Due to the serious nature of this discussion, I thought it best to discuss the late, great Will Eisner's last work,
The Plot: The Secret Story of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion in the Deep Thoughts forum. The link I have provided is to Amazon.com, where some very well written reveiws can be found.
Will Eisner spent the last twenty years of his life researching information for this book. He uses the art of the graphic novel to tell the story behind the
Protocols. It is a fascinating tale. Without delving into the story, I will simply say that the
Protocols have been proven to be a forgery of another work that had absolutely nothing to do with Jews at all. It was Russian anti-Semitism that created the
Protocols, which were proven to be forgeries on the 1920s.
Yet the
Protocols will not die. No matter how damning the evidence is against them, people still believe the lie to be true.
Will Eisner could not understand why people continued to believe in them. Sure, it's easy to single out a minority to hate for all of life's problems, but something that is clearly false?
Now, even people who admit the
Protocols are a forgery of lies say that the
Protocols still express what the Jew is thinking.
Does that make sense to anyone?
Will Eisner hoped that by telling the story visually, through the graphic novel, he could get the truth out to the masses in a way that no one would be able to deny.
There is a large part of this book where Eisner lines up parts of the
Protocols to the book it was forged from, Maurice Joly's
Dialogue in Hell. It is an eye-opening experiance to see how the forger, Mathieu Golovinski, created the lie that is the
Protocols. Some people have criticized this method, but the reader reviews I read all highly praised it. And so do I. The only way to see the truth behind the forgery is to see it in black and white.
And yet, I am not sure how much of an impact this book will have. I picked
The Plot up at Borders this past Friday. It was located in the Jewish History section. On the top shelf. Somehow, I don't think that was where Will Eisner envisioned this book being placed. He wrote and drew a graphic novel, and I can only assume that he meant for it to be sold next to the other graphic novels, in the Graphic Novel section of the store.
But that's not where it was located.
So, unless this book becomes mandatory reading in schools, it will probably remain largely unknown to the public.
I cannot allow that to happen. So here, at the RKMBs, I have an opportunity to share this great work with all of you. I ask all of you to obtain a copy of this book, either by purchasing it, or by going to the library. I ask you to read it, and to discuss it with your friends. I ask you, if you do purchase it, to pass it around like you would any great comic book or trade paperback. I believe that is what Will Eisner intended when he began working on this project, and that is the best way to honor his memory, and to thank him for all of his hard work in helping to create a genre of story telling that has brought many different cultures together.
I don't understand why people need to hate. I don't understand why the masses are so easily lied to. I don't understand how anyone could find it within them to create something so deadly, as the
Protocols have been, and continue to be.
In the Islamic world, the
Protocols may well be second only to the Koran. Millions of people actually believe the lie to be true. And those same people believe similar lies about the non-Islamic world.
I don't think anyone understands how people can be brought up to hate like that, but many are.
And now that I've gone on to the point where I may be talking in circles, I open the thread to all of you. Please, share your thoughts on this issue, and any other issues related to this topic.
While we may not be able to come up with an answer, maybe we can try to come up with a better understanding of the world around us.
