| Title | : | The Plot: The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0393328600 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780393328608 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 160 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 2005 |
The Plot: The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion Reviews
-
Will Eisner at his best...dealing with the worst of subject matters. It is amazing to me how much damage and pain this hateful lie has inflicted on the Jewish people. The fact that anyone can believe the Protocols tells you everything you need to know; that hate has eclipsed reason - and that there are always those who will cast the long shadow anti-Semitism when reason is eclipsed.
-
This was Will Eisner's last graphic novel - or book of sequential art; in it, he presents the evidence that has debunked the fraud of the racist pamphlet that fueled antisemitism in Europe - and later worldwide.
I'd heard about the "Protocols" but didn't know much about it until I read Eisner's account - I knew the racist tract was part of the racist European mindset that led to World War II - this easy-to-understand graphic art telling of the story of the publication, is probably the best way to understand the complex background of the evil work. It turns out that the "Protocols" was hatched by conservative/reactionary elements in Russia, hoping to prop up the repressive Tsarist regime by blaming the Jews for all of Russia's woes. It was secretly distributed/published so that it's authorship would not immediately be traceable to elements of the Tsar's secret police. It supposedly represented the proceedings of a meeting of Jews, but the work is actually based on an older book by a Frenchman which criticized Louis Napoleon, by likening him to Machiavelli. In the "Protocols" Machiavelli is transformed into a Jew, or the Jew.
Obviously, there had been antisemitism in Europe for centuries - the "Protocols" didn't start the racism in Europe. But the mysterious appearance of the work, caused people to think that this work was actually an account smuggled out of a secret meeting, which outlined the Jews' plans to take over the world - seemed "plausible" or "authoritative" and people, many of whom were already antisemitic or prejudiced to begin with - then seized on the phony tract as "proof" of their fears/prejudices. Unfortunately, the book sparked pogroms in Russia which led to the deaths of thousands of Jews, and was considered factual by Hitler.
The context of the book - it was written at the time of the Dreyfus affair in France - explains why its appearance was so influential, and why the book became a best-seller, second only to sales of the Bible. Reactionary forces identified Jews with modernity, capitalism, also socialism, also the Bolsheviks - and this pamphlet was perfect to bolster their contentions of a world-wide Jewish conspiracy. Antisemitism was intense in France when Dreyfus was falsely accused of revealing state secrets to the Germans - so the book was ammunition for the virulent anti-Dreyfus people and the reactionaries, who wished to keep the ancien regime in place, rather than allow more social mixing, and mobility. All "isms" - socialism, capitalism, communism, globalism, internationalism - could be blamed on the Jews, if the Jews' purpose was a Jewish takeover of the world. You can still see echoes of these reactionary beliefs today - perhaps no longer couched in purely antisemitic terms, but nonetheless the reaction against modernity, globalization, and so forth, is quite similar to the reaction against modernity, internationalism, democracy that was taking place in the waning years of Tsarist rule in Russia, just before the Russian Revolution.
Unfortunately, the racist tract never went out of print somewhere in the world in dozens of translations, since the time it was put together by a Russian secret police agent in the late 19th Century, and foolish people continue to be duped in reading it and thinking it actually represents the blueprint - somehow smuggled out of a mysterious meeting - for Jewish world domination. Unfortunately, it is people that cannot find answers otherwise, who may turn to these lies as the truth, and use them to justify all sorts of bad acts - we know there is still antisemitism today in France, and in some other countries Jews still sometimes have a hard time. Even if you show people the book was bunkum, written to defame the Jews and thus elevate the Tsar as the protector of the "pure" Russians, some will still see the book as somehow "confirming" what they always thought or suspected, they will think it's authentic. This is very sad - but whether or not people actually read the book, we know that antisemitism is a reality, prejudice is a reality. The only thing we can do is disabuse people of their erroneous impressions if and when we come across them. This book is nothing but lies - sadly, it was the rampant antisemitism in France at the time of the Dreyfus trial, that caused Herzl to advocate for the departure of the Jews from Europe and resettlement in the Holy Land. The antisemitism was there, before the book was widely distributed - the phony, defamatory book probably fueled it even more. Unfortunately, it probably also fed the madness in Germany that led to WWII.
This book is really well-done, beautifully drawn and written - despite the dreadful subject. The author died shortly after it was published - it's a kind of memorial to the originator of the graphic novel. He does achieve clarity in this book, the reader does understand exactly what happened, why this phony PR was written and who it benefited (the reactionaries at the Tsar's court vs. the modernizers, like Witte). The book "served its purpose" in boosting the reactionaries, and possibly enhancing the inept and cruel Tsar's standing - but then, like an out-of-control evil cloud, the book began appearing worldwide, translated in many different languages, making a buck for unscrupulous publishers of the drivel, which simply fed peoples' prejudice.
I recommend this book to anyone who wishes to find out about this evil pamphlet - it clearly explains what happened, why the pamphlet was produced, the context of the Dreyfus trial, and so forth. Remember: None of it was real; it was written by a Tsarist police agent to cast blame on the Jews and thus boost the conservative/reactionaries/landed gentry etc. It was actually plagiarized from an earlier book written in France which likened the French emperor Louis Napoleon to Machiavelli. The Jews, in the "Protocols" were simply/falsely given the part of Machiavelli in the plagiarized bogus work. -
I read this book because Umberto Eco mentioned it in a collection of his essays. The idea of a leading thinker like Eco writing the introduction to a non-fiction graphic novel intrigued me. I was not disappointed.
Eisner took on the story of "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion," deconstructing its origins, and detailing the insidious ends to which it has been utilized. I had never heard of this document before reading The Davinci Code. It was one of the elements that Dan Brown used to stir people up, and he certainly succeeded in doing that.
After reading Eisner, I have no doubt that the "The Protocols" is a fraud, and a nasty example of antisemitism. -
Well, that was quick.
I thought this was going to be my book for tonight, maybe finish it tomorrow. Instead, I'm writing down some thoughts so I can start a new one and stay up a little longer. Still, it was a good read-- at least as good as a comic book about one of the most insidious plots in the history of the world can be.
Obviously, I don't mean the plot of the Protocols themselves. I've known those to be a fake for as long as I've known they existed.
The Plot The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion isn't even the first book I've read on the subject, though it is the best. I read Eco's
The Prague Cemetery and found it repetitive and boring, though not without humor and clever devices. Still, I read it because I'm a fan of Eco, and I was interested in the premise. The latter is what led me to this book.
I wasn't aware of antisemitism until I married my wife. Actually, it was years after that I realized the extent of hatred people have for Jews. My wife is Jewish, but didn't really become an active Jew until we moved here to Columbia, South Carolina. Before you laugh, know that Charleston, just an hour or so south, is home to the oldest, continuous Reform congregation in the US. There's a strong Jewish connection. There's also a strong redneck connection, and a (seemingly requisite) history of antisemitism. Sadly, it is probably no worse than anywhere else in the country.
So as my wife became more active in her temple, I learned why there are door chimes that ring whenever someone enters a synagogue: Jewish congregants and temple workers need at all times to know when someone enters the building. Down the street, the gigantic Baptist church hires a cop or two every Sunday to direct traffic. Each time my wife's temple has an event, or the conservative synagogue down the street holds a community service, they hire cops, too. Only in addition to the uniformed officers, they get an undercover detective or two. Not because they're paranoid, but because of tracks like The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
Someday, if i'm lucky enough to have children, they will be Jews. And there will be plenty of people in the world who will hate them for that simple fact. What makes this graphic novel so powerful is not the actual quality of it-- the dialog sounds like an infomercial at times-- but that it seeks to un-do the damage this tract started a century ago. I am doubtful it will, but here's hoping. What the book makes very clear toward the end is that people keep believing in the Protocols because they want to. It's depressing. -
Will Eisner was one of the most influential graphic artists of the 20th century. He pioneered the graphic novel form, and his life partially inspired Michael Chabon's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. Sadly, Eisner passed away in January, but not before he finished what might be his finest effort. The Plot uncovers the origins of the most infamous and most inflammatory anti-Semitic documents of all time. Originally published in Russia in 1905, The Protocols have been used to justify oppression and even obliteration of Jews by Tsar Nicholas II, Henry Ford, Adolf Hitler, present-day Arabs, white supremacists, and many others. All this despite the fact that the document was a hoax. The Protocols tells the story of a purported Jewish conspiracy to control the world. The hoax was first revealed by the Times of London in 1921 and on many more occasions, yet the damaging articles are currently in print in many languages and are used by hate groups throughout the world as an illustration of the "Jewish menace." This exquisitely rendered graphic novel is divided into two sections. The opening two-thirds recounts the history and events surrounding The Protocols, including detailed evidence of the hoax. The latter part follows Eisner as he researches and uncovers the full origins of what Umberto Eco in his introduction dubs "The Big Lie." The novel concludes with visions of what The Protocols means in our contemporary world. It's not pretty. Eisner once again demonstrates the power of the graphic form in his interpretation of this controversial and disturbing aspect of history. In his afterword, historian Stephen Eric Bronner describes The Plot as "a fitting legacy [to] a long and distinguished career." I couldn't agree more.
(This review originally appeared in The Austin Chronicle, June 10, 2005.)
Link: [
http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyroba...] -
This is the last work of the famous cartoonist Will Eisner. What this work is about is no laughing matter and is more a tragedy than a comic, as the forward mentioned. This graphic novel is about an alleged secret document that supposedly proved a secret agenda and plan by Jewish leaders to take over the world. This document, called the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, has been perpetuated for decades by various group of people with varying agendas but whom all unite under the banner of anti-Semitism. Although repeatedly proven as a fraud in scholarly sources unfortunately a lot of these evidences against the document have been as accessible for most common people. This Graphic Novel is Eisner’s contribution to combat against the propaganda. I think Eisner understood the power of the medium in reaching the masses through Graphic Novel which is more mainstream for our society than academic works. And yet as the Graphic Novel approaches the end Eisner himself shows his awareness that some will be convinced no matter what the evidence is because they have already made up their mind as to what to believe.
Through this book I learned that Mathieu Golovinski was the source of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Golovinski was a Russian forger and plagiarizer working for the Russian Secret Police. He has spent a portion of his childhood in France and was thus an asset for the Russians to use to try to doctor a false document that allegedly showed a plot of Jews wanting to take over the world. This was originally planted in French newspaper and then used by Golovinski handlers to pressure the Tsar of Russia against modernizing policies. Unfortunately The Protocols went on to have a larger life of its own.
Golovniski plagiarized heavily from a French writer name Marcie Joly who wrote a book titled The Dialogue in Hell Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu that was originally a literary piece critical of Napoleon. I appreciate that though this is a Graphic Novel it was serious enough of a topic that Eisner presented a side by side comparision between the works for the readers to come to their own conclusion that The Protocols was plagerized. I appreciated the fact that this Graphic Novel had “end notes” to show where one can find the original source of the quotation!
This Graphic Novel tells the story of how a Russian séances name Sergius Nilus who was a competitor to Rasputin published in his books The Protocol to attack the Jews. This helped spread the malicious use of The Protocol. The book also show how the Nazis, the Soviets, the Klu Klux Klan, Marxists and Islamists also published the Protocol as being true even though it has been continuously refuted. In terms of the history of the document being debunked it began with a British foreign correspondent name Philip Graves when he was working at Constantinople in 1921 for “The Times” of London. Graves was sold a copy of The Dialogue in Hell Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu by a Russian Émigré who pointed out to him that The Protocol was a plagiary. Graves published his finding in the newspaper and also had the book authenticated and compared to other copies. As decades went on more problems were pointed out by others concerning the document. The Graphic Novel also show the author Will Eisner going about researching on The Protocol.
I enjoyed the graphic novel very much and found the introduction and afterwards helpful. The introduction was written by Umberto Eco who have written as a scholar exposing The Protocol, specifically with how it has stolen ideas from Eugene Sue’s Le Juif Errant that tells of the Jesuits plans and agenda. Stephen Eric Bronner, a political scientist at Rutgers also wrote the afterwards. It was helpful to see that the book also have a bibliography for further research; and I plan to study more on this topic in the near future. -
I found this title while reading reviews of
The Prague Cemetery. Reviewer Michael May noted it as a providing "context which makes The Prague Cemetery much more enjoyable". Wanting more information on The Protocols Of The Elders Of Zion, I thought I'd give this a try and I'm glad I did.
This book starts at the beginning when Maurice Joly writes a book intended to incite a revolt against Napoleon III. Jump forward 60 or so years, when Joly's forgotten book is used as a template to forge The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, an account of a "plot" for Jews to overtake the world.
The rest of the book is the history of the Protocols and shows that once a lie of hatred and fear is released into the world it cannot be stopped despite proof of forgery and falseness.
I agree with Michael May that this is a good pre-read for The Prague Cemetery. It's also a very good read on its own. -
A graphic-novel history of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, that terrible anti-Semitic pamphlet dreamed up by reactionary Russians at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries, The Plot attempts to uncover why such a document has been so frequently published and used, when its status as a forgery had been demonstrated again and again.
I know very little of comic books and graphic art, so the name Will Eisner does not have that magical ring for me, that it apparently has for some others, and I approached this book with no preconceived idea of the author/artist's skill. Judged solely on its merits as a story, I found The Plot to be an engaging narrative, up until the final section, in which passages from the Protocols and the earlier French work from which it was largely copied - Dialogues in Hell Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu - were presented side by side. While I can certainly understand why Eisner would choose to present these passages for the reader to compare (the Protocols seem lifted almost in their entirety), page after page of direct quotes felt like a rather obvious and cumbersome device, and interrupted the flow of the story.
That small criticism aside, I found this book to be both enlightening and disheartening, and can only applaud the author's attempt to present the truth to the world in such an accessible format. I know that I will be thinking of it for some time, wondering at the seeming indestructibility of anti-Semitism, and the ability of fiction to trump fact... -
Em jeito de preparação para a leitura do livro "O Cemitério de Praga", decidi conhecer a história da criação dos Protocolos dos Sábios de Sião, através desta novela gráfica.
Estes protocolos têm sido usados, desde a sua criação, para justificar diversos movimentos anti-semitas e foram difundidos como se tratasse de um documento autêntico, alegadamente escrito por sábios judeus. Na verdade, foram escritos em finais do século XIX, por um russo, e tinham como objectivo provar a existência de uma conspiração judaica contra a civilização cristã.
Foram ao longo dos tempos adoptados e difundidos por movimentos como o Partido Nazi, o Ku Klux Klan e o fundamentalismo islâmico.
Apesar de frequentemente serem denunciados como fraudulentos, continuam a ser publicados em todo o mundo, inspirando e justificando actos racistas e xenófobos.
Will Eisner, um dos pioneiros das novelas gráficas, decidiu utilizar este meio, que numa linguagem acessível seria mais capaz de chegar a um elevado número de leitores, para denunciar mais uma vez esta fraude que continua nos dias de hoje a ser utilizada como propaganda de movimentos de ódio contra a humanidade. -
Comic and graphic novel enthusiasts watch with great interest to see who will win the “Will Eisner” award each year. It was my pleasure to meet the creator of The Spirit and the theorist/interviewer who taught via his Shop Talk (a great collection of conversations between the greats of the graphic storytelling industry). My autographed copy of Shop Talk must have been inked while the late Will Eisner was on the verge of finishing The Plot: The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. The Plot is one of those serious graphic novels by Eisner, much like his Contract with God about which I shared a couple of years ago.
Eisner seems to have had trouble finishing this graphic presentation of the poorly-known history of this Anti-Semitic fraud for more than one reason. First, as you can imagine, it wasn’t a very commercial effort. It sure doesn’t fit the average comic book reader. After all, how many graphic novels have an introduction by the brilliant Italian critic/novelist, Umberto Eco? Second, it was difficult to actually finish the novel because every time it looked like the false assertions that this manifesto was written by the Jews was proven once and for all, it would arise again. One scene has Eisner himself telling a publisher that he is working on this graphic novel. The publisher replies, “Haw! Good luck! You’re dealing with an old vampire that will not die in spite of all the absolute proof of fraudulence.” (p. 113). Thinking it was over when Senators Dodd and Keating released a U.S. Senate Judiciary (subcommittee) Committee report declaring the protocols to be fake (p. 111) or when a Russian court declared it a forgery in 1993 (p. 113), much less the 1999 expose’ in L’Express proving that Mathieu Golovinski was the forger of the document as a propaganda tool for prodding the tsar into action against an alleged Jewish revolution, there was an edition printed in Louisiana and one in Lebanon in 2000, an edition distributed on campus in San Diego in 2001, and a television serial based on the book broadcast on Arab television. In November of 2001, Egyptian newsweekly “Roz-Al-Youssuf” praised the series for revealing the truth about Zionism. As of 2004, Eisner was still seeing editions of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion published and sold in bookstores around the world.
Another reason The Plot may not have found its niche among regular comic readers is that about one-fourth of the volume has side-by-side comparisons (in text boxes taking up almost 2/3 of each page) between Maurice Joly’s The Dialogue in Hell Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu of 1864 and The Protocols of the Elders of Zion circa 1902. The text is remarkably similar and the comic characters on each page note the obvious similarity. Joly wrote his book to compare Napoleon III with the counselor to the Borgias while Govolinski plagiarized the book to use Machiavelli’s phraseology to sound like a Jewish plan for action. For example, Joly had Machiavelli say, “The evil instinct in man is more powerful than the good. Man leans more toward the evil than the good; fear and power have more control over him than reason…” while Govolinski places the following words in the leaders of the World Congress of Jews: “It must be noted that men with bad instincts are more in number than the good, and therefore the best results in governing them are attained by violence and terrorizations, and not by academic discussions.” Joly has Machiavelli say, “All men seek power, and there is none who would not be an oppressor if he could.” Govolinski has the Protocols say, “Every man aims at power, everyone would like to become a dictator if only he could, …” (p. 73). The evidence is just as glaring on pages 74-89. It should be absolutely clear-cut to any thinking individual.
For me, I am glad I read this volume because I always associated The Protocols of the Elders of Zion with Hitler’s anti-Semitic crusade. It was amazing to see how this fraudulent piece of vicious rhetoric plagiarized from an earlier work was used in Russia, Germany, England (with no greater representative than Winston Churchill), the U.S. (under the auspices of Henry Ford who later apologized), Lebanon, and the current Arab states. Frankly, I wish everyone tempted to place evil intent in the minds of an entire race could be required to read this and put phrase against phrase against phrase. The Plot should be a classic. Unfortunately, it is usually gathering dust on library shelves if one can find it. -
For his last book, comics icon Will Eisner chose to do a non-fiction investigative report about a near-mythical, centuries-old forged document (The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,/) that was designed to implicate the Jews in all manner of nefarious schemes to control the world. The story is so fantastic it sounds like fiction, but the ripples the document set in motion in Russia and Germany have had devastating long-term effects, and continue to spread poison throughout the world.
Eisner builds a clear, thoughtful, coherent case. There are a few of the perpetrators of the fraud that are depicted as raving lunatics, but then again, they might have actually been that way. This is a very unusual political book from a man who obviously cared deeply about the subject, yet there's no sense that it was done out of some attempt to be "taken seriously" or to draw attention to himself. I wish that more writers can maintain this kind of grit and feistiness when they are in their eighties. -
I'm continually reading comics by illustrators who have won the Eisner award, I thought it was about time I read something by Will Eisner. Eisner spent roughly 20 years (off an on) working on this graphic novel. His goal was to explain the creation of The Protocols to a general public. I think this was a success. The Plot is a like a cliffs notes version of the story. Generally, I thought the dialog was overly simplified, making it a little silly. A Jr. High student could read this with no problems.
What was completely amazing about this book was the illustrations. Eisner doesn't delineate panels with frames, instead a shadow becomes the separation between panels—or a building, or a coat. This is very sophisticated and guides the reader through the pages with a fluidity that you don't usually find in comics. If the writing matched the illustrations in sophistication this book would be hands down 5 stars. -
without much ado, I would recommend this to anybody with at least a pinch of critical thinking in them... while I may not be an expert in graphic novel, I thoroughly appreciated this one... not only cos it shows the genesis of Protocols or mechanisms by which it is still spread... but also cos it reveals, for those who think into more depth in this, how thin a line can be between a real document and a document acting as a real one - people might still believe it, cos it "makes sense" or "it is possible" to them
not too different from how all those myths about Jews trying to control or take over the world are being made and spread, right? Rockefellers *cough cough*... while such things are not as overt as Protocols might be, they are equally dangerous
because, as Eisner points out, people need enemies when they cant get their sh*t together and get things done, and it is easier to blame it all on someone or something
NEVER AGAIN, I say -
کل ۱۲۸ صفحه کتاب تکرار یک گزاره و یک سوال بود:
۱- کتاب پروتکلهای یهود یک کتاب ساخته و پرداخته شده توسط برخی گروههای روسیه و این مطلب بارها و بارها در دادگاهها و.. اثبات شده.
۲- چرا با این که این مطلب بارها و بارها اثبات شده این کتاب هنوز منتشر میشه و طرفدار داره؟
راجه به گزاره نظر خاصی ندارم. کلی اسناد و مدارک آورده توش. جواب خود آیزنر به سوال اینه که یه عده برای رسیدن به منافع سیاسیشون لازم دارن که مردم را از یه گروه خاص بترسونن و کی بهتر از یهودیا. و البته یه جوری این جواب سادهانگارانه رو میده که معلومه خودش هم قانع نشده.
نقطه ضعف بزرگش این بود که یه جاهایی دقیقا انگار کتاب تاریخی پر سندی رو داشتی میخوندی که یه نفر گوشه برگههاش یه نقاشی متحرک کشیده. طبیعتا مهمترین نقطه قوت این کتاب طراحیهای خوب آیزنر بود و دیدن دوباره سبک خاصش تو کمیک کشیدن. آها این هم جالبه که این دفعه (با توجه به سابقهش) خیلی تقوا به خرج داده بود و هیچ نکته منشوری نداشت تو طراحیاش :) -
This last graphic volume from the influential pen of Will Eisner offers a powerful introduction to the history of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. A primer in the Protocols' origins and ongoing cultural significance enhances understanding of antisemitism, study of the Holocaust, and textual roots of intolerance more generally. Other reviews have shared plenty of detail for readers on goodreads, so let me just note that I found it edifying, engaging, and an important use of the author/artist's skills.
-
Tenho um amigo muito especial, mas dono de uma ingenuidade extrema. Ele parece uma pessoa fácil de impressionar e que normalmente acredita em coisas meio incomuns, mesmo quando são enunciadas de formas pouco convincentes. Ele raramente questiona a fonte de uma informação por mais incoerente que ela seja. Há alguns anos atrás, veio com um disquete de computador que, segundo disseram a ele, continha um documento de texto com uma articulação judaica para a conquista do mundo. Uau!!! De fato, quando abri o arquivo, tratava-se de uma cópia eletrônica dos Protocolos dos Sábios de Sião.
Os Protocolos são uma conspiração atribuída a sábios judeus que contam os detalhes de um plano para dominar o mundo. Na verdade, esse documento é uma falácia forjada pelo serviço secreto russo, em 1898, para convencer o tzar Nicolau II de que o movimento revolucionário que ameaçava a estabilidade política era parte de um plano judaico. A farsa foi encomendada a um inescrupuloso e ganancioso exilado russo que vivia na França, Mathieu Golovinski, que plagiou um livro intitulado “O Diálogo no Inferno entre Maquiavel e Montesquieu”, publicado em 1864. Golovinski fez uma verdadeira colagem dos textos, adaptando e acrescentando apenas alguns pontos para que servissem ao nefasto propósito de seus clientes. Eis a verdadeira origem dos Protocolos dos Sábios de Sião.
Essa é uma triste história contada por Will Eisner (1917-2005) no seu último álbum: “O Complô - A História Secreta dos Protocolos dos Sábios de Sião” – publicado aqui no Brasil pela Cia. das Letras. O autor dedicou anos em pesquisas a fim de levantar todos os dados do caso e seus desdobramentos. Ao acompanhar seu relato, apresentado magistralmente na linguagem dos quadrinhos, temos uma clara idéia dos danos que esse manuscrito exerceu, colaborando para fomentar ainda mais o anti-semitismo pelo mundo afora. Através da obra de Will Eisner ficamos sabendo que, de Henry Ford, que mais tarde se retratou quando se convenceu da farsa, a Hitler, os Protocolos vêm sendo utilizados para “alertar” o mundo dessa suposta ameaça judaica. Na Europa, por exemplo, nas décadas de 1920 e 1930 os Protocolos eram quase tão populares quanto a Bíblia. Segundo o livro de Eisner, não há quase ou nenhum movimento de intolerância aos judeus que não tenha sido influenciado pelo panfleto. Ainda hoje, esses livros são publicados entre árabes, europeus e asiáticos, não obstante as provas trazidas a lume em 2002, publicadas pelo jornal parisiense Le Figaro, que atestam definitivamente a falsificação.
O mais impressionante é que, mesmo diante da exposição dessa fraude, inúmeras pessoas desinformadas aceitam essa idéia sem a mínima noção do que estão fazendo. Colaboram para a sobrevivência daquilo gerou os Protocolos: o ódio e a intolerância por um povo. Isso é racismo. Umberto Eco, que escreveu a introdução do álbum de Eisner, comenta: “Como se pode explicar a resistência contra todas as provas e o perverso apelo que esse livro continua a exercer?”. Ele conclui não muito otimista: “Acredito que – apesar de corajoso, e não cômico, mas trágico livro de Will Eisner- essa história está longe de terminar. Ainda assim, é uma história que merece ser contada, porque devemos combater a Grande Mentira e o ódio que ela cria”. -
Le pape de la BD outre atlantique a décidé de mettre son art au service de la bonne cause. Son but est de dénoncer l'odieux complot visant à attiser la haine envers le peuple Juif. Ce complot est basé sur la rédaction et la publication d'un document antisémite: Les Protocoles des Sages de Sion. Will Eisner nous raconte l'histoire de la création de ce document et s'interroge sur la façon dont ce pamphlet, si grossièrement fabriqué, a pu trouver et trouve encore aujourd'hui une audience auprès des plus crédules. C'est aussi une réflexion sur le terrible pouvoir des mots et de la propagande ravivé aujourd'hui par l'avènement d'Internet. Il est étonnant de voir que, malgré le fait que la supercherie ait été découverte et révélée par un journal de référence comme le Times dès les années 20, ce document ait été utilisé si souvent comme un terreau alimentant les haines raciales. La propagande anti juive d'Hitler y a plongé ces racines et il est encore utilisé et cité aujourd'hui comme référence par certains extrémistes.
Plutôt que de rédiger un essai complexe n'ayant un impact que sur une infime partie de la population, Will Eisner a préféré utiliser son arme de prédilection : la Bande dessinée. Contrairement à d'autres médias plus élitistes, celle-ci à l'immense avantage d'être accessible au plus grand nombre. Ce n'est pas une BD classique mais un roman graphique très bien documenté qui contient même des articles de journaux d'époque dont l'un est signé de la main d'un jeune journaliste devenu célèbre depuis : Winston Churchill. Outre l'apport culturel et la mission de cette oeuvre, il faut savoir que, parce qu'elle traverse le temps, les personnages ne sont jamais les mêmes, seul les protocoles survivent aux années. Cet état de fait rend la lecture plus difficile car, sans la persistance des personnages, elle s'apparente plus à un document qu'à une véritable histoire. Will Eisner achève ainsi, car malheureusement il nous a quitté en 2005, ce qui aura été l'un des combats majeurs de son existence. Enfin j'ai appris récemment, et un peu tard, qu'une exposition consacrée à l'apport des auteurs juifs à la bande dessinée avait été organisée. Cette exposition nommée De Superman au Chat du Rabbin met en lumière l'influence de ces auteurs depuis les origines des comics jusqu'au récent phénomène Joan Sfar en passant bien sur par l'incontournable Will Eisner.
http://www.aubonroman.com/2008/02/le-... -
This is a pretty straightforward account of the real story behind the propaganda pamphlet "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion." There are a couple of frames where Eisner interjects himself and his point of view into the narrative, and those moments are the strongest. It is easy to see why he embarked on this labor of love, which I believe was the last thing he worked on. He is clearly afraid that those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it. The idea of educating the masses through a comic is also a smart idea (and one itself used by countless propagandists). It's too bad that it ends up a little on the dry side. His research is impeccable, and as always he conveys a lot through is drawings. Unfortunately, the numerous pages of side by side prose comparison and the dizzying march through history would likely turn off the average comic reader. An ambitious and worthy project, nonetheless.
-
"Then why? Why? When everyone knows that the Protocols is a fake... why are they still publishing it?"
"Because it is a weapon of mass deception."
In his final graphic novel, Eisner makes the history of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (a plagiarized, fraudulent, antisemitic text used by several countries to justify discrimination against the Jewish people) accessible to the everyday man. It's an excellent history of a slippery text that some still believe is credible. If you know someone like that, this would be a great resource to point them towards. -
This should have been a better book, but instead it was very repetitive. The book does a great job of showing how "The Protocols" were originally written by Maurice Joly in France as a rant against Napoleon III, and later plagiarized (re-purposed) by the Russian Secret Police as a document against the communists. This could of been a far shorter book. Much of the book is given over to complaining about why people still read it and believe it to be true. Convincing those people of it's falsehood is not likely to happen soon. Maybe over time this hatred will go away.
-
Não sendo uma das obras mais significativas de Eisner, destaca-se pela forma metódica com o autor desmonta os mitos dos protocolos de sião, meme recorrente que infesta a cultura popular, procurando as suas raízes nas guerras de poder da rússia czarista do início do século XX. De certa forma, Eisner certifica aqui a credulidade humana, capaz de acreditar nas piores falsidades mesmo com as mais fortes evidências do contrário.
-
"Em quase todos os países há gente tentando tomar o poder político. Qual é o jeito mais fácil? Você escolhe um grupo vulnerável que possa parecer uma ameaça! O truque é descobrir um documento que prove a culpa deles. Mas supondo que esse documento seja falso? Não importa. De qualquer forma, ele será aceito. Por quê? Porque as pessoas têm de justificar uma conduta que pode envergonhá-las mais tarde. E, é claro, suas reações a mudanças sociais".
-
As anyone who lived under the regime of George W. Bush knows, lies sometimes get people killed. The lie exposed in this fictionalized treatment of a non-fiction subject has been used to justify the killing of millions. It is an important story, and it is brilliantly told as a graphic novel by the great Will Eisner. This is just one of two graphic novels that I think rates 5 stars. Read it.
-
Comics giant Will Eisner's last work and first history book, W. W. Norton's edition of The Plot: The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, is worth tracking down.
The work, which includes a foreword by Umberto Eco and an historical afterword by Rutgers political science professor Stephen Eric Bronner, is significant less for the story it tells than for the teller and its medium.
Published under many titles, The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion purports to outline a plot for world domination developed at an 1897 secret meeting of Jewish leaders. Its author, Mathieu (or Matvei) Golovinski, drew heavily on an 1864 French anti-Napoleon III pamphlet Dialogues in Hell Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu by Maurice Joly; according to Eco, other sources include Eugene Sue's Le juif errant and Le mysteres du people and Hermann Goedesche's 1868 Biarritz (which itself plagiarized a critical scene from Alexandre Dumas' 1849 Joseph Balsamo). Joly and Sue directed their venom against the Jesuits and the forces of political reaction; Goedesche and Golovinski, serving political reaction, turned those words against the Jews.
Despite Eisner's title, the story of The Protocols is hardly a secret. That the Tsar's secret police the Okharna had commissioned the fabrication in 1905 has been public knowledge nearly as long as the forgery has been circulating. That other tyrants and would-be tyrants continue to use the forgery to hide their own shortcomings and further their ambitions is also no secret.
The story of the forgery was uncovered by The Times of London, the mouthpiece of the British establishment in those pre-Murdoch days, in May 1920. During the 1930s, courts in Switzerland and South Africa ruled that The Protocols were defamatory and fined local publishers. In 1964, Senators Thomas Dodd of Connecticut and Kenneth Keating of New York, members of the Judiciary Committee's Internal Security Subcommittee, traced the history of The Protocols.
Despite this publicity and judicial action, the libel persists. After the Tsar fell, the White Russian counterrevolutionary brought the forgery with them into exile. Henry Ford's The International Jew, published in his Dearborn Independent, borrowed heavily from the forgery; it sold more than 500,000 copies in the U.S. until he was forced to recant under threat of libel suits. Hitler used The Protocols to justify anti-Semitic legislation and suppression of all opposition to the Third Reich. Stalin and Khrushchev used it to justify their pogroms.
More recently, Egyptian television drew on The Protocols in a widely distributed soap opera. In 2004 Wal-Mart carried an edition of the forgery at its e-store until pressure from the Anti-Defamation League and other human rights campaigners forced its removal.
The forgery continues to circulate because it provides a simple focus for a group's feelings of powerlessness. Almost-haves in Egypt, Moscow or Orange County are given a cartoonish villain to blame for their frustrated ambitions. Answering this cartoonishness makes The Plot important.
Eisner (who died in January 2005, aged 88) is one of the form's seminal figures. His 1938 The Spirit broke the frame of the 6 panel page. Not only did he vary the size of his panels, but text and action could extend beyond the panel. He laid the ground work on which Stan Lee and Jack Kirby would develop their great work at Marvel. His prot?? included Jules Feiffer, Bob Kane and Lou Fine.
Forty years after The Spirit, he is credited with inventing the graphic novel. Before his 1978 A Contract with God which is actually a set of four connected stories extended storytelling in sequential art was limited to a 16 page form. Working with fewer than 100 frames (on average) a story, artists and writers were tied to simple storylines and flat characterizations. By breaking those limits, Eisner gave Art Spiegelman (Maus), the Pinis (Elfquest), and Neil Gaiman (Sandman, Neverwhere), among others, space to tell more fully developed stories.
In The Plot, he traces the story from Joly to Golovinski to Hitler to the Klan to Russia's neo-tsarist black shirts Pamyat to Hamas to America's Christian Identity movement. Contrapuntally, he follows efforts to expose the forgery, picking up the thread with Phillip Graves' 1921 articles in The Times of London. Within the limits of the story itself, his hand, both as writer and draftsman, is deft, his pacing is cinematic.
Still, The Plot is imperfect. The story Eisner tells is dry and does not easily lend itself to his graphic dynamism: think Classics Illustrated rather than Spiderman. He is forced by the nature of the story itself to be talky rather than active. At the same time, he chose to devote an inordinate number of pages (17 of the text's 122) to a side issue: point-by-point comparison of Joly's Dialogue with The Protocols; the pages could have been used better tracing the connections between the groups who have continued to circulate the forgery. These quibbles aside, though, The Plot is a good note on which to end a stellar career.
Jews, of course, care about this forgery because it attacks us directly; all people of faith need to combat its circulation because by attacking one group on the grounds of its religious identity it diminishes all faith groups. Norton pitched The Plot to rabbis and synagogue educators; however, the book needs to be part of the religious education curricula at every church, masjid, ashram and wat in the country as well. -
Leitura para ajudar no acompanhamento da exploração anual de um romance de Umberto Eco : O Cemitério de Praga.
-
If this can convince one person to stop believing in the lie of "The Protocols" it will have been worth it. But I doubt it will. Logic just doesn't work against bigotry.
-
I learned valuable history in this book, but I didn't especially enjoy reading it. I think I don't love Will Eisner, which I know is blasphemy in the world of sequential art, but I do appreciate having learned about the history of the creation/forgery/plagiarism of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
-
Overview:
Will Eisner's
The Plot: The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion chronicles in an accessible, graphic-novel format, the now-clear history and dire implications of a document forged by Russian state clerks in the late 1800s, and its later transformation into propaganda at the hands of Henry Ford (1920s), Nazis (1930s-1940s), and countless others until at least the late 2010s. Despite its format, this is a heavy book, and in my view it is a complement on the horrors of unchecked anti-semitism of
Art Spiegelmann's
Maus. The book draws from physical and circumstantial evidence, and former and current historical analysis of this evidence, and attempts to send a simple message that everyone should learn: "[the 'Protocols are]' the invention of a forger working for the old Russian secret service in 1898 to defame Jews" (emphasis as in the original text, p.123). Using this fake writing to hurt Jewish people is immoral and unjust.
The substance: The story, as presented in the book, matches the historical record as we know it now, but spends little time on the political and societal context. The story is deceivingly simple, when told after knowing all its wretched details. In 1864, the French Michel Joly, a pamphleteer aiming to agitate the people to overturn the Emperor, publishes his 'Dialogue in Hell Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu' (transl.); his work plagiarizes earlier works. In 1894, the Tsar Nicholas II of Russia begins modernizing the country, and hires in the modern institutions include Jews; the same year, the Affaire Dreyfuss is triggered by anti-semitism in France, when Dreyfuss is accused of sharing French army secrets with the opposing Germans. In 1898, Matvei (Mathieu) Golovinski as lead writer and others create the Protocols to influence Tsar Nicholas II against modernizing Russia, which is associated by the conspirators to the presence of Jews in modern institutions, and to increase anti-semitism at large. To do so, Golovinski forges a document, plagiarizing text from Michel Joly and from other sources, producing a horrific slander of the Jewish people---that they plan to take over the world; as Will Eisner puts it, "the target is easy to find because it is always the other" (p.6). After several attempts to publish this forgery, around 1905, the first edition of the fake 'Protocols of Zion' is published in Russia, under the signature of a government clerk, (pseudo-)Dr. Nilus, and under the name 'The great in the small' (transl.)
From here on, the material spreads quickly around the world, notably in Germany, but in 1920 in London and in 1921 in Istanbul we see the first important attempts to counter this anti-semitic propaganda; Henry Wickham Steed publishes in The Times, on May 8, 1920, "A Disturbing Pamphlet: A Call for Enquiry", which is the first call to stop distributing the slander by a widely distributed newspaper. Between 1921 and 1926, culminating with its reference in the Nazi bible Kein Drumpf (name changed on purpose), the 'Protocols' are used in Germany to justify oppression and pogroms against Jews. Between 1933 and 1935, the Jewish associations in Switzerland, and in particular in Bern, sue the Nazi party for slanderous use of the 'Protocols', and win. During this trial, the reader learns about the contribution of Henry Ford toward publishing and spreading nearly 500,000 copies of this book; it turns out Henry Ford had recanted this in 1926, saying "To my great regret I learn that int the 'Dearborn Independent' [n.b., his own newspaper] there appeared articles which induced the Jews to regard me as their enemy promoting antisemitism... I am mortified that this Journal... is giving currency to 'The Protocols'" (p.107). The process concludes that the 'Protocols' are fakes, "whose only purpose was to bring the Jews into contempt and hatred" (p.108). Nevertheless, until 1945, Nazi propaganda chief Goebbels uses the 'Protocols' and the message within (p.110). This is where things should have stopped, if not earlier.
But there is a post-war life to this slander. Although the US Senate issues a report in 1964 that the 'Protocols' are "a fabricated 'historical' [n.b., in quotes in original] document" (p.111), it takes nearly 30 years until Russia recognizes it as "anti-semitic forgery" (1993, p.113) and longer until incontrovertible proof is published in L'Express and WaPo [Conan, Éric (November 16, 1999), "Les secrets d'une manipulation antisémite" [The secrets of an antisemite manipulation], L’Express (in French)]---Russian Mikhail Lepekhine, who is a credible historian and member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, concludes Matvei Golovinski as lead writer and others have created the Protocols to increase anti-semitism and to influence Tsar Nicholas II against modernizing Russia, which is associated by the conspirators to the presence of Jews in modern institutions. In the meantime, the forged document has been published in Poland, again in Russia, in Palestine (by Hamas), South America (both Argentina and Brazil), Egypt, India, etc. Unfortunately, the story continues to this day:
Wikipedia is able to list many modern imprints of the forged 'protocols', including a publication in Italy (2010) and in the US (2011), as a digital object on the Apple iTunes (until at least 2012, in Arabic), and scores of others primarily in the Middle East and Asia. On the street, extreme anti-semitism seems again on the rise, in Europe no less, at the end of the 2010s.
The form: The story is presented chronologically, using mostly historically accurate events. For comic relief, the author also presents imagined situations, such as the little Matvei Golovinski thieving jewelry from his family (p.34). The book puts in general the characters at the forefront, with highlights and detail, and leave the background merely paint-brushed; this is true both for the story and for the drawings themselves. A strong part of the visual material is the head-to-head comparison between the Protocols and Michel Joly's, for over 15 full-pages; the plagiarism is irrefutable and key to the message of the Protocols. I liked how Will Eisner breaks the fourth wall: the author intervenes in the discussion with a group of US anti-semitic protesters in San Diego, in 2001 (p.123), has constant attempts to convince the editor of the need to publish this book (e.g., in 2002, p.125), and discusses with his research team that the implications of the forgery are still alive (p.119).
The recurring elements: I find it important that the authors stresses how important it is to fight the idea that the 'Protocols' are real, but also how hopeless it seems. Another recurring theme is the circular logic used by the people who think the 'Protocols' are true even if they are a forgery, because "it reveals the Jews" (p.124). Also, everyone who defends the Jewish people against this slander is "a promoter of Jews" (p.124) and thus is at best ignored. The use of this idea is recurringly dangerous: time and again the Jews are persecuted on the grounds set by the 'Protocols'. Painful stuff, for any normal human being.
