Interesting column. I wonder, though, about this sentence in the second paragraph:
“Schliemann himself was not a racist, but the swastika was soon taken up by less principled writers, who were attracted by the Aryan connection as well as by the symbol’s strangely compelling experience.”
The last word doesn’t seem quite right. Would “appearance,” “look” or “appeal” be better?
Also, the page ends with Cecil’s name following a later reader’s comment, the second paragraph of which is not italicized. Did the Perfect Master write something himself which was dropped, or did he simply mean to endorse the reader’s comments by adding his own name?
A small piece from The Straits Times of Singapore of August 5, 1948 commends the work of the World Swastika Society: Swastika Work Commended.
It explains the society was founded in China in 1922 and the Singaporean branch in 1936. Here’s a July 31, 1937 notice: World Swastiga Society for Singapore.
I can’t find a website for the society today, but I took a photo of the outside of their office in Melaka, Malaysia in April 1996. That was back when we still had a film camera, not digital, and the photo is packed away somewhere. But a Malaysian branch existed at that time.
It still is a Chinese symbol. You see it in some of the artwork. My wife’s cousin, an ethnic Chinese, even had one hanging from her rearview mirror at one time. It may or may not help explain the fascination with and adoration of Adolf Hitler and all things Nazi by my wife’s nephew when he was an adolescent. (I hope he grew out of that.)