In five years the construction of a canal will cut our land into two. And I’m sure that Mr. Lee is going to privatize all the public enterprises, such as water, electricity, insurance, gas, highway and so on. I dare to say that he is the one who can willingly sell my country for his self-interest. Due to the fucking rat out of the Blue House, moreover, the fear of cow eat cow prevails in the whole country and Korea is turning into a dog eat dog world.

Mr. Lee and his government are out of control now. Mr. Lee’s insane policy to import poisonous beef from the United States has instigated us to congregate together, light candles, and march in the street for 25 days. His government and many media still controlled by him would posit people in the street as reds or anti-government forces. The government has arrested and interrogated hundreds of people to find out wirepuller, whom we don’t have. However, we know that it is the rat out of the Blue House that leads us to march in the street with candle light in one hand and paper in the other in order to prevent pest from spreading in the whole country. We are not as stupid as Mr. Lee and his government. We are smart enough to see what is right and what is wrong or what we must do and what we must not do.

To mislead us into breaking up the original intention to protect our right from the bastard, his government and some media are also asserting that anti-American feelings will soar among Korean very soon. However, what we are angry at is not the U.S. government but his policies only beneficial to him and the haves. That is why we are shouting desperately for his impeachment, even bleeding in the street. The armed police in the street of Seoul kicked the unarmed marching people, beat them with shields and sticks, and shot the high pressure water right into them. Nevertheless, many Korean still don’t know what is happening in Seoul because the rat is controlling most of media to make us blind, deaf, dumb, and numb.

Just like people in the street, our democracy is seriously attacked, blemished, and ruined by the bastard. We want to keep our land and restore our democracy that we attained from a military dictatorship. While I watched the live broadcasting of protest every night, I have been ashamed of the fact that I was a coward agitator only gaggling on the critical awareness. And I also felt the unbearable patriotism for the first time, which led me to the street of Seoul Last Friday. I lighted my candle at the Daejeon Station again. I’m still ashamed, tired, and enraged. But I’m not scared. I’m very proud of people who are struggling against water-cannons, violent police, and silent media in the street now.

I couldn’t hesitate any more to reveal Mr. Lee’s arrogant, disgusting, and threatening machinations. I uploaded the video that I made at YouTube. The picture quality is not that good. Please distribute the url (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtjKzZpJvLQ) to your acquaintances if you think it is worthwhile.

The great end of life is not knowledge but action, as Huxley mentioned. For this, I will keep my light on until we get back our democracy.

유태인 학살에 대한 책들, 장편영화, 또는 다큐멘터리를 통해서 받은 강렬한 충격에도 불구하고, 만화를 이용한 슈피겔만의 Maus도 충분히 자극적이다. 그러나 유태인과 나치를 각각 쥐와 고양이로 이분법으로 나누어 묘사하는 슈피겔만의 방식은 지독하게 역겹다. 이것은 북한을 돼지와 늑대의 나라로 각인되도록 나를 세뇌했던 80년대의 반공교육의 탓일지도 모른다. 그러나 얼마나 단순하고 명료한가? 선과 악 두가지만 존재하는 것이다. 10% 미만의 나치가 유태인에게 그랬던 것처럼, 2~3%의 유태인에 의해서 움직이는 미국에서 Maus가 퓰리처상을 받지 못할 이유는 전혀 없다.

왜 유태인의 학살에 대해서 우리가 동정해 하면서도 팔레스타인의 고통에는 그렇게 무관심할 수 밖에 없었을까? 팔레스타인의 한 여성은 다음과 같이 이야기한다.

Have you seen our life here? Have you been to the camps? With the water dripping inside in winter? The people in America might know about the problems here, but they’re on the side of those with the money, and the Palestinians have no money. Why did the U.S. react to strongly to Kuwait? And if you’re one of the one-in-ten or one-in-a-hundred journalists who wants to tell the truth about Palestine, it won’t get printed because the Jews own the newspaper, they own everything in America. The Managers and bosses in America are all Jewish. (Palestine, p. 126)

Palestine에서의 사코는 냉정함을 유지하려고 노력한다. 슈피겔만처럼 감정적이지 않다. 더욱 사실에 가깝게 접근하려는 의지를 볼 수 있다. 사코는 Palestine을 통해서 슈피겔만의 쥐들은 결국 고양이임을 증명한다. 슬프지만 통쾌하다. 섬뜩하지만 가치있다. 이것이 Palestine을 반드시 읽어야 하는 이유인 동시에, 슈피겔만의 Maus가 설득력을 상실하는 이유이다. 유태인을, 이스라엘을, 미국을, 그리고 팔레스타인과 그 주변국을 다시 한번 되짚어 볼 필요가 있다.

다음은 이스라엘과 관련해서 잘 알려지지 않은 사실이다.

30 Little Known Facts About Israel

1. Did you know that non-Jewish Israelis cannot buy or lease land in Israel? A Jew from any country in the world is guaranteed citizenship in Israel, while the Palestinians who have been there for centuries are oppressed and persecuted.

2. Did you know that instead of sewing an insignia on clothing to distinguish race (like the Germans did to the Jews before WW2), Palestinian license plates in Israel are color coded to distinguish Jews from non-Jews?

3. Did you know that East Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza, and the Golan Heights are all considered by the entire world community, including the United States and the United Nations, to be occupied territory and NOT part of the State of Israel?

4. Did you know that Israel allots 85% of the water resources for Jews, and the remaining 15% is divided among all Palestinians in the territories? For example in Hebron, 85% of the water is set aside for about 400 Jewish settlers, while the remaining 15% is distributed among Hebron’s 120, 000 Palestinians?

5. Did you know that the United States awards Israel $5 billion in aid each year from American tax dollars?

6. Did you know that US aid to Israel ($1.8 billion annually in military aid alone) exceeds the aid the US grants to the entire African continent? This aid is used both to buy American weaponry and to buy arms made in Israel.

7. Did you know that Israel is awaiting an additional $4 billion worth of American military hardware, including new F-16s and Apache and Blackhawk helicopters. As Israel’s main ally and supporter internationally, the United States is committed to maintaining the Jewish state’s “qualitative edge” in weapons over its neighbours.

8. Did you know that the U.S. administration has notified Congress on numerous occasions that Israel has violated the rules on how US-supplied weapons are used? (In 1978, 1979 and 1982 during fighting in Lebanon, and once after Israel’s bombing of an Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981.)

9. Did you know that Israel is the only country in the Middle East that refuses to sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and bars international inspections from its sites?

10. Did you know that high-ranking military officers in the Israeli Defence Forces have admitted publicly that unarmed prisoners of war have been summarily executed by the Israeli forces?

11. Did you know that Israel blew up an American diplomatic facility in Egypt and attacked a US warship in international waters (the USS Liberty), killing 33 and wounding 177 American sailors and the US did nothing about it? (Imagine if an Islamic country like Iraq did this!)

12. Did you know that Israel stands in defiance of 69 United Nations Security Council Resolutions?

13. Did you know that Israel is explicitly dedicated to the policy of maintaining a distinct Jewish character?

14. Did you know that Israel’s current Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, was found by an Israeli court to be “personally and directly responsible” for the Sabra and Shatilla massacre in Lebanon where more than a thousand innocent Palestinian men, women, and children were axed to death or lined up and shot in cold blood?

15. Did you know that on May 20, 1990, a group of unarmed Palestinian labourers were lined up and murdered by an Israeli solider as they sat waiting for transportation back to Gaza? The terrified labourers who gathered in an area of southern Israel known as Rishon Lezion (known to Palestinians by its Arabic name Oyon Qara) handed their ID cards to the Israeli soldier. The soldiers ordered the distressed labourers to kneel down and face the ground and unexpectedly showered them with a barrage of bullets, killing seven and wounding many others. Needless to say, the soldier was not charged with any crime.

16. Did you know that until as recently as 1988, Israelis were permitted to run “Jews Only” job ads?

17. Did you know that the Israeli Foreign Ministry pays six US public relations firms to promote a “positive image” of Israel to the American public?

18. Did you know that Sharon’s coalition government includes a party–Molodet–which advocates ethnic cleansing by openly calling for the forced expulsion of all Palestinians from the occupied territories?

19. Did you know that recently-declassified documents indicate that David Ben-Gurion approved of the forced expulsion of Arabs from all Palestinian territory in 1948?

20. Did you know that the former chief rabbi of Israel, Rabbi Ovadia Yossef, who is also a founder and spiritual leader of the religious Shas party (Israel’s third largest political party) openly advocates a ‘Final Solution’ to annihilate the Palestinians? Speaking at the widely broadcast sermon marking the last Passover, he declared of the Palestinians: “The Lord shall return their deeds on their own heads, waste their seed and exterminate them, devastate them and vanish them from this world. It is forbidden to be merciful to them. You must send missiles to them and annihilate them. They are evil and damnable.”

21. Did you know that Palestinian refugees make up the largest portion of the refugee population in the world?

22. Did you know that Palestinian Christians are considered the “living stones” of Christianity because they are the direct descendants of the disciples of Jesus Christ? And the Palestinian Christians stand united with their Muslim brethren in the struggle against the Israeli occupation.

23. Did you know that despite a ban on torture by Israel’s High Court of Justice, torture has continued unabated by Shin Bet interrogators on Palestinian prisoners?

24. Did you know that despite every Israeli attempt to disrupt Palestinian education, Palestinians have the highest ratio of PhDs per capita in the world?

25. Did you know that the right of self-determination is guaranteed to every human being under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights [December, 1948], yet Palestinians were/are expected to negotiate for this right under the Oslo Accords?

26. Did you know that despite what is widely perpetuated and written in the history books that the Arabs attacked Israel in the 1967 war, it was Israel who attacked the Arab countries first, capturing Jerusalem and the West Bank, and called the attack a pre-emptive strike?

27. Did you know that, as an occupying power, Israel has a particular responsibility under the Geneva Conventions to protect Palestinian civilians?

28. Did you know that, despite Ariel Sharon’s public call for a unilateral ceasefire, Israeli soldiers have not stopped shooting, killing or bulldozing Palestinian homes? The most recent example of this is the murder of three innocent women who were shot by an Israeli tank as they sat in their tent!

29. Did you know that the Zionists have been trying to destroy Masjid al-Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock for the last 50 years by digging underground tunnels beneath the sites to weaken its foundation causing it to collapse?

30. Nelson Mandela called the Israeli government an apartheid regime, just like South Africa used to be.

 출처: From Mission Islam

너가 언급한 이야기에 나 또한 충분히 동감한다. 일차적인 원인은 문제를 일으킨 범법자들이라는 사실과 그들을 어떠한 방법으로든지 교화시켜야 한다는 것 또한 사실이야. 하지만 지금과 같은 현대사회에서 무엇보다도 절실하게 필요한 것은 그것들이 복잡하게 얽혀져 있는 고리들을 하나씩 풀어내는 것이 우선시 되어야 한다고 생각한다. 다시 말하자면, 우리에게 처한 문제들을 얼마나 다원적인 시각에서 바라보고 처리하려고 노력하느냐 또한 중요하단 말이지.

내 글의 요지는 - 자신들이 범한 행동에 대한 댓가를 받는 것은 당연하지만 - 그들에게 인권의 이름을 앞세워 면죄부를 주자는 것이라기 보다는, 동일한 행위의 발생률을 최대한 줄일 수 있는 방법들을 강구해서 원천적으로 그러한 행동들을 처음부터 봉쇄해야 한다는 데에 있다. 그러나 법이라는 게 그 출발부터 범죄의 발단을 예상하고 만들어 놓은 것이기 때문에, 사람들을 심리적으로 압박하는 도구로 활용될 수도 있다는 사실에 주목해야 한다. 그 압박의 수단이 사람의 육체적, 심리적 충동을 능가할 수 없다는 것을 또한 생각해 보면, 그것이 그렇게 강력한 힘을 갖고 있다고 생각하지 않는다. 내가 한대 맞았으니까, 너도 한대 맞아야 한다는 식의 논리는 근시안적으로 문제를 해결하는 것 밖에 되지 않으며, 이것은 극단적으로 생각하면 복수나 앙갚음 따위로도 여겨질 수 있음을 생각해야 한다.

물론 미디어 이외에도 많은 문제의 원인이 있겠지만, 내가 미디어를 들먹거린 이유도 바로 여기에 있다. 문제의 근원을 행동 유발자 자체에서만 찾아내서 해결하려는 시도보다는, 사회와 사람간에 얽혀져서 자극하고 충동질하는 요인들을 찾아내려는 노력이 필요하지 않을까 생각해 본다.

Originally written at 10:36 AM on March 25, 2006

어쨌거나 제 생각은 그래요. 위에 나열된 고문도구들은 다분히 원시적이고 일차원적인 해결책이라고 생각합니다. 결국 “이에는 이, 눈에는 눈”으로 해결해 보자는 건데. 이러한 고문도구들이 얼마나 실효성을 거둘수 있을런지는 모르겠네요. 인권문제는 차치하더라도 말입니다. 그렇다고 성폭력범들에게 면죄부를 주자는 이야기는 절대로 아닙니다. 제 개인적인 생각은 이러한 멍청한 고문도구보다는 차라리 격리 수용하는 편이 훨씬 낫다고 생각하는 바입니다.

그러나 근본적인 문제는 개인에게도 있겠지만, 하루종일 사람들을 자극하고 선동하는 미디어에게 커다란 책임이 있다고 생각합니다. 이러한 매체에 반복적으로 노출되어 있는 상태에서 모든 사람이 온순하거나 자제력을 갖고 있기를 기대하는 것은 어불성설입니다. 이미 사회는 미디어의 상업화와 그 커다란 힘에 의해서 지배되고 있습니다. 미디어가 쏘아대는 빛과 소리들은 사람들을 깊은 함정에 빠뜨리고 다시 그 웅덩이에서 빠져 나올 수 있는 밧줄을 던져주곤 합니다. 다시 말하자면, 현대사회를 살고 있는 사람들에게 모든 매체 자체는 병폐인 동시에 그것을 치유할 수 있는 치료제입니다. 끊임없이 순환하는 거죠.

결국 우리가 이렇게 싸이에서 논의하는 것 자체가 좋게 비춰질 수도 있겠지만, 그 근본적인 원인을 제거하는 데는 별 도움이 되지 못할 것이라고 생각합니다. 이미 미디어 자체가 만들어 놓은 덫과 그 덫을 끊어버릴 수 있는 도구를 쥐고 계속 반복적인 행위를 우리는 할 것이라는 것이 명백하기 때문입니다. 결국 우리는 이미 정해져 있는 틀안에서만 사유하게 되는 것입니다.

좀 더 많은 사람에게 미디어의 폭력성을 일깨우지 못 한다면, 위의 논제에 대한 근본적인 원인은 해결할 수 없습니다. 위에 열거된 고문도구가 인권을 침해한다면, 인간을 자극하고 선동하는 보이지 않는 미디어의 힘은 인권을 유린한다고 생각합니다.

Originally written at 00:19 AM on March 11, 2006

세상에서 가장 두려운 것은 우리를 은밀히 노예로 만드는 유혹이다. 이에 비하면, 폭력으로 통치하는 방법은 그다지 겁나지 않는다.

- 자발적 복종, Etienne de La Boetie

과거에는 3S (Screen, Sports, Sex) 라고 하여 정부가 주도적으로 국민의 귀와 눈과 입을 막기 위해서 국민들을 스포츠로 현혹하고 애국심을 강요했다. 국민을 집단적으로 조정하고, 정치로부터 멀리하게 하는데 이보다 더 좋은 방법이 있을까? 이제 정부가 일궈놓은 그 자리를 미디어와 국민들 스스로가 꿰어 차고 있다. 아주 자발적으로 말이다.

여느 때와는 달리 오늘 밤엔 거리에 차도 사람들도 없이 한산하다. 라디오에서마저 정규방송을 취소하고 연예인들을 대거 투입시켜 들을 권리마저 박탈시킨다. 두어시간의 말그대로 전국을 떠들썩하게 했던 특별 축구 중계를 마치고, 또 다시 월드컵 특별뉴스를 시작한다. 아마도 자신들이 무엇을 하는지도 모를 붉은 옷을 입은 어린 아이들과, 머리엔 뉴욕 양키즈 모자를 쓰고 붉은 티를 입은 청년과, 머리에 붉은 두건을 두른 중년의 아저씨, 모두 “대한민국”이라고 외친다. 때로는 인터뷰에서 “대한민국 국민으로 태어난게 자랑스럽다”라고 외친다. 그들을 “태극전사”라고 부른다. 그러나 태극전사는 없다. 그들이 외치는 꿈도 없다. 대한민국 국민은 고통스럽다. 이것이 현실이다.

나는 축구가 싫다. 축구에 미친 미디어도 대중적 광기도 싫다. 이러한 정기적인 집단적 최면행위는 스스로를 노예로 전락시킬 뿐이다.