Monday, September 21, 2009

An In-depth Look at Anti-English Spectrum

'In Korea, anyone can be an English teacher except Asians.'
"I can go." "Wow! Let's go too!"
'The world's idiots come to Seoul'
In Itaewon, everything is free: White groupies, alcohol, sex.'
'Itaewon native (teachers) are the original idiots.'


For those who are interested in having a closer look at Anti-English Spectrum, its beliefs, and its methods, as well as the legal framework under which they could be classified as an illegal racist organization, this presentation which Benjamin Wagner has submitted to the NHRCK will be of interest.



13 comments:

kushibo said...

The site you linked to says:
The following is a presentation that Ben Wagner prepared for the National Human Rights Commission of Korea and the Gonggam attorneys handling my case at the Constitutional Court. I've received his permission to put the powerpoint into a blog format.

So, in addition to Andrea Vandom's case, is there a plan to make any kind of official grievance about Anti-English Spectrum (or whatever they are calling themselves now)?

If someone were making a formal case against AES specifically, I wonder if it's possible to get links to the above pages that are shown here, to avoid reinventing the wheel.

King Baeksu said...

I think it's good to get as much info about AES out there in English as possible. Koreans as a whole will ultimately have to do some sort of cost-benefit analysis vis-a-vis this group, and decide whether the pros of targeting and removing a few bad apples here (i.e., dodgy native ESL teachers) outweigh the cons of Korea being seen by the outside world as a quite tolerant breeding ground for such obviously xenophobic hate groups.

Please promote and disseminate this information as widely as possible.

King Baeksu said...

Gee, does Robert always have to be such a dismissive Tom Ajosshi?:

http://www.rjkoehler.com/2009/09/21/gee-thats-a-lot-of-work-just-to-prove-anti-english-spectrum-is-racist/

Anonymous said...

Well my suggestion for the title was:

"Gee, That’s a Lot of Work Just to Prove Anti-English Spectrum is a Racist Propaganda Organization Working with Government Agencies to Draft Requirements Designed to Stigmatize Foreigners as AIDS Threats."

But I guess he thought it was bit too long...

matt said...

kushibo:
Regarding pages, at the top right of each AES page scan is the date, and beneath that a url: http://cafe.naver.com/englishspectrum/5876
The only thing that changes is the number at the end. A complication: the posts can't be directly linked to on a blog (only members can direct link) but if you search for the title on naver you can then click to the post via naver search.

But yeah, the screen shots can be made available to those who want them.

kushibo said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
kushibo said...

matt wrote:
Regarding pages, at the top right of each AES page scan is the date, and beneath that a url: http://cafe.naver.com/englishspectrum/5876

I saw the url of some of them when I clicked to enlarge, but I didn't see a url in all of them. In particular, I'm curious about the images found in section #75, "the structure of the brain of a low-quality illegal foreign teacher" (저질 불법 외국인 강사의 뇌 구조도, which the site translates as "how the mind of a foreign language teacher really works," absent "illegal" or "low-quality") and the pornographic cartoon that follows.

The low-quality illegal foreign teacher brain structure is clearly something from the AES cafe, even if the url is missing, but there's no such indication for the pornographic cartoon. Where was this found?

Helen said...

I read an article about a video titled"Japanese Racist hoot down Korean Tourists In Tsusima" today.
“이들은 마치 한국인 전원을 도둑으로 매도하고 있다”고 주장했다
I don't understand why they denounce all Koreans as "thieves".
I felt anger when looking at the video.
Are these all the vulgar Nationalism?
It goes interesting..

kushibo said...

Helen, yes it is vulgar nationalism, but these people are probably not particularly representative of average Japanese. I showed this to a native Japanese friend and she was shocked that such a group existed.

While it's important to watch out for groups like that (just as with AES), it's a mistake (and perhaps a deliberate mistake) if the Korean media makes a big deal out of this in such a way that it seems like they represent typical Japanese in general.

Helen said...

Yeah,I read more about that group in Japan.
I'm just disappointed with people who still have that kind of way of thinking in Japan, Korea or anywhere else in the world.
I'm learning a lot these days.
Thanks Kushibo!

matt said...

Kushibo - I'll track down the brain, as I found it at AES but don't have a full page scan at the moment. The comics can be found by searching for this at naver: '한국을 좋아하는 원어민 강사 (진짜 19금!) 진실을 보기 싫은자 크릭하지마셈'

They were at AES at one point (when Mongdori first linked to them in 2007 I was able to look through them at AES (before you needed to be a member to look through posts)). I can't find them these days - it's entirely likely they've been removed, though they're still easy enough to find online.

kushibo said...

Maybe I'm just not doing it right, but I couldn't find them with that search string, even when I truncated it to "한국을 좋아하는 원어민 강사" and took out the quotes.

I'd like to see the context in which they were posted (was it by Lee himself, by a cafe member, etc.?), especially since they are pornographic and may themselves violate some sort of law or regulations. If they are still up or could be found to be up (like a screen shot with their address), that might go a long way toward discrediting the organization.

On the other hand, I also wonder about the cartoon's origins. Frankly, the way that a font is used as an overlay, plus the unusual style of drawing, it makes me wonder if this wasn't originally written in some other language and then Korean text added to it.

Not that that would necessarily change things, because barring these things actually having been put up by Lee and/or highlighted on the front of the blog, I don't see how they would be of much use in a formal complaint.

matt said...

Try this:
한국을 좋아하는 원어민 강사 진실을 보기 싫은자 크릭하지마셈
No quotation marks.

Of course, that's at another cafe. I imagine they were taken down from AES for the reasons you noted. More searching may turn up some reference to them, however.

I'd assumed they were made in Korea, but who knows, perhaps someone here détourned some Robert Crumb comics - they're certainly in his style.