The Buddhists could superimpose a Smiley face on their swastikas, to distinguish them from the nasty nazi ones.
Oops! Sorry about resurrecting this thread from its slumber. I linked to it from a current thread and forgot to look at the date of the last post.
IIRC, the yearbook at NMSU in Las Cruces used to be called the Swastika. Unfortunately, ignorance won and the name was changed in the 80s. This is a Native American symbol.
I was born and raised in the west (UK) - and I’m of Indian heritage. My father’s house in India has swastikas on the front door. I wore a bracelet with a swastika on it before I lost it.
I’ve discussed the swastika with some Jewish people and they’re not offended by the Hindu and Buddhist version. I think if people are educated about this, then it’s not a problem.
I think part of their appropriation of Aryanism comes from a mystic by the name of Otto von List (not too sure about the name or spelling though). You can find out more about it the same place I did, a documentary called ‘The Occult History of the Third Reich’:
They go into all of this stuff, including the appropriation of the swastika and the roots of their racial theories, etc. It’s kind of a creepy video though, not exactly a fun evening at home… It was hard for me to believe that these ideas could have caught on in the first place.
As for the OP, I think the Nazis pretty much ruined the swastika for Western culture. It’ll be too offensive to try to ‘restore’ it any time soon.
So… the solution to clearing the swastika’s image is to take it as your symbol… and get rid of all jews?
See this is where I have a problem with Lemur’s and Alessan’s posts.
The Nazis stole the symbol from Budhism and / or India - and then “stylised” it to give their own twist.
I live a short distance from a “Red Swastica” School. I did a very big double take when I first saw the name, then as I learned more about the history of the swastica and what it means in the east I got a very much better understanding.
If we could rehabilitate the symbol, wouldn’t that rob it of its power to intimidate? Would current neo-nazis really be willing to use the symbol if it was seen as a benign symbol of good luck.
Isn’t education the true answer here so people can understand when they see a swastica its not automatically Nazi in meaning?
Do note here that I am not in any way advocating forgetting, or downplaying the holocost, but rahabilitating the symbol and returning it to the people from whence it was stolen is a better thing than trying to deny them the use (in whatever country) due to anger…
I can’t help but recall a line from a Will Smith song (Just the two of us)
“If you keep anger in your heart it will destroy you too” Isn’t it time to let go of that level of anger?
Except what are you going to tell the person who uses it to communicate their hate for non-aryans? That they’re wrong?
Nazi swastikas have power because of the actions associated with them. The swastika represents a people and an ideology that is violent and oppressive. It’s not anything personal against the swastika, it’s that (at least in the US and I imagine most of the West) a person displaying a swastika is communicating something very specific and hateful. You can’t take that away from them, because the user of the symbol imbues it with whatever meaning he or she wants even more than the observer does.
The Buddhist swastika is different anyway. Arms face different direction.
Except that the person that views it has to imbue it with the same (hateful) associations. If somebody went through life thinking that “the bird” meant hello, would they be offended when somebody flipped them the bird?
If I know that the swastica is a symbol of goodluck, doesn’t that rob at least some of the intimidation from it? No matter what the user is trying to achieve
Have you ever seen any “hate” groups using a dove or a rainbow as their symbols? Why do you think that is?
Something else that occured to me, don’t we somehow “owe” it to budhism to return a stolen symbol? Much was done in the name of apologising for the actions of the Nazis, if we have the opportunity shouldn’t we work towards also making the swastica “whole” agin if we can?
My partner, who is Jewish, and I just got back from India and saw the swastika all over the place. Including restaurants and shops with the name “Swastika”. We bought some stickers in Bikaner that had the Karni Mata temple with swastikas around them as souvenirs for his family.
As for oversensitivity, check out what happened with a Pokemon card.
But we WANT to imbue it with hateful associations. Why are you trying to rob us of that? Don’t bad things deserve symbols, too?
IMO, even in the West it could be done if there was a concerted effort to do so. I don’t think associating Jesus with the instrument that exterminated him is that different from associating Jews with a representative icon of the group that exterminated them. If the Jews (for example) decided to embrace the symbol (as the Christians do the cross) and use it to honor those who died under those horrific circumstances, it might well be purified. There is nothing wrong with the symbol, only the associations. Work to change those (rather than recoiling in horror at it’s mere presence) and you would be well on your way.
They do - but to a certain extent by “wanting” to hate it, you are stealing a religous symbol of good luck from someone else. How is that in any way right? And they had it firts, so why should your wish to “hate” trump their history?
And also - why would you WANT to hate?
Agree totally, the Nazis deserve hatred and should be reviled, but what are you achieving by the hatred? OK - its a bit squinky and all…but I refer again to the lyrics I posted…
“If you hold hate in your heart it will destroy you too”
Wowo have people here arguing about “stealing” symbols from teh East ever actually been tot he East and seen those sympbols in use?
The typical Western reaction is “Hmm, I didn’t know about those” and accepting of the context.
I was involved with the writing systems standard setting group unicode.org for a while way back when. Part of the work there (well, lots of it) was to identify and then decide whether or not to unify characters that might or might not be the same across various writing systems.
Many many times it was decided that even though the character as written is substantially identical, it is not in fact the same character at all, and hence is coded 2 or more times in the standard. In addition, there are sections in the standard reserved for user-defined private sections, and characters can easily be re-coded there too.
In essence, we live in a world where we easily accept that the same glyph has different meanings to different peoples, to the position that the same glyph may not represent the same underlying character or symbol at all. To argue otherwise is absurd.
To answer the OP, the answer is never. My above explanation shows why the Nazi symbol is easily divorced form it historical use elsewhere. And there is that pesky “To forget history is to make sure it is repeated” meme. Proposing that the Nazi swastika glyph be used for anything else ever in the West would be seen as an attempt at historical whitewashing. It won’t fly that the rhetoric behind the attempt is to bring another culture’s symbols in to override its meaning.
Like I said, in the East, where the relevant cultures are “high context”, there is no problem reconciling the two uses. In the West, where we tend to have “low context” dominant societies, maybe there would be if the two were used side by side. But those professing a cultural affinity for the Eastern swastika symbol, be they American Buddhists or Indian restaurant owners, can tell the difference from context and act accordingly. They can and they do.
Er - considering that the primary school downstairs from my apartment, that my daughter will be attending, has a swastica on the front gate - yes I have 
What Alessan et al are saying though is that a Buddhist can’t / shouldn’t use the swastica in a western seeting. Why should anyone in any setting get to dictate what symbols I choose to have as “good luck”? Unless those symbols are deliberatly offensive (as in a Klan hood) - the original swastica was in use long before the Nazis appropriated it.
Now I don’t expect anyone to just accept overnight - but shouldn’t we start the process? Shouldn’t we teach people the irony of viewing the swastica as ONLY a symbol of evil?
But it’s a symbol of hate in *my *culture. The fact that it’s only been one for 75 years or so is completely irrelevant. I don’t care who “had” it first; the only important thing is what it means to me now.
Look, if they want to continue revering the swastika, they can live and be well. I can’t stop them from doing it, but I also can’t stop myself from reacting to it. I’m not going to stop hating it. Their culture does not take precedence over mine.
As to why I want to hate it?
To remember, of course. If we forget the meaning of the swastika, sooner or later we’ll forget those who marched under it, and what they did. I don’t intend that to happen.
Since when? When has Judaism ever use the Swastica as a symbol of hate?
It is a symbol that is associated with somebody that tried to commit genocide against your people.
It is a symbol you hate, it is not a symbol of hate
You don’t care who had it first? Hmmm…given the the current situation of Israel that is a very interesting statement to be making.
Look, I get that we need to remember, and that to in any way forget, downplay or minimalise is to do a disservice to yourself, and to Judaism. At the same time why should those that see the swastica as a goodluck symbol have to modify their actions when “in the west”?
Just out of curosity - can I ask how old you are? I would be curious - do you think that your children will have the same reaction to the swastica as you do?
Further, currently I am learning more about Buddhism (actually I am reading about Islam, Christianity and Judaism as well), it is a religion that appeals to me. What if one day your children came home professing a belief in Buddhism and wanted to use a Swastica as a symbol of luck?
As shown in this thread, the Jews will never let it be freed. How responding to hate with more hate is beneficial is a mystery to me.
Walking into a Hindu temple and clenching your fists because there’s swastikas inside and about-facing back out…well, that sounds like pretty goddamn strong prejudice to me.
But who am I to talk. I’ve been told my whole life both directly and indirectly that the Jews are more important than anyone else in the World. I just get disappointed that a race of people that have been subject to so much discrimination would feel free to turn around and give the same thing back to other people.
Yeesh.
Since when do I have to be nice to everybody? If I decide to reject anyone wearing a Swastika, I’d be acting well within my rights. “Tolerate” does not mean “accept.”
As I said, *Israeli *culture has seen the Swastika as a symbol of hate since 1930 or so.
I’m 34. I hope the education system here teaches them to hate the swastika, but if it doesn’t, I’ll make sure to do it myself.
Not in my face and not under my roof.
Well I guess that’s where we are then. And it’s not a good place.
At least you have the balls and the courage of your convinctions to state it loud and proud no matter how offensive a lot of people will find it.
Forgive me though if I have a problem in distinguishing between you, a christian fundamentalist, and a jihadist.
I very sincerely hope that your beliefs are in a minority, or we are not going to have anything even resembling peace in the region for a very long time.
Way to go.