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Swastikas & Disputes About The Swastika Symbol

Trevp666 said:
Did my original post get moved here from 'good stuff online', or did I post it here in the first place?
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You apparently posted it in this thread.
 
ChasFink said:
Let's be fair. It looks like two different toilet paper dispensers. A news story I just found says it was a total of three swastikas.

I certainly understand speaking out against antisemitism and Nazim, and while not prevalent, those particular forms of hate are not unknown in Nassau County. Nonetheless, freaking out over three small swastikas in the toilets without knowing the motivation of the culprit seems a bit much.
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Enh.. I took a careful look, and the two pics you posted... at first I thought it was two pics of the same dispenser, but looking closer..... one of the symbols doesn't have a proper 90° angle in the center and the other DOES, so yeah... that's not the same copy.

Either way it's notable that the work is very similar. definitely the same hand drew both. soo.. more likely a lone vandal. which fits the idea it was a "stupid kid" trolling people IRL :p
 
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It appears there's a growing movement among Native Americans and Americans of Indian / Asian descent to "redeem" the swastika to the extent it is historically significant in their traditions and religions.
Asian faiths try to save swastika symbol corrupted by Hitler

Sheetal Deo was shocked when she got a letter from her Queens apartment building’s co-op board calling her Diwali decoration “offensive” and demanding she take it down.

“My decoration said ‘Happy Diwali’ and had a swastika on it,” said Deo, a physician, who was celebrating the Hindu festival of lights.

The equilateral cross with its legs bent at right angles is a millennia-old sacred symbol in Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism that represents peace and good fortune, and was also used widely by Indigenous people worldwide in a similar vein. ...

But in the West, this symbol is often equated to Adolf Hitler’s hakenkreuz or the hooked cross – a symbol of hate that evokes the trauma of the Holocaust and the horrors of Nazi Germany. White supremacists, neo-Nazi groups and vandals have continued to use Hitler’s symbol to stoke fear and hate.

Over the past decade, as the Asian diaspora has grown in North America, the call to reclaim the swastika as a sacred symbol has become louder. These minority faith communities are being joined by Native American elders whose ancestors have long used the symbol as part of healing rituals.

Deo believes she and people of other faiths should not have to sacrifice or apologize for a sacred symbol simply because it is often conflated with its tainted version.

“To me, that’s intolerable,” she said.

Yet to others, the idea that the swastika could be redeemed is unthinkable. ...
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FULL STORY: https://ktla.com/news/nexstar-media...-to-save-swastika-symbol-corrupted-by-hitler/
 
Still a very touchy subject in Germany. You're not even allowed to display swastikas (and definitely not runes) on military models at public events.
 
And yet a giant Swastika made from trees remained in a German forest for many years, at least until 1995 when attempts were made to remove it, yet there are anecdotal reports that evidence of it remains in trees growing there now.
https://www.thevintagenews.com/2018/03/18/mysterious-wwii/?chrome=1
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EnolaGaia said:
It appears there's a growing movement among Native Americans and Americans of Indian / Asian descent to "redeem" the swastika to the extent it is historically significant in their traditions and religions.

FULL STORY: https://ktla.com/news/nexstar-media...-to-save-swastika-symbol-corrupted-by-hitler/
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The part about the Nazi thing that really bugs me? What other Nazi symbols get treated that way?

Also, it still amuses me that people call it by a SANSKRIT word! It's like... you're not using the GERMAN word for it!?!??

It makes it feel like a propaganda piece that got out of hand.
 
You can call it a schwastika, that sounds more german.
 
EnolaGaia said:
It appears there's a growing movement among Native Americans and Americans of Indian / Asian descent to "redeem" the swastika to the extent it is historically significant in their traditions and religions.

FULL STORY: https://ktla.com/news/nexstar-media...-to-save-swastika-symbol-corrupted-by-hitler/
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For some reason I can't follow the link, but I found the same story on other sites. Odd that the story says Deo got a complaint about a display at her Queens apartment, but a photo that goes with the story shows her and her husband at their home in Syosset, on the opposite side of Nassau county from the Queens border. They could have two homes, but this is confusing to people from the area.

As for the story itself, I must say I agree with the attempts at reclaiming the symbol. I can only imagine how I would feel if a significant number of people considered a symbol of my religion to have only evil overtones. Perhaps someday the Nazi hakenkreuz will again be seen for what it is, a horrible corruption of the positive meanings associated with the symbol for centuries.
 
the trouble is WW2 was a singular event with ~ 60 millions Europeans dead most in less than 4 years, perhaps > 20 million murdered by the Nazi's. With this stigma of Hitler and Nazi Germany it's unlikely that any outside the Indian subcontinent will ever see it for anything other than the symbol chosen by the people that created the worse catastrophe in human history. In Germany oe can et 3 years in prison for displaying the Swastika.
 
My local coffee shop – owned by two Indian brothers – currently has a small but quite obvious swastika swinging in the window. I don’t think anyone’s complained as, within the context of the other symbology around it, it clearly has bugger all to do with Nazis, and everything to do with being Hindu.

That said, although I sympathise with the argument that the swastika as a symbol does not ‘belong’ to the Nazis, and therefore should not automatically be associated with them, I can’t help feeling that it would be obtuse in the extreme to not see why people might be uneasy with it.

Again, it’s about – as it always is – context: the swastika itself may be innocent of all charges, but a swastika in a white circle on a red field is Nazi paraphernalia, end of story.

As I suggested back at post #156, one needs to make distinctions:

All arguments about the use and misuse of the swastika symbol aside, in the case of BNK48 the band are wearing late pattern Nazi era Reichskriegsflaggen (minus the peripheral Schwarze Kreuz, if anyone wants to get anal about it); they are not wearing something which is generally about swastikas, but something that is precisely about Nazism.
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marhawkman said:
The part about the Nazi thing that really bugs me? What other Nazi symbols get treated that way?...
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Possibly not as instantly and universally recognisable as the hakenkreuz/swastika, but – for instance - the SS bolts probably push exactly the same buttons in most people. But the fact is that the hakenkreuz was specifically intended to be utterly ubiquitous and ever present in the life of the people in a way that other symbology was not – it's kind of a special case, and so comparisons with other symbols are maybe not that relevant.

(The cross pattée, although often associated with the Nazis, was not actually ‘their’ symbol – but one inherited from the Prussian military. The same could be said of the balkenkreuz, although that’s a bit more complicated, as I think it was reintroduced during the Nazi era, after its use in WW1. Given the ongoing friction between the Nazi administration and the German military, I suspect that had the Nazis prevailed in WW2, both would eventually have disappeared.)
 
It has probably been mentioned upthread somewhere but it's worth reiterating, that the Nazi use of the Hakenkreuz was significantly different to the original, similar looking Swastika cross used by the Hindu religion.
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Trevp666 said:
It has probably been mentioned upthread somewhere but it's worth reiterating, that the Nazi use of the Hakenkreuz was significantly different to the original, similar looking Swastika cross used by the Hindu religion.
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The swastika style cross has been found worldwide over a long period of time, so I think the idea that the Hindu usage is the 'original' is kind of moot (in fact Wiki, and other sources, place the oldest known swastika type symbol as being found in Ukraine). There are also square ended types among the examples.

Given the very confused magical ideology of the time - which tended to borrow from absolutely anywhere - it's possible that it didn't actually come directly from anywhere in particular. The Nazi usage appears to have been lifted from Lanz's, Ordo Novi Templi - and Lanz was himself employing a symbol already in use, and which had precedents in Medieval Europe. In fact Ordo Novi Templi's banner included a swastika surrounded by fleurs-de-lys - which seems oddly medieval European.

Yes, the Nazis referenced eastern mythology and ideas, but they mashed them up with Norse and Germanic etc in a big magic pie of utter nonsense. It was a total mess.

If anyone needs an example of how not joined up these ideas were, I'm reminded of a story I read about a British academic who met with an Indian counterpart in pre war Berlin: On trying to enter a night club they were refused entry - because the Indian gentleman was not Aryan enough.

Go figure.
 
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Spookdaddy said:
the Indian gentleman was not Aryan enough.
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I would argue that there are more people in the western world who would be oblivious to the irony in that statement than would be surprised to find that the swastika is not exclusively Nazi.

And that's the problem. Of course I believe we need to be sensitive to the emotional impact the symbol may have on those who suffered under the Nazis - and even their immediate descendants. Care should be taken to distance any use of it from Hitlerian trappings. But to say you can never use a simple geometric design in any context is the same kind of bigotry that the Nazis embodied.
 
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ChasFink said:
I would argue that there are more people in the western world who would be oblivious to the irony in that statement than would be surprised to find that the swastika is not exclusively Nazi.

And that's the problem. Of course I believe we need to be sensitive to the emotional impact the symbol may have on those who suffered under the Nazis - and even their immediate descendants. Care should be taken to distance any use of it from Hitlerian trappings. But to say you can never use a simple geometric design in any context is the same kind of bigotry that the Nazis embodied.
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Yeah, the actual base symbol... is so old it's been found in rock carvings that predate any known civilization. a lot of uses are just... decorative art seemingly with no real "purpose".

Here's a quick run down of several significant uses: https://www.ancient-origins.net/artifacts-other-artifacts/swastika-origins-001312
But yeah... 12,000 years old.

That link though has one particularly interesting one: Lalibela. https://www.ancient-origins.net/ancient-places-africa/rock-hewn-churches-lalibela-ethiopia-00154
Whoever built that place CARVED buildings out of solid stone... and since they did not use glass windows.. made weirdly shaped window frames for decoration.
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One that guy left out is that many native American groups would do a version of a compass rose that had bent arms... and was the same shape, albeit traditionally had each arm a different color... but only if made in color.

here's another listing variant symbols and showing just how many cultures used symbols like this: https://aratta.wordpress.com/2013/12/16/the-history-of-the-swastika/
 
Trevp666 said:
It has probably been mentioned upthread somewhere but it's worth reiterating, that the Nazi use of the Hakenkreuz was significantly different to the original, similar looking Swastika cross used by the Hindu religion.
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I was thinking about saying "fixed that for you"... but both are equally true.
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As with all things, this sigil has it's good aspects, and bad aspects...Don't sweat the small stuff I say. (addendum) Because after all - it is the evil that men do - and not the object of contemplation that we need to focus on.
 
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So, the probably quite mentally ill individual formally known as Kanye West is in the news today for depicting a combination of the hakenkreuz/swastika and the Star of David - which action has apparently got him banned (again) from something called Twitter.

Elon Musk suspends Kanye West from Twitter for inciting violence

Now, this has just made me wonder about something I previously thought was just a coincidence.

The Z in Yeezy (the branding for West's collaboration with Adidas) is sometimes depicted with a horizontal line through it. This is not uncommon usage in some areas, like technical design - where I believe it is employed to give a clear distinction between the number 2 and the letter Z.

However, it is also very similar to the wolfsangel symbol - another example of a much older symbol co-opted by the Nazis, now by neo-Nazis and white supremacists. (Historically, the shape appears both as a Z and a reversed Z - the latter seems to be the most common, but it exists in both forms.)

To be honest, I'm pretty sure it's just a coincidence - but still, an interesting one.
 
Spookdaddy said:
depicted with a horizontal line through it
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I do that with my upper-case 'Z', which was a habit I got from the old days of filling out those carbonised slips of layered paper for putting in the credit card machine to roll over it with the crunching sound (remember those?). And as you say, it differentiates the 'Z' from a '2' when writing.
I also put a horizontal bar across a written number '7' (which makes it a 'french seven' IIRC) but I'm not sure that is done to differentiate that from anything - it's just habit.
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Spookdaddy said:
So, the probably quite mentally ill individual formally known as Kanye West is in the news today for depicting a combination of the hakenkreuz/swastika and the Star of David - which action has apparently got him banned (again) from something called Twitter.

Elon Musk suspends Kanye West from Twitter for inciting violence

Now, this has just made me wonder about something I previously thought was just a coincidence.

The Z in Yeezy (the branding for West's collaboration with Adidas) is sometimes depicted with a horizontal line through it. This is not uncommon usage in some areas, like technical design - where I believe it is employed to give a clear distinction between the number 2 and the letter Z.

However, it is also very similar to the wolfsangel symbol - another example of a much older symbol co-opted by the Nazis, now by neo-Nazis and white supremacists. (Historically, the shape appears both as a Z and a reversed Z - the latter seems to be the most common, but it exists in both forms.)

To be honest, I'm pretty sure it's just a coincidence - but still, an interesting one.
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hmmm where have I personally seen a Z with a bar added?

The "Zen" logo is for a currency used in some game by Cryptic Studios... and looks like a gold Z.. with a bar in it.

A very similar logo has been used in multiple forms of media over the last 20+ years... so famous you're almost certain to have seen it at least once...
1200px-Dragon_Ball_Z.jpg

This example has a rather small cross bar though. but it's there.
 
Floyd1 said:
I think it's to clarify it from a 1 (one) as some people write 1 with a 'hook.'
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I wrote 'technical design' in my post, when what I actually meant 'technical drawing' - which I was taught at secondary school in the early 80's. (Is technical drawing even a thing at school these days? Actually, to be honest, I'm not even sure it was a thing back then, or if my school was just following through on its determination to be a bit odd for a state school.)

Anyway, we were taught to use the slashed seven, possibly the slashed zero and maybe the slashed Z (my memory's hazy on the latter). This would have been - in the days of handwritten plans - to clearly differentiate between 7 and 1, 0 and O, and Z and 2.
 
I too did "Technical Drawing (and Graphical Communication)".
One of my 'O' level subjects from about 1981

Edit: We were taught how to draw the VW logo. But not a swastika.
 
The swastika was a plot device in episode 11 "Horror in the Heights" of Kolchak: The Night Stalker
 
Trevp666 said:
I also put a horizontal bar across a written number '7' (which makes it a 'french seven' IIRC) but I'm not sure that is done to differentiate that from anything - it's just habit.
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Floyd1 said:
I think it's to clarify it from a 1 (one) as some people write 1 with a 'hook.'
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In some parts of the world - Poland and some other East European countries to be sure - the 1 is written with an angled, sometimes sloping, upward stroke starting at or near the baseline before the straight descending line that many of us use alone to write the number. The crossed 7 becomes almost necessary when you make a 1 like that.
 
ChasFink said:
In some parts of the world - Poland and some other East European countries to be sure - the 1 is written with an angled, sometimes sloping, upward stroke starting at or near the baseline before the straight descending line that many of us use alone to write the number. The crossed 7 becomes almost necessary when you make a 1 like that.
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Almost like an upside down V? Yes, that's the same in Israel (or was) and I think, that now you've jogged my memory, it was when I was there that I started doing a seven with a cross.
 
Spookdaddy said:
I wrote 'technical design' in my post, when what I actually meant 'technical drawing' - which I was taught at secondary school in the early 80's. (Is technical drawing even a thing at school these days? Actually, to be honest, I'm not even sure it was a thing back then, or if my school was just following through on its determination to be a bit odd for a state school.)
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They changed 'Technical drawing' to 'design and realisation' when I was at school. The old 'woodwork' and 'metalwork' became 'design and technology'. (iirc).
 
Yithian said:
It was hale and hearty.

I'd just lent a hand harvesting some persimmons and it was the first time I'd ever tried one in a non-dried state: incredibly soft and gooey, so that one would scoop the middle out with a spoon.
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Are these the same thing as "Sharon fruit"? I did suspect the name was an Israeli Fruit Board marketing ploy to highlight the region that grows them.
 
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