Asia's Jewish myths
Ian Buruma | February 11, 2009
Article from: The Australian
A CHINESE bestseller titled The Currency War describes how Jews are planning to rule the world by manipulating the international financial system. The book is reportedly read in the highest government circles. If so, this does not bode well for the international financial system, which relies on well-informed Chinese to help it recover from the present crisis.
Such conspiracy theories are not rare in Asia. Japanese readers have shown a healthy appetite over the years for books such as To Watch Jews is to See the World Clearly, The Next Ten Years: How to Get an Inside View of the Jewish Protocols and I'd Like to Apologise to the Japanese - A Jewish Elder's Confession (written by a Japanese author, of course, under the made-up name of Mordecai Mose). All these books are variations of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the Russian forgery first published in 1903, which the Japanese came across after defeating the tsar's army in 1905.
The Chinese picked up many modern Western ideas from the Japanese. Perhaps this is how Jewish conspiracy theories were passed on as well. But Southeast Asians are not immune to this kind of nonsense either. Former Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamed has said that "the Jews rule the world by proxy. They get others to fight and die for them." And a recent article in a leading business magazine in The Philippines explained how Jews had always controlled the countries they lived in, including the US today.
In the case of Mahathir, a twisted kind of Muslim solidarity is probably at work. But, unlike European or Russian anti-Semitism, the Asian variety has no religious roots. No Chinese or Japanese has blamed Jews for killing their holy men or believed that their children's blood ended up in Passover matzos. In fact, few Chinese, Japanese, Malaysians, or Filipinos have ever seen a Jew, unless they have spent time abroad.
So what explains the remarkable appeal of Jewish conspiracy theories in Asia? The answer must be partly political. Conspiracy theories thrive in relatively closed societies, where free access to news is limited and freedom of inquiry curtailed. Japan is no longer such a closed society, yet even people with a short history of democracy are prone to believe that they are victims of unseen forces. Precisely because Jews are relatively unknown, therefore mysterious, and in some way associated with the West, they become an obvious fixture of anti-Western paranoia.
Note the next line CAREFULLY...
Such paranoia is widespread in Asia, where almost every country was at the mercy of Western powers for several hundred years.
Why, IT'S OUR FAULT ASIANS ALSO PRACTICE IGNORANCE AND BIGOTRY. Why if only we were better mankind would be different ...stupid schmucks. If we were better, we'd be better, and that's it.
Japan was never formally colonised, but it too felt the West's dominance, at least since the 1850s, when American ships laden with heavy guns forced the country to open its borders on Western terms.
Yes, this explains the Greater East Asia Co Prosperity Sphere, and what happened in Shanghai in 1937. Are these guys for real?
The common conflation of the US with Jews goes back to the late 19th century, when European reactionaries loathed America for being a rootless society based only on financial greed. This perfectly matched the stereotype of the rootless cosmopolitan Jewish moneygrubber. Hence the idea that Jews run America.
One of the great ironies of colonial history is the way in which colonised people adopted some of the same prejudices that justified colonial rule. Anti-Semitism arrived with a whole package of European race theories that have persisted in Asia well after they fell out of fashion in the West.
This also explains why the Japanese think of the Koreans as barbaric subhumans, Koreans think of the Japanese as vile monsters (I personally witnessed both) and the Chinese look down on both, as well as the rest of the asian untermenschen.
In some ways, Chinese minorities in Southeast Asia have shared some of the hostility suffered by Jews in the West. Excluded from many occupations, they too survived by clannishness and trade.
Just like the 1.3 billion jews who also live in the third largest nation on the planet.
They too have been persecuted for not being "sons of the soil". And they too are thought to have superhuman powers when it comes to making money. So when things go wrong, the Chinese are blamed not just for being greedy capitalists, but also, again like the Jews, for being communists, as both capitalism and communism are associated with rootlessness and cosmopolitanism.
As well as being feared, the Chinese are admired for being cleverer than everybody else. The same mixture of fear and awe is often evident in people's views of the US and, indeed, of the Jews. Japanese anti-Semitism is a particularly interesting case.
Japan was able to defeat Russia in 1905 only after a Jewish banker in New York, Jacob Schiff, helped Japan by floating bonds. So The Protocols of the Elders of Zion confirmed what the Japanese already suspected: Jews really did pull the strings of global finance. However, instead of wishing to attack them, the Japanese, being a practical people, decided they would be better off cultivating those clever, powerful Jews as friends.
As a result, during World War II, even as the Germans were asking their Japanese allies to round up Jews and hand them over, dinners were held in Japanese-occupied Manchuria to celebrate Japanese-Jewish friendship. Jewish refugees in Shanghai, though never comfortable, at least remained alive under Japanese protection.
This was good for the Jews of Shanghai. But the very ideas that helped them to survive continue to muddle the thinking of people who really ought to know better by now.
Ian Buruma's latest book is The China Lover.
13 comments:
Epaminondas,
That is a very interesting article, I have never encountered any anti-semitism in China, Korea, or Japan. Like you said, most people there have very little knowledge of Judaism and limited exposure to Jews. Anti-semitism in places like Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, South Thailand, Brunei, and the Moro regions of the Philippines are certainly expected. You make a good analogy when you compare Malaysian, Singaporean, and Indonesian ethnic Chinese to Jews. The ethnic Chinese are the ones who have contributed the most to the successes of those respective countries, yet still are persecuted and live in a state of dhimmitude. Does anybody recall about 11 years ago, during the Asian Financial Crisis, the Indonesian Jihadist mobs that would randomly decapitate ethnic Chinese?
A side effect of growing up as a non-Jew in an American Jewish community is how utterly bizarre and unreal this view of Jews as "alien" sounds. They are talking about my friends, the places I hung out -- mostly the YM/YWHA -- and the whole culture I wandered in and out of all through my childhood. Yet I have heard stories of people from the American South who had never met a Jew and actually believed they have horns. People will read a piece of garbage like the Protocols and swallow it whole and yet won't credit what is actually in the Koran, which is beyond question the Muslim holy book and source of Muslim teachings.
Don't these people ever think?
Epaminondas,
It just seems like everyone blames the Jews sometimes. I'm kind of surprised to find the Chinese using them as a scape goat though, not only are not many Jews in China, they couldn't have even known about them until a few centuries ago. I mean, isn't that when Westerners first made contact with them?
There's a big difference between European, Arab, African anti-Semitism versus Asian anti-Semitism as I want to make it quite clear.
European, Arab and African anti-Semites would be more liberal in expressing their views against the Jews while Asians not so much. Why as a Jew do I say this? The Imperial Japanese, as a good example, have had many anti-Semites involved in their military.
Much of Japanese anti-Semitism came from Czarist Russia, when Imperial Japanese members met some White Russians whom were fleeing the newly established Soviet Russia. Many of these Imperial Japanese anti-Semites literally used the "Jewish conspiracy" to their advantage.
While their European, Arab and African counterparts began to call to round up the Jews and put them into concentration camps and also promote other rabid evil stuff. The Imperial Japanese used the "Jewish conspiracy" to help themselves rise to power. Since anti-Semites believe that Jews "control" the world's economies, why not use Jews to their advantage?
The Imperial Japanese simply wanted Jewish money to establish their rise. I as a I, am quite outrage that anti-Semites would use Jews in this manner for their own personal gain.
I speculate Chinese anti-Semites here are repeating the error of the Imperial Japanese anti-Semites. They're just stupid that they think Jews "control" the world's economies when they don't.
I'm with Revere - I grew up in a neighborhood with a synagogue a block away - they sponsored my Girl Scout troop. When I first heard about anti-semitism (learning about WWII and Hitler) I was completely puzzled - as far as I was concerned it was as if the world had decided that Presbyterians were particularly nefarious!
I am reading a great book called Rome and Jerusalem - Clash of Ancient Civilizations. It gives an incredibly detailed history of the development of both civilizations, the rise of Christianity and the seeds of "modern" or "institutional" anti-semitism.
There was anti-semitism prior to the rise of the Christian Church, although many people deny that for some reason.
I grew up Roman Catholic also, and was taught that bigotry of any type was a "mortal sin". I never once heard or read anything that even came close to intimating that the "Jews" as a people were "guilty" of Christ's death.
One interesting tidbit - Michelle Obama's brother (I think - may be a cousin) is actually the rabbi at the synagogue that sponsored my Girl Scout troop right down the street from my old home in Chi.
Ro
Michelle Obama's brother is a Rabbi???
Wow. That's interesting news.
Do you have any links?
Let me go through my e-mails - my brother sent me the information, and there may be a link in what he sent me.
I have a class in the morning after I drop my kid off at school, but will try to get you info by the afternoon, central time.
Ro
Found the reference - and it was her cousin, not brother - but this is what I sent my brother on October 8, 2008:
"Tom - I knew that with all the talk about the Obamas and Chicago's "South Side" something like this was bound to happen - Greg Pollowitz in NRO's Media Blog reported today that Michelle Obama's cousin, who is an Ethiopian Jewish Rabbi in Chicago's MARQUETTE PARK neighborhood, took money doled out by Obama when Obama was a state senator."
What I meant about "something like this" was not the petty corruption reported by NRO, but that we would find some commonality with the family. We grew up across the street from Marquette Park - on Marquette Rd.
Ro
The Jews are using psycho-kinetic thought-fields to alter the orbits of satellites and smash them into one another.
It was strictly coincidence that the Australian published this article, right? Not really....
REPOST:
Since 135 AD (in 'modern' history) the Romans made the jews a tiny permanent stateless minority everywhere, and that was after the Assyrians were nearly as successful in the 6th century BC.
Nowhere were the jews numerous enough, or influential enough to overcome that for more than a few years.
After the Council of Nicaea the church was officially anti semitic, and 300 years later Mo made the word of god into a racist spew.
Does anyone think for an instant that if there were an IDF as powerful as is it today that ANY of this could have happened?
Perhaps if the Romans had made the Carthaginians stateless instead of wiping them out, and had they a religion which unified them over the world, it would be them and not the jews blamed by a third of europeans for this worldwide mess.
We are caterwauling about the nature of humans.
Those in power have always been smart enough to know the blood libels, control of the banks, poisoning the wells yadda blah blah are bull.
When it served the powerful they used this with the mob (name your religion, or nation) to repress, expel or murder this defenseless particular ultra tiny minority for their own purposes. What was the risk? Get rid of a few, maybe not pay off some loans, get some jewels or whatever from those who had to be able to carry their wealth with them because of earlier expulsion, pogroms and murders, ready to leave in a moment.
That the jews are at this moment in focus because of the history of mankind's bigotry and cynicism is almost irrelevant. It could have been any tiny group with profoundly cohesive beliefs.
What is important is to recognize how the weakness of men is used by others.
These stories: Gaza, schools, Jenin, stealing organs, manipulating banks, news, govts, the Quranic racisms, the Church reinstatements, claims of the 'amen corner', men here like Buchanan, Moran, Paul, the Arab and muslims govts, all represent the greatest force on the planet - the weakness of men... (which is why our constitution has worked until now...IT DEPENDS ON SUCH WEAKNESS)
It is also why men like Ronald Reagan and FDR are so admired .. they appeal to what we aspire to IN SPITE OF RECOGNIZING those weaknesses.
So when we see these stories, '31%', let's not forget what it's really about...
Not really the jews ..
MANKIND
So when you see it, just look for who is using the jews ... and why. What's important about the jews is who is trying to kill them.
Whoever it is, you can bet they are evil, for they ALWAYS represent the ignorance of man, in the mob, to use the mob for their own purposes.
Maybe it's the triumph of their own civilization, or religion, or greater riches, but you can bet the force they depend on for that triumph is the weakness of mankind.
THAT MAKES THEM EVIL.
Tikkun Olam, baby
Ro,
Thanks.
Michelle Obama's cousin is a Rabbi. I wonder if he's a conservative, or reform. I know nothing about Ethiopian Judaism.
Very interesting.
It's hard to hate what exists in your own family. What I mean by that is, while many people truly do not like their families, they can, at least, see that their families have a right to exist.
Whereas, with other people's families, many times people just don't care enough to think through the issues.
I'd Like to Apologise to the Japanese - A Jewish Elder's Confession (written by a Japanese author, of course, under the made-up name of Mordecai Mose)
Reminds me of Yashiko Sagamori,
the jewish woman who goes by a Japanese name in order to spread propaganda and lies.
Is that a joke? I don't get it.
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