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ABSTRACT
This article focuses on the ways in which concepts and tropes of the Holocaust are used as political instruments in a part of the world that was not immediately affected by its events. It reviews the use of these concepts in selected cases from areas of political conflict in South Korea, Malaysia, and China and compares them with a view to finding a common denominator specific to these Asian countries. The article questions the futility of the current attempt to regulate definitions of antisemitism and its detachment from the realities of politics and academic and public discourse, especially in Asia. Finally, it demonstrates that the semantics of the Holocaust in the selected cases seldom signify anti-Jewish sentiment but are used for other rhetorical and political purposes.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1. Schilling, “Jewish Seoul.”
2. An exception is China, which had a Jewish community in Kaifeng and communities of the Jewish diaspora in Harbin and Shanghai. See Song “Reflections on Chinese Jewish Studies.”
3. Zelcer-Lavid and Evron, “East-West Asia Relations,” 194–195.
4. Smith Finley, “Now We Don’t Talk Anymore.”
5. Moses, “The Holocaust and World History,” 272.
6. Ibid., 72.
7. Blatman, “Holocaust Scholarship,” 21.
8. Fifield, “North Korea’s Prisons.”
9. “North Korea Holocaust Exhibition,” Naver, April 15, Citation2005, https://blog.naver.com/rmaahtkwk888/20011722668. [Korean]
10. Kim, Song-dong, “North Korean Holocaust,” Naver, February 7, Citation2012, https://blog.naver.com/vkfks0732/220678547908 [Korean]; and Young, “Will the Republic of Korea Go to Holocaust?” https://cafe.naver.com/grace0406/88658. [Korean]
11. Choi, “Activist Calls.”
12. Kim, “200 Students.”
13. Kang, “Abe.”
14. Jang, “The Gwangju Uprising.”
15. Hong, “Why We Must Testify.”
16. Dooley, “Eradicate the Tumours.”
17. Pak, “Establishment of a Law”; and Sang-Hun, “Historical Distortions.”
18. Lee, “Different Messages.”
19. This comparison was elaborated in Chirot, “Conflicting Identities”, 7, 26, and in Reid, “Entrepreneurial Minorities,” 34; and Benda and Larkin, The World of Southeast Asia, 204–211.
20. Bussey, “A Conversation,” 22–23 mins.
21. Ainslie, Antisemitism in Contemporary Malaysia, 5, 7, 12. “Mahathir’s influential beliefs can instead be connected to a much wider outlook of biological and sociological views about race and racial character in general rather than a specific anti-Jewish bias. His anti-Jewish rhetoric is also far more entwined with his very unapologetic anti-Israel stance than with an expression of a fundamentally anti-Semitic outlook. (…) Indeed, Mahathir was ready to move forward with dialogue with Israel after the Oslo Accords, contrary to local fundamentalist opposition,” Ibid., 27.
22. Mohamad, The Malay Dilemma, x.
23. Bussey, “A Conversation,” 28–29 min.
24. Yegar, “Malaysia.”
25. New York Times, “Malaysian Dismisses Loss”; and Kessler, “A Malay Diaspora,” 24.
26. The 8th Conference of Heads of State or Government of the Non-Aligned Movement in Harare, Zimbabwe, September 1, 1986. https://bit.ly/2UCJjkE: ‘Nazi oppression of Jews have taught them nothing. If at all it has transformed the Jews into the very monsters that they condemn so roundly in their propaganda materials. They have been apt pupils of the late Doctor Goebbels.’
27. Yegar, “Malaysia.”
28. Mydans, “Malaysian Premier.”
29. Mohamad, “Mahatir’s Full Speech.”
30. Malay Mail, “In Poem”; and Firdaws, “Netizens Not Amused.”
31. Abidin, “Hitler itu mungkin.”
32. Malaysia Today, “Ex-Perlis Mufti.”
33. See, for example, Hadler, “Translations of Antisemitism.”
34. Benda and Larkin, The World of Southeast Asia, 204–211.
35. See Zhang, “The Nanjing Massacre.”
36. See Fiskesjö, “How Beijing”; Steger, “On Xinjiang”; and Uighur Times, “China’s Systematic Persecution.”
37. See Chang, The Rape of Nanking.
38. ‘Asian Holocaust,’ on the other hand, relates to Japanese atrocities in Asia during World War II. See Zhao and Hoge, “Countering Textbook Distortion,” 424.
39. Timmermans, “Holocaust Studies,” 185.
40. Ibid., 188.
41. MacDonald, “Forgetting and Denying,” 408.
42. Song, “Reflections on Chinese Jewish Studies,” 226.
43. Ibid., 419.
44. Ibid., 420–421.
45. South China Morning Post, “Why the Nanking Massacre.”
46. Zenz, “Thoroughly Reforming Them,” 102.
47. See note 36 above.
48. For “Xinjiang Auschwitz” picture, see https://camp-album.com/i-know-that-the-world-will-say-never-again-when-the-last-uyghur-is-killed/ ; and “Never Again,” https://twitter.com/UyghurCartoons/status/1319942251267657733/photo/1.
49. Dooley, “Eradicate the Tumours”; and Zenz, Sterilisations, IUDs, 2–3.
50. Roberts, “The Biopolitics,” 251.
51. Ibid., 234.
52. Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 256.
53. Zenz, “Thoroughly Reforming Them,” 114–115.
54. Fiskesjö, “How Beijing.”
55. See European Parliament Resolution 2020/2913(RSP), “Resolution on Forced Labour and the Situation of the Uyghurs in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.” December 15, Citation2020, https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/B-9-2020-0435_EN.html
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Alon Levkowitz
Alon Levkowitz is a Senior Lecturer in the Asian Studies track at the Multidisciplinary Studies Program in Bar-Ilan University and a Senior Research Associate at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies.
Ran Shauli
Ran Shauli is a Lecturer at the Asian Studies track at the Multidisciplinary Studies Program at Bar-Ilan University, and a Research Fellow at the Truman Institute, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Michal Zelcer-Lavid
Michal Zelcer-Lavid is a Lecturer in the Asian Studies track at the Multidisciplinary Studies Program at Bar-Ilan University.