A lot of things are exclusively identified (by many people) with Hitler and his Nazis, among them are the swastika, the roman salute and the toothbrush mustache. Anyway these things have long histories predating Hitler by thousands of years in some cases, so should they be reclaimed and be allowed to be used without having to worry about causing insult? I would like them to be, but I believe at the very least we would have to wait a couple of decades until most of the people who were alive during WW2 are no longer with us. Even then many would find offense by their use but hopefully we would have moved on by then.
None of these things, and let’s not forget the f’in goosestep, is anything less than a grotesque symbol of fascism to me.
Why bother? Do we need these things for some reason?
What exactly do you mean by ‘stole’ ?
My thoughts on the subject are somewhere between “never” and “not yet.”
Kudos to the OP for finding a positive side to Holocaust survivors dying off. :rolleyes:
Well, I imagine there are some Hindu groups that might like their swastika back.
Yeah, so ignore the parts of history that you have no concern for.
Did they ever stop using it? I can imagine that maybe they did in the West, but that’s not where most Hindus are.
Isn’t that what you’re proposing, though? Ignore the Holocaust once the survivors are dead because we really need Roman salutes and another variety of goofy mustache?
Is the OP Richard Herring?
I’ve never been to India but my brief web searching indicates that the swastika is still used as a Hindu symbol about as frequently as it was before WWII/Nazis. I imagine there would have been some level of political correctness conflicts if there were large Hindu groups in Western countries with heightened sensitivity to the swastika but there aren’t any Western countries I’m aware of with really large Hindu populations so I suspect this conflict has never arisen.
In India it is unlikely they much noticed or cared a symbol they have used for thousands of years was taken, modified, and then used by a very heinous political group in Germany for all of 13 years. In 100 years I suspect they will still be using the traditional swastika in India and the visibility/linkage with Nazism will be far less in the public consciousness.
Part of what helps is all the images I’ve seen of traditional Indian swastikas you can see how they influenced the Nazis but they are distinct. The Nazi swastika almost always appears on a white circle background and is frequently surrounded by the field of red. The Nazi swastika is always block form with sharp angles.
Hindu swastikas have never been associated with flags or that color scheme, and they are often not in the sharp block form of the Nazi swastika. When they are, they still usually look distinct. For example the lines of the Nazi swastika are all clearly separate, the Hindu swastika examples the lines are usually fatter and the space between them is smaller. Or, there are four dots inside the lines of the Hindu swastika. The Hindu swastika is often arranged at a “square” (so straight horizontal/vertical lines) form, while the Nazi swastika I believe was always angled and balanced on the “tip” of one of the lines.
I don’t think very many people would actually mistake the Hindu swastikas I have seen in pictures with a symbol of Nazism.
Certainly, I was speaking mostly in terms of European and American culture. Most Hindus do not live in the West, but I strongly suspect that there are a lot of immigrants here who aren’t thrilled with the fact that their religious symbolism has been co-opted as an icon of the acme of human evil.
Of course, the large body of Asians for whom the swastika is primarily a religious symbol suggests that its only a matter of time before the symbol is “rehabilitated,” even in the west. Particularly as Asia’s economic and cultural influence continues to grow. Two hundred years from now, most people’s primary association with the swastika is likely to be with a particular brand vinadloo-flavored corn chips.
Grew up with the Nazi Germany notion but later studied Shorinji Kempo, so I got to meditate in a big hall festooned with countless swastikas.
I know people have raised some safety concerns about their rocket skates, but it’s not fair to drag the Acme Corporation into this.
If so, it’d be hard to find fault with that. But I don’t see any reason to make a big effort to “reclaim” this stuff as soon as possible. If not for the Nazis I don’t think we’d see a lot of toothbrush mustaches and Roman salutes (and I think those were associated with Mussolini as well) in our culture today. Do we have to make an effort to adopt things that were once associated with the Nazis just so the Nazis can’t have them? At best that seems incoherent. At worst it’s ass-backward.
Interesting thought. Do we have any precedents in history? Any other disgraced symbols that were resurrected at a later date? I can’t think of any.
What’s next, though. Hammer and sickle? 
We think 5-pointed stars are demonic. We don’t mind seeing them around. Just keep them to yourselves.
Oh, sure, no argument there. I’m not even sure it’s possible to force that sort of change, because every time you say, “The swastika was originally a Hindu symbol before the Nazis appropriated it,” you’re still re-enforcing the idea that it’s a Nazi symbol.
I’m having trouble thinking of any other disgraced symbols at all, let alone ones that were later redeemed. The hammer and sickle was a symbol of the Soviet states, and the Soviet states committed some terrible crimes, but the symbol is not usually directly associated with those crimes the way the swastika is associated with the Holocaust.
Lots of symbols that were claimed by groups that the symbol was originally intended to denigrate, of course. The Christian cross is one. So’s the pink triangle. That’s not quite the same thing, though, as those were symbols that were initially created to represent something bad: they started in disgrace, as it were, rather than being a positive, then a negative, then a positive again.
I guess the pentagram comes closest: it started, AIUI, as an occult symbol, but not necessarily an evil one, was later branded as a sign of devil worship, and lately has been adopted as the symbol of Wiccan. Still a lot of people who cling to the “devil worship” view of the symbol, but it’s now mainstream enough that you can get it put on your tombstone in Arlington.
Probably the funniest porn picture I’ve ever seen is the head of a man who looks vaguely Hitler-esque between the legs of a woman with a runway strip of black pubic hair; the angle of the picture makes it appear to be the man’s mustache. Does that count as rehabilitating the toothbrush mustache?
In my culture, the swastika is the symbol of ultimate evil. Why should some other culture’s take on it supersede mine? Are symbols of evil somehow lass valid than symbols of good?