That old, familiar lie

Editorial

Comics are not just about taking the jalopy to Pop Tate's soda shop with Jughead and Veronica anymore. The emergence of comics and cartoons as a serious artform is not new. In the 1970s, Art Spiegelman invented the characters and storyline that would inform Maus – one of the most accessible and affecting portrayals of the Holocaust experience for younger readers. The cartoon artform has been used increasingly to impart serious messages and, especially in Asia, but growing here too, is a genre called anime, in which often very adult stories are told using the traditionally juvenile medium of cartoons.

Such an example came to wide attention Tuesday when National Post columnist Jonathan Kay reviewed a 12-volume South Korean series called Meon Nara, Yiwoot Nara (Distant Countries and Neighboring Countries).

Among other things, the cartoon declares: "The final obstacle [on the path to success] is always the fortress of the Jews"; "The American financial world is completely dominated by the Jews"; and "American public debate belongs to the Jews. It's no exaggeration to say that [the U.S. media] is the voice of the Jews."

It would be nice to dismiss this series as meaningless and without impact. But it has sold 10 million copies.

It is always interesting to note that anti-Semitism succeeds most wildly in places where there are no (or almost no) actual Jews, whose presence and humanity might actually contest the stereotypes and hatred aimed at us. From South Korea to the Arab world, the depiction of Jews in traditional medieval manners goes unchecked, even as the number of actual Jews living in these societies is negligible. It is, obviously, far easier to paint someone with lies if the truth is nowhere to be seen. Still, even closer to home, where genuine, real-life Jews do exist, it is not impossible to convince the gullible of ancient aspersions.

The Vancouver-based magazine Adbusters has picked up where it left off several issues ago. Obsessed with the relationship between Israel and American foreign policy, Adbusters editor Kalle Lasn wrote an article in 2004 titled "Why won't anyone say they are Jewish?" In it, Lasn asterisks the leading foreign policy advisors to U.S. President George W. Bush and asks the farcical question "Why won't these people say they're Jewish?" The joke, if it can be considered funny, is that the list is made up of individuals with names like Abrams, Perle, Peretz, Cohen, Kaplan and Goldberg. The idea that people with names like these are somehow closeted Jews defies reason. What do you want, a yellow star?

Now, in this month's issue, Adbusters takes up the pitchfork again, running a piece by Kathleen and Bill Christison, who ask "Does the Israeli tail wag the American dog?" (Adbusters is big on rhetorical questions. The obvious answer, if you don't get to pick up this month's issue, is "Of course.")

Zionists, they write, have gained "undue influence over U.S. Middle East policy." The subjective term "undue" presumably meaning any.

The problem with this line of inquiry is that it does two things that "progressive" people should not do. It assumes that one's worldview is born of blood and not intellect, and it relies on the ancient theme of Jewish control.

A worthy measuring stick to determine the existence of racial preconceptions is the "Shamrock Summit" rule of thumb. When Ronald Reagan and Brian Mulroney met in Quebec City and sang "When Irish Eyes are Smiling," one could have looked at this scene of two descendants of the potato famine and declared the world (or, at least, North America) as under the control of the Irish. This is ludicrous, of course, because Mulroney and Reagan, for whatever else they had in common, were not Irish extremists bent on global domination. This, of course, is precisely the charge upon which articles like those in Adbusters are founded.

In a free society, it is legal and appropriate to contest the motives, as well as the views, of one's opponents. But when treading on ice as thin as this – when racial bias is so dangerously tangled with political theory – there is an added burden to ensure that one's positions are intellectual and critical, not founded and sustained by prejudice. The reason the Shamrock Summit did not bring out conspiracy theorists insisting that the Irish are on the march and control Washington and Ottawa is that there is no such traditional racial preconception.

If, in response to this argument, you contend that the Jews are bent on controlling the world, then we have our answer.

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