Lee Won-bok: Far Countries and Close Countries

Lee Won-bok

Author of Far Countries and Close Countries

(Monnara Iunnara, 먼나라 이웃나라)

(Image from 7/22/04 Chosun Ilbo)

In a Chosun Ilbo article of three years ago, "Famous Comic Book Series Finally Reaches the United States" (July 22, 2004), Kim Tae-hoon reported on a comic book, Far Countries and Close Countries (Monnara Iunnara, 먼나라 이웃나라), written by Deoksung Women's University professor Lee Won-bok. Among other points, Kim noted the role played by anti-Americanism in Lee's book and then quoted a rather 'interesting' remark:

[C]onscious of [Korea's] growing anti-American feelings and public demand [in Korea] to take a new approach to a long-time alliance with the U.S., Lee is very careful in analyzing the U.S. in the book. "I tried to exclude my personal views of the United States as much as I could. In the case of the Iraq War, rather than focusing on the war itself, I tried to provide a big framework for American foreign policy through such things as analyzing U.S. strategy in the Middle East and the influence of Jews behind those policies."

Hmmm ... "the influence of Jews" on America's policies in the Middle East. Now, this 'interesting' remark could derive from a legitimate analysis of various influences on American foreign policies, including the role of conservative Christians, but why single out the Jews?

The answer has come from a 25-year-old expat blogging in Bucheon, Joe Mondello, who has recently been translating relevant portions of Lee's book on a site named Reading Monnara. Chapter 8, "One Must Know the Jews to Truly See America," is especially revealing. In Mondello's posts on his translation efforts, he notes a number of astonishing things that Lee states as facts:

[T]he real group that controls America through money and media pressure is the Jews. (Part 1)

Adam Smith, who was a Jew, wrote 'The Wealth of Nations' (유대인이었던 애덤 스미스의 <국부론>이 발표되었고 . . .) . (Part 3)

As Mondello points out, Adam Smith was not a Jew. The translations continue:

(Graphic shows a Jew in a yarmulke waving from behind an altar or box labeled "Bank of England" with a menorah standing on it) This was the Jews' chance to grab England's financial power, and thus had the world's finances wrapped around their fingers (이를 계기로 유대인은 영국 내의 금융권을 장악, 세상을 그들의 뜻대로 좌지우지하였어). (Part 4)

Rockefeller was the top American conglomerate (Top 3: Rockefeller, DuPont and Mellon) There is ongoing dispute about whether or not he was a Jew but the matter is not clear. But the reason he is mistaken for a Jew is that his enterprise technique was exactly the same as the Jews. His number one business rule was to destroy the competition. He used intrigue, tricks, threat, menace, and naturally he mobilized industrial spies to steal information from his competition. He used bribery, violence, and to top it all he didn't hesitate to sabotage companies. This was cold hearted industrialist who cruelly knocked down the competitors who faced him. (Part 6)

For the record, John D. Rockefeller was a Protestant Christian, specifically a member of the Northern Baptist denomination. One more translation from Mondello:

The core group of people that moves Washington power is the WASPs, but in reality the invisible power that moves them is the Jews. (Part 7)

Mondello deserves commendation for his translations of these antisemitic passages in Lee Won-bok's Far Countries and Close Countries. Indeed, Mondello's efforts have already garnered some international attention, as Robert Koehler of The Marmot's Hole has noted in his post "MBC reports on criticism of anti-Semitic comic." By the way, lest anyone be confused, Koehler transliterates Lee Won-bok's name as Rhie Won-bok (and this is not an idiosyncrasy on Koehler's part, for many Korean names can be variously transliterated):

ORIGINAL POST: Finally—a Korean news provider picks up the story. Broadcaster MBC ran a piece this morning on how Jews in the U.S. were protesting cartoonist Rhie Won-bok's anti-Semitic descriptions in his popular comic book series "Far Country, Near Country."

The Naver.com comments section (583 so far) is not pretty, of course. The more humorous comments were along the lines of, "But how did the Jews know? It's written in Korean..." Honestly, though, if I were Naver.com, I might be concerned about some of the commentary, especially the Hitler comments...

By "the commentary," Koehler is referring to the comments made at the Naver.com site by readers. Unfortunately, my Korean is far too poor for me to read the comments, but a commenter who goes by the name "Sonagi" has visited the Naver.com site and posted this report:

I read the comments that got hundreds of recommendations and noted that the most recommended one (700+ recs) called for an investigation into charges that sections of the book were prejudiced. The second most recommended post (almost 600 recs) suggested publishing a Munnara volume on the Middle East, to expose the slaughter of innocent Arabs, including children, by Israelis. The fourth most rec'd (almost 500) cited passages and asked "what's problem?" "It's all true, isn't it? The fifth and sixth most rec'd (350+) praised Hitler and expressed sorrow that his great humanitarian task of exterminating the Jews was never accomplished.

Sonagi has also posted and translated some of the headings for messages on the Naver.com boards:

"유태인은 세계의 사악한 민족" Jews are the world’s most evil race.

"포경수술한 놈들은 전부유태인이다" Circumcized bastards all Jews.

"유대인=잡종민족.." Jews are a mongrel race.

"유대인들은 인간 쓰레기들이다!!!" Jews are human trash.

"히틀러는 영웅이죠" Hitler is a hero.

"유대인 쓰레기들을 몰살하라!하일!히틀러" Exterminate Jewish trash! Heil Hitler!

"유태인 학살 유태인도 책임 있다" Jews are also responsible for the Holocaust.

"대대적인 홀로코스트를 다시 한번 해야 한다...." We need another large-scale Holocaust.

Sonagi notes that the last Naver.com board heading, calling for another Holocaust, got more than 200 recommendations.

Well, speaking as one who generally defends Korea and Koreans, I have to say that I find this very disturbing. I spoke to my wife about it over lunch on Thursday. She had recently noticed the controversy but didn't know many details. I told her of my surprise to hear that antisemitism has come to Korea, and I asked if she knew the source of this trend.

I explained that European antisemitism of the early to mid-20th century was generally right-wing and had two sources: (1) a longstanding Christian theological tradition of anti-Judaism and (2) a more recent current of nationalist anti-Jewishness rooted in 19th-century cultural and biological views. I then noted, however, that contemporary European antisemitism has found a home on the political Left (cf. pdf: Robert Purkiss and Beate Winkler, Perceptions of Antisemitism in the European Union (2002)), probably deriving from two sources: (1) an anticapitalist critique on the Left that had long identified Jews as playing a major role in the rise of modern capitalism and (2) an anti-Zionist critique that views Israel as a colonial power oppressing a native Palestinian population. The rising power of Islam in Europe has reinforced this Leftist trend, for radical Islamists have combined traditional Islamic views of Jews as despised dhimmis with the fascist, especially Nazi antisemitism of mid-twentieth century Europe, and to some extent, the hard Left and radical Islamism have become fellow travelers. Herein lies a tale too complex for the telling in this particular blog entry.

I then told my wife that because I have the impression that Protestant Christianity in Korea tends toward philosemitism (but correct me if I'm wrong), then the antisemitism found in Lee Won-bok's statements probably stems more from the Left. This would fit with much of the Leftist antisemitism that we currently find in Europe and, to a lesser extent, in the United States.

My wife listened to my remarks, reflected on the Korean context, and then replied, "I think that it comes more from the Left in Korea because the Korean Left is more anti-American and associates the Jews with America."

If I ever succeed in learning Korean, I suspect that I will have my hands full with blogging on stuff like this, but anyway, the upside to this episode of antisemitism in Korea is that at the Naver.com site that Sonagi reported on, more than 700 recommendations were posted in support of "an investigation into charges that sections of the book were prejudiced."

Those 700 were more than the recommendations for any other single heading at Naver.com, and this suggests that a large block of reasonable Koreans are among those posting responses and making recommendations.

UPDATE: Xia (i.e., Sonagi) reports: "I had one more look at Naver and have some good news and bad news. The good news is that I mistook the number of views for the number of recs. The actual number of recs for the top [antisemitic] posts are [only] in the teens not the hundreds. The bad news is that post calling for an investigation did get a few recs but was [not] in the top ten." See Comments for more details.