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« on: April 21, 2006, 06:29:19 AM »
Not really a rant, but I didn't know where else to put it--Crafty
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This is a review of a museum exhibition in today?s NYT.
Ed
Exhibition Review
The Anti-Semitic Hoax That Refuses to Die
By EDWARD ROTHSTEIN
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/r/edward_rothste
in/index.html?inline=nyt-per>
Published: April 21, 2006
Washington
<http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/21/arts/design/21holo.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&
pagewanted=all#secondParagraph#secondParagraph> Skip to next paragraph
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection
A Mexican edition, published in 2005, of "The Protocols of the Elders of
Zion."
"A Dangerous Lie: The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" opens today at the
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington. The museum is open
daily, 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.; Tuesdays and Thursdays through mid-June, 10
a.m. to 7:50 p.m. Free timed passes are required for the permanent
collection but not for the special exhibition; call (800) 400-9373.
Information: (202) 488-0400.
Readers? Opinions
<http://forums.nytimes.com/top/opinion/readersopinions/forums/arts/artistsan
dexhibitions/index.html?page=recent> Forum: Artists and Exhibitions
A SMALL cloth is draped over each digit of a giant hand, each finger puppet
inscribed with a symbol. One is a dollar sign: a reference to international
capital in all its manifestations. There is also the sign of the Masons,
since for centuries that secret society has been caricatured as insidious
and manipulative, without recognizing, perhaps, that its own strings were
being pulled.
There is the hammer and sickle, symbolizing a Communist world that no longer
possesses fearsome power but was once, apparently, under the sway of an even
greater master. The cross is there, for the church has supposedly been
enslaved by the same forces. And there is a swastika, for even Nazism,
according to this particular vision, arose out of the deep maneuverings of a
group prepared to sacrifice six million of its own so its larger aims might
be realized in the creation of an imperial state.
And controlling them all is the hand, its palm inscribed with a Jewish star.
Such is the cover art for a Spanish-language edition of "The Protocols of
the Elders of Zion" published last year in Mexico.
Mexico is not alone. Look around the small space allotted to a new
exhibition opening today at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum here
? "A Dangerous Lie: The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" ? and the intensity
and extent of agreement are striking. For more than a century "The
Protocols" has made its way into many languages, selling untold numbers of
copies, portraying Jews as demonic schemers.
Said to be the minutes of a secret council of Jews discussing their plot for
world domination, this slim volume, first published in Russia in 1905, has
become a nearly sacred text for political and religious movements ranging
from American nativism and German Nazism to Arab Islamicism.
Henry Ford was captivated by the idea of Jewish financiers plotting to
undermine the United States; he became a proselytizer for "The Protocols" in
his newspaper, The Dearborn Independent.
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/h/adolf_hitler/i
ndex.html?inline=nyt-per> Hitler, an admirer of Ford, was introduced to "The
Protocols" by the Nazi ideologue Alfred Rosenberg, and cited it in "Mein
Kampf." More than 23 editions of "The Protocols" were published by the Nazi
party over 20 years.
During the last half-century, it has also become a canonical text in the
Islamic world. One edition on display here, printed in Pakistan in 1969, was
presented by King Faisal of Saudi Arabia to state visitors in the 1970's,
its jacket showing a snake, representing the Jews, wrapped around the
crescent of Islam while casting its glance over the entire Eastern
Hemisphere. Another edition is an Arabic translation of "The Protocols" that
was posted on the Palestinian State Information Services Web site until
protests led to its removal last year.
Now "The Protocols" would presumably be affirmed with less embarrassment:
the Palestinian Authority is presently controlled by the militant Islamist
organization
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/h/hamas/i
ndex.html?inline=nyt-org> Hamas, whose 1988 covenant could almost be read as
a rewrite of "The Protocols." "Our struggle against the Jews is very great
and very serious," that covenant says. "With their money, they took control
of the world media, news agencies, the press, publishing houses,
broadcasting stations and others," it declares of Jews.
"They aim at undermining societies, destroying values, corrupting
consciences, deteriorating character and annihilating Islam," it says,
asserting that Jews were behind the French and Russian revolutions, the
Freemasons, the Rotary Clubs, imperialism, the two world wars, the
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/u/united_
nations/index.html?inline=nyt-org> United Nations, the drug trade and
alcoholism. It cites a source: "Their plan is embodied in 'The Protocols of
the Elders of Zion.' "
Unfortunately, this exhibition, organized by Daniel Greene, while
illuminating as far as it goes, doesn't do more than briefly refer to that
charter. It also only cursorily summarizes the perspective of the various
editions of "The Protocols" on display. And the text of "The Protocols"
itself can be read only on two pages of an open book.
Evidence that "The Protocols" was forged is scarcely more detailed, revealed
primarily in a wall-size reproduction of part of the 1921 Times of London
expos? that demonstrated that the book was cribbed from an 1864 polemic by
the French writer Maurice Joly attacking Napoleon III: "Dialogue in Hell
Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu." The words of Joly's villain,
Machiavelli, were later put into the mouths of conspiratorial Jews.
But what an opportunity was missed in not doing more with this exhibition!
For the tale of how this volume was forged ? which only recently came to
light with the release of Soviet-era files, suggesting that it was written
by Mathieu Golovinski, a Russian exile living in France in 1898 ? is
remarkable in itself. So are the peculiarities of its sources, which also
include an 1868 novel, "Biarritz" by Hermann Goedsche, which describes a
nocturnal meeting of rabbis in a Prague cemetery, where they discuss plans
for world domination. So a royalist Russian used the fantastical imaginings
of a German and the antiroyalist text of a Frenchman imitating the arguments
of an Italian, in order to defame Jews.
The text itself also demands more analysis. One reason for its resiliency
despite its demonstrably faked origins is that it is not just another
anti-Semitic tract. Its intellectual trappings reflect something profound
about anti-Semitism itself.
Conspiracy theorists abound in all arenas, of course, and there is surely
something satisfying about seeing varied sources of villainy so swiftly
click into place as manifestations of a single master plan. Advocates of
"The Protocols" are undeterred by evidence that the book is forged: it
reveals, they say, a higher truth.
That truth, though, is not really about Jews. Reading the text itself (which
can be found at <http://ddickerson.igc.org/protocols.html>
ddickerson.igc.org/protocols.html), one is shocked not at its anti-Semitism,
but at its knotty, pseudophilosophic assertions; "The Protocols" really is
ersatz Machiavelli. It is astounding that something so difficult has been so
appealing.
"Men with bad instincts are more in number than the good," states its
opening sally; they are "beasts of prey" who can only be governed by
cunning. Their greatest delusion, asserts the purportedly Jewish narrator,
is their growing belief in liberalism. But political freedom is a "bait,"
being offered to them by Jews, who are using it to undermine the traditional
order. Soon societies everywhere, the narrator says, will fall prey to the
"despotism of capital, which is entirely in our hands."
A catalog of threatening modernity is being boasted of: liberal rights
proliferate, faith falters, commerce rules, citizens are seduced by
"corruption and luxury." "Think carefully of the successes we arranged for
Darwinism, Marxism, Nietzscheism," the Jews in "The Protocols" say, and look
what "disintegrating" effect these ideas have had. These Jews claim to be
undermining the world with "disenchantments" in order to take it over.
This forgery encapsulates the image of the cosmopolitan Jew as the
unprincipled molder of modernity.
But modernity and liberalism are never really meant seriously by these Jews;
the ideas are manipulations, fabrications. In addition these Jews sound as
if they could confirm
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/a/al_qaed
a/index.html?inline=nyt-org> Al Qaeda or Islamist movements in their
indictments against the West. The Jews of "The Protocols," in their
determination to dissolve national boundaries in pursuit of power and
profit, could also as easily be associated with globalization, inspiring
anti-Americanism as much as anti-Semitism. "The Protocols" feeds into a wide
variety of resentments and longings for a premodern world.
But the really astonishing thing is this: These Jews, in secretly planning
to overturn the very forces of liberalism and modernity they have just
created are doing just what their anti-Semitic nemeses desire. That is not
the only point of agreement. Look at the Jews' approach in "The Protocols."
They believe in absolute power. They will brook no opposition. They will use
the rights and values of liberalism to undermine it, exploiting its
weaknesses. They will be patient and ruthless and unrelenting.
Hitler once said he used similar techniques for similar ends. He did. So do
the Islamists. If "The Protocols" has found such resonance among
anti-Semites across the world, it is partly because, in its villainous Jews,
they see images of what they yearn to be.
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