Can the swastika be redeemed?

Great Debates
101

I’m going to go ahead and assume that these people are at the far end of the issue.

Nevertheless, this thread has given me food for thought about the way Alessan would treat/have a visceral reaction towards a Hindu who had a piece of religious art that featured a swastika and my own visceral reaction to seeing the Confederate flag. I’m not black but I’ve lived places where people have displayed confederate flags & given me the overt impression that they didn’t care for the fact that I’m not white. I also have a knee-jerk reaction when I see it (like on the back of a truck or something) On one hand it gives me sympathy towards his POV even though I’m the type of person that would raise his hackles (probably accidentally, like I said, my family and I have gone through and attempted to weed everything out) but at the same time I feel somewhat guilty for having an instinctive judgmental response to people that display the confederate flag. I don’t really know the motivations for their attachment to that symbol. Maybe, as jjim says, it has more to do with their heritage than their views on race.

Always learning, what can I say…

102

So when a NeoNazi scratches a swastika in a park bench with a pocketknife, it’s not a nazi swastika unless he also paints a red rectangle with a white roundrel then paints the swastika black?

Huh. That explains why NeoNazis always carefully carry THREE cans of spraypaint when they vandalize Jewish cemetaries! Because otherwise the Jews would think Hindus were defacing the gravestones!

Tom, that’s just silly. Am I arguing that Hindus in Hyderabad should tear up their temples for fear that they might hurt the feelings of a jewish tourist? No, I’m arguing that white Americans who complain that they can’t display a lucky swastika are incredibly insensitive at best, ranging all the way to cryptofascists at worst. Kind of like the white guys who whine that black people get to use the word “nigga”, and it’s so racist and unfair that white guys can’t use it. With a similar range of motives, from the tone-deaf “colorblind” white guys all the way up to closet Stormfronters.

So. Should the swastika be reclaimed? Answer: No. Should Americans and Europeans proudly display swastikas? Answer: No. What should one think of a white guy proudly displaying a swastika? Answer: Left as an exercise for the student.

103

No, but then the number of idiots carving swastikas into park benches is sufficiently miniscule as to make their actions pretty much irrelevant to this discussion. (I have never even seen such an act of vandalism and the acts committed with cans of spray paint are about equally divided between aggressive acts by neo-Nazis and stupid kids being “rebellious,” so the accuracy of the depictions is liable to be low, at best.

Actually, you have not been “arguing” much of anything (and neither have most of the posters on both sides of the issue). Instead you and nearly everyone else has been resorting to grand declarations about what “is.”

I noted quite early in the thread that the issue was sufficiently emotional that it was nearly insoluble. I have no intention of telling anyone who has been affected by the Nazi horrors that they “must” respond in any rational manner to the display of any swastika.
On the other hand, leaving aside grafitti, a swastika that is carefully crafted onto a wall or floor or cast into a medallion that is oriented sinister or is not oriented with a point down or that has long, thin arms, or that has hooked ends that are of different length than the inner arms is clearly NOT a Nazi symbol. While I will not tell those who are upset by the Nazi symbol that they have no right to be upset, I will also decline to accuse a person who is displaying a symbol that is substantially different than that of the actual Nazi device of evil intent (or even bad manners).

A person who is displaying this image or the three upper left or two lower right images or this medal is simply not displaying a Nazi image. Do I think it would be a good idea to refrain from wearing those images displayed at 4" by 4" or larger in Cicero, IL, Beachwood, OH, or Southfield, MI? Yes, because I see no reason to get in anyone’s face with even a misunderstood emblem. However, I also think that anyone who would condemn a person for wearing any of those designs on a 3/4" by 3/4" locket or bracelet in a venue with a lot of people from a lot of locations is probably going out of their way to take offense where none has been offered.

104

I’ve seen it, fairly often, Tom. It’s an easy thing to carve. Course, park benches are less wood these days, but yeah, they’re around. Spraypainted under underpasses, too.

105

tomndebb,

So, do you hold the people who did this were really Hindus wishing luck to the Jews burried there? :dubious:

106

Why would I equate acts of vandalism and graffiti with the wearing of discreet jewelry? I don’t.
Why do you?

107

Lest this discussion get further hijacked with references to this comment

let me restate my position more clearly:

I have found the number of incidents in which a swastika has been carved into a park bench or picnic table to be almost non-existent. (Maybe I have just been lucky.)
I have certainly seen a lot more spray painting.
Among the occasions when I have seen vandalism (typically from spray paint or felt-tip markers), it has been about equally divided between actual attempts to support a (neo-)Nazi agenda and a display of simple (if utterly stupid) teen rebelliousness. In any event, the very fact that it is carried out as an act of vandalism reduces the probability that the perpetrator is going to take the time to display the symbol in a manner that correctly matches the Nazi Hakenkreuz and I have no problem presuming the intent was to portray the Nazi symbol, however badly it was rendered.

In contrast, a person who is creating artwork (either decorative or religious) is going to put more effort into creating a specific design. Unless that design actually matches the Hakenkreuz in orientation and dimensions, then it is not the Hakenkreuz.
I am not going to tell a person who is upset by all swastikas that they have no “right” to be upset. On the other hand, I do not believe that it is a legitimate judgment to condemn every person who wears an image of a swastika when it is different than the Hakenkreuz.
If a person who moved from India to Cicero, IL planted a flowerbed with an enormous pink tulip swastika with a sinister orientation on a flat base in a blue field of ageratum, I would have no problem with the neighbors pointing out that the symbol is distressing to many people in the neighborhood. I would hope, at that point, that courtesy and good will would dictate the actions of both parties in such a case. If the same Indian showed up at a public event in Los Angeles with a bracelet that happened to include a Hindu swastika worked into the design, I would hope that people would not raise a lot of hoopla about that piece of jewelry.

108

No, graffiti is not identical to artwork. Not in the least.
However, graffiti is much easier to create. I don’t expect vandals to carefully craft a nice artwork to display their hate.

What I was trying to say is that after you’re exposed to the vandalism I linked to above, or to this, or to this, or to this, or to this, or to this (and trust me, I could give dozens more), you tend to loose the distinction about orientation, width/length ratio, direction, etc. berween a “good” swastika and a “bad” Hakenkreuz.

109

Small clarification: When I stated graffiti was not art, I was referring to the vandalism type. Some graffiti I do consider art.

As for art, I, personally would consider the art piece.
So, for example, this lovely piece I probably not even recognize as a swastika.

This ring would be more problematic (sorry for the Google link, the page itself is not available).

And then, some would probably be less definite. For example, what do you make of this lovely silver earrings? Nice, aren’t they? Not quite Nazi (you could always rotate them to be flat-end down).
Take a look at where I found them.

110

I do not see your point, here. Both the ring and the earrings are clearly based on the Hakenkreuz. That was evident even without looking for their provenance.

This medal, with its differently proportioned arms and the leaf motif on its face is not a Hakenkreuz.
This image, with its sinister orientation and its skinny arms is not a Hakenkreuz.
This Boy Scout Medal, with skinny, oddly proportioned arms on a flat base is not a Hakenkreuz.*
This handbag does not display the Hakenkreuz.

  • I have no problems with the British Scouts retiring the design at the outbreak of WWII and I have no desire to call upon them to bring it back into use. I am not urging anyone to adopt any particular symbol and I am not insisting that anyone be compelled to change their emotional responses to an image. My point at the beginning of this particular exchange was simply that the following statement is too broad because it includes images that are NOT Nazi symbols:
111

Sorry for the long delay. I considered letting the thread die, as we seem to be repeating ourselves, but I couldn’t let myself leave it like that.

Look, Tom, I think we can agree that the Hakenkreuz is not identical to the swastika, but also that it’s a type of swastika. Right?

The point (which was raised several times) is that the Hakenkreuz, like any other symbol, is meaningless in and by itself (Duh).It only means what people think it does.

Now, some people think of any swastika as a Hakenkreuz. These include both Neo-Nazis who don’t know enough about their own “roots”, and people who may be offended by it. You can claim it’s due to ignorance, and you’ll be right (I do have some more to say about the ignorance in a minute). But I think we should accept the empirical prove that ignorance exists, and will continue to exist. So, in an ideal world, were everyone is well-educated, and is honest about their beliefs, a distinction between the Hakenkreuz and the Hindu swastika is in order. I don’t buy that distinction in places where the Nazi regime was more influential than Hindu / Buddhist culture.

Now, regarding ignorance. I 'm not about to defend ignorance… but I can understand it.
Here’s an example of what I mean. Israel has an annual national Holocaust memorial day. In this day (and the week before, usually), the TV shows are dedicated to the Holocaust. The education system also addresses that subject, at different levels according to age.
Now, my daughter is in elementary school. So far, during the Holocaust Memorial Day (HMD) I didn’t go much deeper than “there were some bad people who wanted to kill Jews”. Last year, she started asking more questions. I suspect this year I will have to go (in brief) into the subject of the Nazis, Ghettoes, Concentration camps, etc. It will not be easy.
Here’s what I won’t tell her: “See, there was a Nazi regime in Germany. They believed in racism and hatred. They wanted to eradicate the Jews. Here, see this picture? There are Nazi soldiers. Now look here. No, no where the heaps of dead bodies lie. See the flag? See this symbol on the flag? This is called a Hakenkreuz. The colors (which you can’t see because it B&W) are black-white-red. Notice the tilt at 45 degrees. Wait, I’m not talking about the concentration camps you heard about. It’s more important to understand, that if the symbol is not at this exact position, colors, ratios etc., it’s not a Nazi symbol but rather a Hindu symbol. What is Hindu? Ok, let me explain…”

[Sorry if that came out a bit sarcastic]

You see, I will concentrate on the basic first. I will not try to explain the distinction between the different types of swastika, because I don’t consider it a major part of the Jewish history during the Nazi period.
And what this means is that by the time she will get to learn about the Hindu culture and the different types of swastika, she’ll have a pretty solid view of the swastika in mind. And I suspect she will have a hard time distinguishing the Nazi Hakenkreuz from other swastika.
Sad? Maybe. But I think it’s inevitable.

112

That didn’t seem to be sarcastic to me. What’s wrong with mentioning in passing that there are a lot of other people out there that use it differently? I’d seriously wager that the number of people who know it as a symbol of hatred do not outnumber those that know it is also used as a non-racist symbol in other traditions by more than 2 to 1. There are more than a billion Indians you know.

Of course since everyone should have a well-rounded cultural knowledge it’s also important to mention that most people in the 1st world will reflexively see it as a Nazi symbol.

It’s not inevitable, its a self-fulfilling prophecy.