[Opinion] Jewish Parallels

Leaders possessed by nationalism abetted the Jewish War of Resistance against Rome, which lasted for seven years starting in AD 67. The give-and-take battle in Jerusalem killed 1.1 million people in five months. The sanctuary of Jerusalem was destroyed by fire and the Jews roamed the world for the next two millennium. Recently, author Lee Mun-yeol lamented that “the policy of those Jewish leaders who intended to free the people from oppression from Rome but actually drove them to death resembles the current situation of Korea.”

“The state-led nationalism and populism that suck in everything from nation to ideology were foam-flecked.” This is how writer Lee described the situation in Korea after the presidential election in 2002 in his tetralogy novel, Homo Exedutans, that he published serially in a monthly literature magazine called The World Literature. “The military force is left without an enemy,” he wrote through the mouths of the characters in the novel. He also wrote “The civil movement became the most effective means for office hunting, and the government posts were turned exclusive for the 386 generation “Red Guards” who are blind for the government post.” Describing the Sunshine policy, he wrote, “[They] offered hundreds of millions of dollars to North Korea that possess the asymmetric force of a nuclear weapon, without knowing where the money might be headed, boasting of an economic superiority that is no more than a sand-built castle.”

Lee also made sarcastic descriptions about former South Korean president Kim Dae Jung (DJ) and the North Korean leader Kim Jong Il. Like Johan and Simon who were the leaders of the two Jewish sects during the battle of Jerusalem, “[DJ] boldly deports himself like a king and sticks his nose into every business” and “[Kim Jong Il] is teasing Rome with what small amount of arms it robbed of the Roman army.” He is pointing out that DJ misled the South Koreans with the vacant slogan of “being one nation” and the North Korean leader Kim is driving the nation towards extinction by playing with nuclear fire.

“The abject devastation to the Jews during the Jewish war was derived more from the internal conflict between the pro-war and pro-peace groups, and the struggle for power within the pro-war group than from the exploitation and slaughters by the Roman force,” wrote the Jewish historian Josephus. Would the South-South struggle born from the Sunshine policy be known by history as an “internal struggle more frightening than the external winds?”

Lee Dong-kwan, Editorial Writer, dklee@donga.com