Asian faiths try to save swastika symbol corrupted by Hitler
apnews.com
apnews.com
So I googled, and realized it was backwards. And that was the apparently the symbol of the article.
I called the owner just to let him know I didn't do it. Really old 'grumpy' white guy. He said 'oh, some sweet Indian family lived here before you, they asked if they could do that and I told them it's theirs to do what they want. You can leave it or clean it off.'
Learned a lot that day, and busted a few common stereotypes in the process. Ended up being an area with a lot of really good people.
FWIW, I ended up leaving it after reading about it. As mentioned, it wasn't big nor offensive looking. I wonder if the next family went through the same thing.
With a layman's interest in history, religion, iconography (and a multitude of other areas that I don't have enough time for), I'd be interested in learning about other or older examples of swastika usage in Ireland. So far, I've found this wonderful blog post: https://rmchapple.blogspot.com/2017/10/always-remember-to-dr...
But I think there’s plenty of room for understanding and nuance rather than just saying, “hey people who are offended by this symbol, read your history books and toughen up!” Millions were exterminated by those wearing the symbol.
There is no such thing as ownership of a symbol. It has different, equally valid meanings to different audiences.
I’m curious how one calculates that.
Also: don’t mistake an observation for an argument. I’m not implying anything. I think it is an interesting thought.
The swastika is a bit more complicated because the western world's exposure to it isn't all that big, but I don't see how a symbol that is used by probably over 10% of the world population today and has been used for over 5000 years should be shunned, especially when you consider that it's not even the same symbol most of the time!
At the end of the day most of this stigma wouldn't be an issue if people would just stop assuming malice from others by default.
[0]: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ok-symbol-hand-gesture-anti-def...
- Anyone can re/claim any symbol - No other symbols have been banned
You may not like or agree with it, but symbols do have owners and they do matter. Look at today's news around the USA football team and the Iranian flag today for an example.
By that I mean that those who see it as a religious symbol and those who see it as a symbol of nazism need to be mindful of each other. Neither “group” has moral authority to tell the other that they’re wrong about the symbol’s meaning.
At the end of the day people are free to believe whatever they want from people using a symbol, but it will only betray their own ignorance in its history and still active use in the non-western world. The idea that a symbol still currently used by probably billions shouldn't be used because of connections only westerners make is peak eurocentrism/UScentrism.
No people are not free. Those symbols can land you in jail.
> but it will only betray their own ignorance in its history and still active use in the non-western world.
Yes, but this is desired. No state wants people who are able to think for themselves. People must do what they are told.
Aside from Russia which is hardly "western" and Germany are there other countries where the use of the symbol itself is an offense? I completely agree that the presumption of malice is silly, self-centered and it can cause unwarranted escalation however when push comes to shove it shouldn't go further than a neighbor's spat.
There is zero chance such a law is found to be constitutional in the US.
https://mechanical-hub.com/did-you-know/
https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/comments/60edsv/a...
I'm sympathetic to both sides of this argument, but I think the "rose by any other name" allusion is inapt. The rose by any other name would smell as sweet, because the physical existence of the rose is independent of our social or cultural understanding of the rose. The swastika is a symbol and its offensiveness is due to our cultural understanding of its meaning as a symbol. The swastika is neither inherently a symbol of hatred and murder nor one of peace; it has no objective meaning or reality in itself.
https://github.com/pdoc3/pdoc/issues/64 https://github.com/pdoc3/pdoc/issues/87
I've learnt a lot about cultures through those PRs
Sad face emoji? Geez, the use of emojis, in this serious context, makes me think I'm reading a 6 year old's response.
Give me a break. Pure hypocrisy. It’s not racism to have basic decency.
Most westerners find the symbol offensive, so the symbol should not be publicly displayed in western countries.
Yes, the world does not revolve around the west. But when you live somewhere, you should respect the local culture, be it in "the west" or anywhere else.
An irony is that this symbol coexists in Hindu temples with that other symbol known in the West as the "Star of David" -- which is not, actually, a specifically Jewish symbol.
2.
That this also appears in American indigenous cultures is extremely interesting, because it points either to very old origins (before people crossed the Bering Strait), or to co-evolution (almost like the "discovery" of mathematical abstractions).
Related, there is some evidence that some American indigenous myths, related to the constellations, share a common structure with myths from ancient Greece and elsewhere. Again, this may point to very old origins before the human diaspora across the continents.
I wonder how much culture is shared, dating back to the neolithic.
3.
This then is a second irony: That symbols from closer to the root of the linguistic and phylogenetic tree -- symbols that are more in common to us -- are used to divide.
If you ever doodled on square paper with tetris-block shapes you're kind of bound to have some sort of accidental swastika shape in there.
The Native American teepee in the cartoon is depicted with a swastika on it; apparently it was a symbol of good luck with some tribes?
City of Albuquerque web site on its use: https://www.cabq.gov/artsculture/kimo/history-of-the-kimo/ki...
Those dates don't predate nazism nor the symbol usage by Hitler.
quote: "Information about the swastikas at the KiMo Theater.
Swastika and skulls detail at KiMo Theater
The KiMo was designed and built in 1927 using the style and designs that were very common to several Native American cultures in the American southwest at that time.
Now on the National Register of Historic Places, the design elements of the KiMo Theatre are preserved for their original cultural significance.
Although today the swastika can evoke negative emotions, the KiMo invites visitors to remember that the original meaning of this ancient sacred symbol is one of life and prosperity. "
As such, it exists in a variety of cultures in the Northern hemisphere.
Finland is another example of a nation with a historical use of it.
At the very least, I hope we can avoid getting the state involved in censoring or punishing genuine religious displays, as happened in one case described in the article.
If you consider the angles as feet, then similar icons are the three-legged Isle of Man one and the many legged Easter European symbol.
Customs house in central Sydney has Fylfots on its floor.
If you open Google Maps over Japan you'll see it used to mark the location of Buddhist temples.
This silliness of taking things out of context and then attacking them has got to stop.
Hindus were using the symbol long before the existence of the German state.
Nazis using the swastika as an expression of hate, not OK. Hindus using their symbol, OK.
It’s nothing to do with belief, more with common sense and respect. Tourists are advised to cover their heads when visiting Middle East countries; or not wear shorts when visiting Buddhism temples. It’s the same here for visitors to Western countries, where Nazis have left a deep deep scar in the society.
It's also worth pointing out that the Nazi's barely did anything in the US. They inflicted their horrors on millions of people in Europe. The horror of genocide against native Americans in the US wasn't perpetuated by Nazis.
If you want to fight back against such evils in the present day, rather than making a fuss about symbols, the world would be be better served if you helped fight back against those who inherited the hate of the nazis and now perpetuate it on Palestinians in Palestine. In fact many who carry that torch come from USA to squat on and steal Palestinian lands. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbPnF8Hvj0I
A comment in a thread about a swastika should not be used as an opportunity to connect Judaism to Israeli policy. The discussion of the suffering of the Jews of Europe and their sensitivity to this symbol is orthogonal to that YouTube video you linked.
This is an example of a commonly used anti-semetic tactic to try and link these two together in order to justify lack of sympathy for Jews.
> millions of people in Europe
Many of whom immigrated to the United States after WW2.
> A comment in a thread about a swastika should not be used as an opportunity to connect Judaism to Israeli policy.
Fair point. I withdraw that and apologise for going off on a tangent. But I still don't accept that Nazis or Jews should have a say in the use of the symbol when used in the old ways as it was used before Hitler corrupted it.
And fwiw I agree that no one should try and suppress using the symbol in the old ways.
Context is important (putting it on a billboard in queens would obviously have a much higher chance of being misinterpreted) but cooler heads will prevail.
But in this context [not accusing you, just giving context for why I’m commenting at all] it’s just alarming when encountering a world view where people auto jump to jews are centrally organizing to try to control ~thing~. I understand it's very hard to quell this habit once it starts.
> taking the blame off Christianity and pushing it onto eastern religions
Nonsense. Nobody in their right mind blames Eastern religions for what the Nazis did.
And while Nazi antisemitism was of course descended from the traditional christian antisemitism, there were also parts of the Nazi movement that called for a replacement of christianity by an "Aryan" or "German" religion, which seems to have been a mixture of Germanic/Norse religion and more modern esotericisms.
So yes, while eastern religions are blameless for what the Nazis made of their symbol, it also isn't of christian descent either.
I’m well aware of the trolling that happens with this. But that’s definitely not an excuse to say genuine uses of it are not allowed.
The US has the First Amendment. This would clearly be protected First Amendment speech.
Obviously a condo board or co-op board can have its own rules about displays in common areas inside the building similar to a HOA. But even these are subject to the Fair Housing Act, and cannot discriminate based on religion.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/swastika-fla...
> "It's nothing with Hitler. We don't follow Hitler. We don't follow even extremist people right now, okay? We are a religion against that," he said. "Believe me I don't know that's his symbol. That's a Hitler's symbol? I don't know."
Naive is a little harsh, but maybe it's the right word. It's usually not trolling. When I was a kid, a family in our neighbourhood, recent Chinese immigrants, initially chose the English name Adolph for their son. They'd certainly heard of Hitler; but they were unaware of the intensity of the name taboo.
Anyways, it resembles a Nazi swastika enough for the uninitiated to look twice when opening the fridge. It causes me some cringe when I think about it but my Chinese friends and family assure me it's common, has nothing to do with hateful values, and long predates the Nazi use, and ... shrug?
Indeed, it predates the Nazis by centuries if not millenia and has nothing to do with the Nazis. So why should Chinese (and East Asians in general) change their ways because a crazy foreigner in a small country on the other side of the world used a similar symbol?
I don't see anyone trying to ban crosses or raise a fuss about them, and Christians have historically used it as a symbol while perpetrating many horrifying acts. Nobody is trying to ban the flags of any of the other countries which engaged in slavery, genocide, and colonial oppression, and those are at least reasonably unique. Why should this ancient religious symbol be forever tainted?
Vae victis. This symbol has become a non symbol because the history was rewritten.
Hundreds of millions of people still use it regularly in India, it's everywhere. It's pretty innocuous. Unless you stop them from doing so somehow, history is not rewritten. Attempts to colonize ancient symbols will not succeed.
Maybe calling Nazis a small group is a bit far, but they were definitely a minority of swastika users even at the time.
Three hundred years from now, no one will care about said symbols anyhow.
When’s the last time we see people be superstitious or negative towards a worse person like Ghengis Khan? He’s part of popular culture; projecting into the future, as depressing as it sounds, so will Hitler be.
Try again. A genocidal regime that conquered western europe by force, almost succeeded in overthrowing world democracy and caused the deaths of tens of millions.
40-50 million in the war itself to be precise, but that doesn't account for all the millions of people who died in years directly after the war as a consequence of hunger, diseases, revenges, crime, political fights and persecution caused by the new division of powers... especially in Eastern Europe and Germany itself.
Yes there are instances where it wasn't above board but by and large Hitler gained his power democratically and/or within the constitution.
So I would say Hitler and Germany is a lesson in how not to set up a democracy. It basically enabled his rise to power.
And indeed, constitutions and electoral systems took these lessons into account afterwards. Nowadays it is hard to win an election with 1/3 of the vote:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/November_1932_German_federal_e...
The overcame supermajority obstacles. Pretending they didn't represent the majority is detached from history. Nazism resonated deeply in Germany. He truly got most Germans willing to follow him enthusiastically.
It sounds like you might not understand the vast scale of the Holocaust, and that it affected every Jewish person in Europe. It sounds like you might not realize what also happened to the Polish Christians (and other Slavic peoples) under the Germans - which was another attempted genocide by itself.
We spent 1000 years in Poland, and our entire culture was totally destroyed in just a few years. 90% of the Jewish people in Europe were murdered. In many places, no Jews remain at all.
That doesn't take away from the horrors that the nazi's did.
Yep.
Trying to minimize WWII and the holocaust is not a good point to start an argument from.
It would also help if there weren't a resurgence of them to deal with today.
We have ongoing problems with that symbology.
Pretty much cemented my opinion there.
You did accuse me of minimizing the Holocaust, and still have not responded about what exactly you found to be objectionable. That in itself is basically an accusation of antisemitism.
I did advise the student that London in 2004 wasn't yet ready to understand the subtle differences.
Not sure it's moved any closer since then.
>Nakagaki’s research also shows the symbol was called the hakenkreuz in U.S. newspapers until the early 1930s, when the word swastika replaced it.
I think further research will show you that Hitler himself never used the word Swastika and always referred to his own symbol as the hooked cross.
I’m guessing that maybe the leading Christian voices of the time were so guilt stricken by what Hitler had done in the name of their religion that they were happy to blame his pathology on him dabbling with obscure alien philosophies rather than admitting that he was just being a “true Christian”.
It has taken a long time for Christian religious institutions to absolve the Jewish people of the crime of “killing Jesus Christ”. Or have they? I don’t know.
For Hitler himself, the motivation to use the hooked cross was probably to symbolise a return to the roots of Christianity and for that he chose the oldest version of the cross he (or his designer) could find.
You'll even find it in the currently used Seal of the United States Senate[1]!
It's also often seen displayed prominently on stone buildings across the US. I was recently walking around downtown St. Charles, IL and there were Fasces overhanging the entrances of an old stone apartment building.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fasces
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seal_of_the_United_States_Sena...
edit: correction s/Nazi symbol/symbol Nazis used/ thanks to commenter.
But they're not a Fascist icon either, despite what your comment suggests. The fact that it appears on the Senate building probably refers to the Roman meaning. The point of TFA is pointing out that these symbols are NOT owned by the Fascists or Nazis but should instead be returned to their cultural origins.
The roman meaning is very much fascist, if phrased in modern terms. Fasces were carried by lictors accompanying a roman official, symbolizing the "imperium", or absolute, king-like power, held by that official over his domain. While for a time, the imperium of lower officials was somewhat curtailed during the republic, military commanders with imperium still held the absolute and immediate power over life and death of their subordinates (other officials still had power over life and death, there just was an opportunity for citizens for appeals and vetoes by equal-ranked officials) . Lictors with their fasces were not only bodyguards but also a small police force at the discretion of the commander, who would seize an offender, hold him for a drumhead trial by the commander and then punish (e.g. execute) him if so decided. Under the later roman dictatorships the dictator (imperator, emperor or caesar) of course also held those powers, with the same symbolism of imperium represented by the fasces. Fasces always have been a symbol of capital punishment, justice by drumhead or thumbs down, and absolute power.
No, the Roman fasces are not fascist. Imperial Roman power is not fascism, even if fascism tries to fashion itself to Imperial Rome. If A claims inspiration from B, it does not mean that they're the same thing nor interchangeable.
The difference between the two is 2000 years and one being an entire civilization that spanned hundreds of years, and the other a relatively short lived political ideology, based on reactionary nationalism, autarchy and later anti-semitism (racial purity was more a Hitler kinda thing).
But, more importantly, "imperium" doesn't mean what you think it means. There are two meanings to "imperium", one being the overall realm that Rome controlled, the Roman empire. This is the meaning you did use in your above straw-man. Usually, this meaning of imperium is represented by symbology such as the eagle and the S.P.Q.R. signature. Italian fascists also used those symbols, but the international fascist movement mostly didn't, because just the Italians wanted to rebuild their Roman empire. However, the fasces represent the second meaning of "imperium", which is the absolute power of one single individual official to rule and impose order in his assigned domain or subdomain. They represent the ordering principle of fascism and nazism that a strict hierarchy of individual leaders ("duce" in Italian, "Fuehrer" in direct German translation) should rule the state ("Fuehrerprinzip" in German). Fasces also represented the primacy of punishment and violence in imposing order, of swiftness and immediacy in carrying out justice, very much what modern day fascism wanted to return to. So Roman fasces are representing what modern day fascists intended for the principles of leadership, justice, punishment, and order to look like. But beyond those aspects, there can be no inference made, because modern-day Fascism encompasses more aspects than just those.
That there is a 2000 year difference between the cultures in which to interpret the aforementioned symbolisms is a problem indeed. However, it is a problem that was created by people like the americans thoughtlessly using symbols because "well, Rome was a republic, we want to build a republic, let's just steal all of their iconography". Even back in that day, the actual meaning of fasces was known and clear. It was known and clear to the Romans as well. Hell, look at the list of uses for fasces in the wikipedia article: mostly police forces and departments of corrections, monarchies and off-with-the-heads mobs (such as the early french post-revolution order).
How many Holocaust survivors are even left?
https://time.com/4392413/elie-wiesel-holocaust-survivors-rem...
That was 2016.
A significant portion of the Hasidic Jews in the US are descendants of Holocaust survivors. For example: members of the Satmar dynasty. A significant number of non-Hasidic Jews in the US are descendants of holocaust survivors who immigrated after World War 2. This includes, children of survivors, grandchildren of survivors, and great-grandchildren of survivors. I assure you, the Holocaust remains a very difficult subject for many Jewish families, including mine, and it also affects a lot of Jewish families who weren't directly affected.
"Never Shall I Forget" by Elie Wiesel
Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, that turned my life into one long night seven times sealed.
Never shall I forget that smoke.
Never shall I forget the small faces of the children whose bodies I saw transformed into smoke under a silent sky.
Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith for ever.
Never shall I forget the nocturnal silence that deprived me for all eternity of the desire to live.
Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to ashes.
Never shall I forget those things, even were I condemned to live as long as God Himself.
Never.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satmar [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6720013/
Also note that the nazis also murdered Romani, Sinti, Poles, Slavs in concentration camps and ghettos. They also murdered and starved the general civillian populations of areas they took over.
"...what also happened to the Polish Christians (and other Slavic peoples) under the Germans - which was another attempted genocide by itself."
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/mar/15/trauma-...
Hakenkreuz (hooked cross) is the German term.
In the era of socially sensitive language, I would like to see the Nazi swastika referred to with the German term, to rehabilitate the term swastika.
If you are against socially engineering language to make it more culturally sensitive via things like gender pronouns, removing certain slurs etc. Then ok at least that is a consistent ethical position, and understandable.
But if you support the use of more inclusive language, then this would be my request.
What parts of my own culture am I even allowed to partake in because most of it comes from elsewhere.
Can't you just be happy that cultures can take things from other cultures and make it their own and gain a bit of understanding about the former in the process, rather than make it into a culture war.
Not aware of Disney having used it.
Hitler gained complete control over Germany in 1933.
Relevant quote from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudyard_Kipling
> Many older editions of Rudyard Kipling's books have a swastika printed on the cover, associated with a picture of an elephant carrying a lotus flower, reflecting the influence of Indian culture. Kipling's use of the swastika was based on the Indian sun symbol conferring good luck and the Sanskrit word meaning "fortunate" or "well-being". He used the swastika symbol in both right and left-facing forms, and it was in general use by others at the time
A hooked cross. I haven't seen it for myself but there are pictures floating around claiming it's visible in art in the Vatican.
It really infuriates Hindus and Buddhists to see this ancient symbol associated with that regime and its modern debris.
The Nazi rampage will be a footnote in history like most tragic events before.
Even if you zoom out and view it, like Eric Hobsbawm, as belonging to a century of warring ideologies much like the wars of religion, it will remain one of the foremost events in world history for a long time. It would take many thousands of years for it to become a 'footnote', assuming the species even lasts that long.
I think US will have to admit that they, too, just like every country in the world, have their own culture, with their own taboos and peculiarities, norms and habits, and accept for this culture to have some kind of special status over the other ones. Much like you find it absolutely normal and respectful to take into account the specificities of a country you’re visiting as a tourist.
Can you explain what you mean by this? This seems to suggest there's some kind of compiler error or warning in Xcode when using those terms, but I just tried it and there's no such thing. No one is preventing you from using those terms, as far as I can see — some people have chosen to stop using them, but they're not forcing their decision on you.
Apple decided to rename the function IOMasterPort() to IOMainPort() and marked IOMasterPort() as deprecated, for what would appear to be non-technical reasons. You can see that they did it hastily and poorly; e.g. in the documentation of most functions that take a port, the type definition has been renamed "mainPort" but the parameter is still labeled "masterPort" https://developer.apple.com/documentation/iokit/1514494-iose...
If you use IOMasterPort(), Apple nags you to use their new wording instead. If you follow their advice, your program immediately stops working on macOS < 12.0, those OSes don't have an _IOMainPort symbol. If you reject their advice, your program stops working on macOS 13.0, that OS doesn't have an _IOMasterPort symbol
By comparison, Windows still has source-compatibility with their Win16 APIs https://duckduckgo.com/?q=site%3Alearn.microsoft.com+%22comp... so if you have an application from 1995, it will probably still compile. Microsoft wouldn't deprecate OS functions lightly, and they certainly wouldn't deprecate them simply so they could rename them. The Linuxes and BSDs similarly maintain backwards compatibility far better than Apple, even for functions they know to be irredeemably insecure like gets()
By comparison, there is no problem running a binary from Windows 95 on Windows 11, nor is it a problem to run old (static) Linux binaries on modern Linux
What's so awful about this is that Apple is forcing this API breakage for one reason only: to get the word "master" out of the name of one of their low-level API calls. Not a security issue. Not a performance issue. Not a maintenance issue. With this breaking change, Apple virtue-signals about how _little_ it cares about backward compatibility