men such as Moeller and Junger satisfied themselves with writing and explaining their ideas in highbrow publication rather than have to storm out into the streets and seize political power.

It is you purblindness to this essential fact, Mr. Hurt, that makes you "Koreans=Nazis" spiel so puerile. According to your way of thinking the WASP circle that Gregory Peck's character ingratiates himself into in the movie "Gentleman's Agreement" all have gas chambers hidden somewhere on on their New England compound.

I'll admit that the comments Cho Cheong-Rae made, the Nazi themed bars and Rhie Won-bok's comics border on the tastless and maladroit. But to take these incidents and try and construct an argument equating Koreans to one of the most odious and vile group in history only obfuscates, distorts and dissembles from what I think is the real issue: Korean comments about Jews point not towards any genocidal hatred of Jews, but rather a curiosity and attempts to decipher, however clumsily, the strategic success Jews have had in their history.

From my persepective, it seems that Koreans, whether they care to admit it or not, see much of, or want to see, their history in the Jewish experience. And who can blame them? Like Jews, the argument can be made that Koreans have suffered from persecution and oppression at the hands of more powerful groups and nations. And like Jews, Koreans must also manuever amongst a host of other more powerful groups in order to ensure survival.

But despite these similarities, or perceived similarities, Koreans appear to have generated far less success than the tribe of Abraham. Unlike Israel, Korea dictates very little to the rest of the world. And when Koreans see Jewish/Israeli success, it's not so much a feeling of dread and threat as felt by say the Catholic Church or the British gentry, but rather a feeling of "Why not us?"

In her book "Jews and Power", Harvard University professor Ruth Wisse asserts that after the defeat at Betar in 135 AD, the Jewish people developed and innovative national strategy. The new strategy entailed organizing Jewish communities internally and managing relations with Gentiles by taking the "accomadationist" approach by adjusting tactics to whims of lower and higher authorities. I think this is what Koreans are attempting to discuss and analyze in their comments about Jewish influence.

So, when I bring up something like Godwin's Law and it's corollary Mr Hurt, it isn't to deliver "snide sophistry". Rather, it's to try and get you to look at something with a little more depth than what is found in the stock villains of an Indian Jones or Hellboy flick.

Finally, a lot of the arguments that you make about nationalism strike me as extraordinarily myopic and narrow. Your trope seems to be that nationalism is congenitally flawed and following such a path only leads to a variant of what happend in Germany or Japan during the 1930's. Well, that's correct in someways. But, again, your contentions elide over so much. Yes, nationalism in Germany and Japan posed serious dangers to the rest of the world. But it was nationalism, on the part of American, British and Russians(refreshingly and with a bit of gusto, I may say, WWII is called the "Great Patriotic War" in Russia), that would eventually vanquish the irredentism and chavinism of Japan and Germany.

Posted by: J.J. Hunsecker | December 21, 2007 at 08:12 AM

What continues to elude most of those who seem to be saying Koreans ARE Nazis is what I've already said:

"I make the rhetorical parallel between Nazi anti-Semitism and some aspects of Korean ideology, but I never go so far as to say "Korean national ideology = Western European fascism." That's just ludicrous."

JJ, for someone who apparently has some lights on upstairs, you certainly seem to keep missing my point, along with others. I am aware of the historical specificity of the Nazis, as well as the historialogical question of the "specialness" of the Nazi experience, the question of the extent of its "Germanness", as well as other issues surrounding comparisons with other historical cases.

But I've never called Koreans actual Nazis, nor do I live in fear of some "Holocaust" of WWII proportions. In every post ever made on this site, the most I do is draw attention to the DANGER of this type of racial thinking and bristle heavily at the sheer level of ignorance displayed in unapologetic displays of what ARE considered real expressions of raciam and anti-Semitism by most people in the world, except for radical racists, anti-Semites, and actual Nazi apologists.

And given the fact that there do seem to be some direct, albeit far removed, connections between present remnants of anti-Jewish thinking and old-school anti-Semitism on display all the time – from newspapers to professors telling me to watch out for the "Jewish conspiracy" to students telling me their teachers tell them the Holocaust really wasn't so bad and Jewish money has blown it up far past its real importance – that IS dangerous and historically irresponsible.

Obviously all your apparent intellectual power and apparent status of being a man of some letters hasn't given you the ability to see that I am NOT EQUATING Koreans with Nazis and never have been.

And if you want historical roots, or talk about Koreans seeing this from the point of view of trying to understand a country like Israel as an apparent non-power in the world, sure, fine. I can understand that point of view; but somebody out there is also teaching that the Holocaust didn't happen, that Jews are part of an "international conspiracy" a la "Protocols", and this is the backdrop to the apparent surprise and anger with which owners of Hitler-themed bars reacted to anyone who pointed out what should be obvious to anyone born in the post-WWII world.

The point is that newspaper articles talking about "international conspiracies" and how the Jews are actively controlling the world, using ahistorical arguments about apparent Jewish influence that are impossible to refute, and much of the rhetoric that gets flung around here about Jews is inexplicably common and vehement. There are certain things that shouldn't be said, or lines of thought that shouldn't be followed by anyone born, raised, and educated in the post-WWII era, but sometimes, aspects of Korean society appear to have missed out on what the rest of the world seems to already apparently know.

And this isn't for lack of good world history education, years spent in school, etc. And these small but vehement strains of anti-Semitism aren't coming from those places. But they are coming from somewhere, since I haven't seen such blatant anti-Semitic displays coming from even countries WITH an apparent "reason" to be anti-Semitic, i.e. having an actual Jewish population, having specific ties or connections to Israel.

Get the point, JJ and others: I am NOT calling Koreans ACTUAL Nazis, NOR am I saying they might BECOME them. I am simply saying certain lines of thought that certain Koreans parrot as if they were fact are NOT acceptable and should be considered ignorant or worse by anyone with half an education, and also that certain lines of thought that PARALLEL (but do not DUPLICATE) ways of thinking once held by Nazis are also ones worth doing away with.

And the fact that Storm Front came in an DEFENDED Korea and lauded it its pure blood ideology when this issue first came up on this blog, as a country that had "successfully" kept itself "pure" and was continuing to do so – I wouldn't exactly feel good about that guy being on my side.

Does that mean that the average Korean nationalist IS a card-carrying memeber of the SS? Noooo. But it just might mean I'm on the wrong side of history and the limits of what is considered acceptable discourse in the post-WWII world.

I do not see what is so hard about distinguishing me drawing the parallel for both rhetorical and moral reasons and actually saying Koreans ARE Nazis, which I never did; this, on top of the fact that it was somehow considered OK to sip beer in bars with waiters dressed up like SS officers.

That would be fucked up in any country; but the irony of this happening in a country that was certainly on the victimized side of WWII, and which might actually be sympathetic to the historical symbology and lessons of the "Holocaust" is what draws double doses of my ire in the Korean case.

That is all.

Posted by: The Metropolitician | December 21, 2007 at 09:50 AM

Interesting debate here.

One thing that seems to be missing is a certain failure of imagination. Imagine if Korea were not squeezed between Japan and China. All things being similar I find no reason to believe Korea would not then have developed into a racist exclusionary power that would have put Imperial Japan to shame. Just look at North Korea, whose press openly racist and harps on about the dirty mixed blood that is polluting the Han.

Koreans and their apologists flatter themselves when they speak of their tragic history as victims. Given a more advantageous launching pad, I'd bet Korea would have committed rather egregious ethnic cleansing and mass killings.

They are rather close relatives of the Mongol hordes.

And on a side note, let's all keep in mind that North Korea has been aiding Israel's mortal enemies for decades now.

Posted by: mytwowonsworth | December 22, 2007 at 04:22 PM

"I make the rhetorical parallel between Nazi anti-Semitism and some aspects of Korean ideology..."

Let me ask, Mr. Hurt, where is it in all your study of "Korean ideology" where you find a vitriolic and unhinged hatred for Jews that serves as a logical prelude to mass deportation, enslavement, and extermination? I thought I made this point very clear to you when I brought up the examples of Weimer era intellectuals such as Jung and Moeller, but I suppose it wouldn't hurt to reiterate, albeit a bit differently: anti-Semitism or simple distrust of Jews existed long before the rise of the Nazis. From the early days of the Christian church, to Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation, to Tsarist Russian, to French society during the Dreyfus Affair, anti-Semitism has been something perennial throught out history. Admittedly, pogroms and slaughter of Jews occured during these incidents. But the anti-Semitism in those cases never once had any pretense toward megalomaniacal murder on an apocalyptic scale. Russian Tsars may have initiated pogroms but never did they hold a Wannssee Conference, thoroughly document the matter with bureaucratic zeal, apply Taylorist principles to the killing, mobilize the entire population toward the goal of eradicating all Jews off the face of the Earth, or sustain the effort for so long.

I would have you consider this fact before you try and equate or find similarities between Nazi anti-Semitism and "aspects of Korean ideology": During WWII, as Wermacht forces were repulsed from Stalingrad, as Patton raced across the Rhine and the Lowlands, and as German industry became increasingly incapable of maintaining necessary output, the German government and other Nazi officials still diverted precious resources from the front and utilized it towards what should be considered non-military operations. Trains that could've been shipping material to the hapless German soldier in the frigid Ardennes Forrest instead shipped Jews to Auschwitz. SS guards who could've been fighting Russian regiments instead stood sentry over emaciated Jews. Bureaucrats who could've been devising plans toward salvaging the German war-effort instead devised plans on how to kill Jews more efficiently.

I'm not trying to argue that if they had done the opposite of the above mentioned that the Germans would've have won the war. But when you consider how irrationally Nazi officials acted in the face of catastrophic defeat, it becomes apparent that their brand of anti-Semitism was very different from forms of anti-Semitism in the past. I can't imagine a Russian Tsar using precious manpower and resources to kill Jews when say a bellicose Napoleon is about to wave the Tri-color in the heart of Moscow.

German Protestants, Russian Tsars, and late-nineteenth century Frenchman took part in their share of Jew-bashing, but as odious and degenerate as it was, those forms of anti-Semitism were bound and fettered by rationality and opportunism. With Hitler and Nazi anti-Semitism, the hatred and vitriol knew no bounds. It was a hatred that sought to overthrow and devour the natural order. Anti-semitism before the Nazis, at the very least, recognized the existence of a God. The Nazis simply sought to play God.

"There are certain things that shouldn't be said or lines of thought that shouldn't be followed by anyone born, raised, and educated in the post-WWII era, but sometimes aspects of Korean society appear to have missed out on what the rest of the world seems to already apparently know."

With all due respect, but this borders on the silly. Silly in that what seems to have eluded you, Mr. Hurt, are some of the things going on outside of your own solipsistic obsessions. Consider the case of John Mearsheimer and Stephan Walt, University of Chicago and Harvard University, respectively. Recently, they published a book titled "The Israel Lobby". In it they argue that "the U.S. has been willing to set aside its own security in order to advance the interest of another state (Israel)". That groups such as the AIPAC and ADL have with "extraordinary effectivness" diverted "U.S. foreign policy" from the "American national interest..." For those inclined to believe a certain way, it seem that two very respected and highly regarded scholars sound an awful like "radical racists, anti-Semites, and actual Nazi apologists."

Futhermore, according to Mr. Hurt's way of thinking, an individual such as Tony Judt, historian at NYU and specialist in European history is also ignorant of "what the rest of the world seems to apparently alread know." In March of 2006, Judt wrote an op-ed essentially defending Mearsheimer and Walt's "Israel lobby" thesis. He wrote that "it will not be self-evident to future generation of Americans why the imperial might and international reputation of the U.S. are so closely aligned with one small, controversial Mediterranean client state."

By discussing such things as Jewish power and influence, are Mr. Hurt's future colleagues-Walt, Mearsheimer, and Judt-espousing a rhetoric similar to nihilistic, megalomaniacal Nazi anti-Semitism. Of course not. Mr. Hurt knows it and his readers know it. What Mr. Hurt has done is make the question of Jewish influence not a question of serious debate and exploration, but rather a litmus test. A test of where you stand according to his impossible ideological standards. It's ironic that someone whose so willing to explore controversial (white privilege) and sometimes tastless (Asian male penis size) subjects with such fearlessness and indefatigability would suddenly want others to either shut their mouths or tow the correct ideological line when it comes to other contentious subjects.

Finally, the comments made by "mytwowonsworth" are indeed just that, two measily little won. A net value of negligible and insipid.

Let's take it from the top, shall we? You assert that there's a lack of "imagination" in this dialogue. That had Korea not been sandwiched between more powerful countries such as China and Japan, that surely Korea would've committed the same, if not much more worse atrocities. To support your claim you cite the fact that Koreans are related to Mongols and the activities of North Korea.

To begin with, if your going to play the game of alternative history or counterfactuals, it's nice to ground them in sort some sort of reality. I'm afraid, "mytwowonsworth", that your facts are pretty thin and your alternate history puerile. One, who cares if Koreans are related to Mongols. That doesn't mean they're going to start behaving in similar fashion. The Dutch, Scandanavians, and Austrians are related to Germans but they didn't commit mass genocide. Moreover, as bellicose and aggressive the Mongols were, I wouldn't say that they were the genocidal type. After all, after conquering certain areas, Mongols hand tendencey to become absorbed by the autochthonous culture. Kubla Khan, after conquering China, began to take on Chinese mores and manners.

Two, your citing of North Korea as an example that all Koreans have the capability of acting in a Nazi-like fashion is only possible by being oblivious to certain facts. Much of the xenophobia and generally racist rhetoric you hear from the DPRK isn't so much because they're true, hard-core racists. Rather, such rhetoric serves to isolate the North Korean population so that no other nation or foreign individual could challenge the authority of the Kim family. The vast majority of policies enacted by North Korean officials are with this banal goal in mind. Moreover, the fact that N. Korea gave aid and material to Israel's enemies (i.e. Syria) is more due to the reality of power politics than simple anti-Semitism. After all, Hugo Chavez has a pretty cozy relations with Iran and the U.S. government just recently gave billions of dollars to the Saudis to purchase military hardware. Never once, do they mention a hatred of Jews as the reason for pursuing such policies. In other words, "mytwowonsworth", you forget you Lord Palmerston: "Great Britain has no permanent friends, only permanent interests."