Reclaiming the Swastika

[bhsup]

We only have two?!

 

[timtofly]

It's rather nice to have a birthday thread in OT once a year.

For some of us, it's the only acknowledgment of our birthdays we get.

While that may have been a subconscious hint, my point was even a person who was born in 1967 with German and "the other nation" roots in South Carolina the "not quite deep south" while trying not to step on the toes of those deeply affected by the issue really does not see what all the fuss is about. It seems that the longer there is a big stink about it, the smell will never go away.

I probably have a lot of ingrained thoughts that if I "voiced" them would be very hurtful to some people, but I do attempt to hold them in check so as to not stir up any more trouble when none should exist in the first place.

 

[Domen]

Below we can see US Army fighter aircraft with swastika; synagogue in Israel with swastika; flag of the USA with swastika; etc., etc.:


Link to video.

Considering that swastika is banned just because the Nazis used it (like everyone else), I think we should also ban using tools such as hammer and sickle.

What do you think about this idea?

 

[Borachio]

I rather think it's only the nazi swastika, specifically, that is banned. And only from public display in Germany, afaik.

 

[Tahuti]

I rather think it's only the nazi swastika, specifically, that is banned. And only from public display in Germany, afaik.

"Nazi Swastika" is considered a pleonasm in Germany.

 

[Borachio]

Really? But that's absurd. The swastika plainly predates Nazism by millennia.

 

[Tahuti]

Generally speaking, Nazism crowded out most of the history that perceded it, to put it in a Postmodernist way.

 

[Borachio]

Well, I know it tried to.

I'm pretty sure it didn't succeed.

 

[Tahuti]

It did in Germany.

Germany history can essentially be explained as "In the beginning there were Nazis and we were their offspring. Then came those who would liberate us from the Nazis and as punishment, divided us in two. We gave and still give our support to the victims of the Nazis. And we repress any symbolism that belonged to the Nazis, for these are wicked, and tools of annihilation. And only this way, we shall be one nation, and not divided, for we shall avoid the sins that led to our division in the past."

 

[Borachio]

That's certainly a point of view. And I understand the repression of the Nazi swastika.

I just don't see why anyone thinks that the Nazi swastika is in fact the only one there is. Because it isn't.

 

[Tahuti]

The vast majority of Westerners associate Swastikas with the Nazis, and most are loathe to do any research considering that reputation.

 

[Borachio]

I associate the swastika with the Nazis too. Yet I'm sure most people will have heard, at some stage, that the Nazis appropriated the symbol.

I think everyone I know, over the age of 20, say, knows this.

 

[warpus]

Well, that's just the western view of things. A lot of people in Asia don't associate the swastika with anything evil at all.

Heck, even Hitler is not associated with evilness in some places. It's the same way we don't associate Stalin with "evil", but in some eastern European countries people do.

 

[Traitorfish]

Considering that swastika is banned just because the Nazis used it (like everyone else), I think we should also ban using tools such as hammer and sickle.

What do you think about this idea?

It's hard to see the analogy. You won't really find far-right groups using the swastika without an accompanying raft of violent, racist and anti-Semitic rhetoric and activity, but it's pretty easy to find far-left groups using the hammer and sickle for peaceful, legal and electoral purposes. In Russia, for example, the hammer and sickle is primarily associated with the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, an organisation that is if anything quite conservative, but the swastika is the exclusive preserve of violent racial extremists. Certainly, both have been associated with heinous regimes, but only in one case does that association exhaust their political meaning.

 

[Tahuti]

Heck, even Hitler is not associated with evilness in some places. It's the same way we don't associate Stalin with "evil", but in some eastern European countries people do.

Well, I'm certain the USA does. Western-Europe is also quite critical of Stalin, but perhaps we view Stalin's role in defeating Hitler as a redeeming value. Of course, considering the crimes of Stalin, one might wonder whether we would have considered Hitler in the same light if Stalin was defeated by Hitler, i.e. "he was evil, but at least he defeated Stalin".

 

[Terxpahseyton]

It did in Germany.

Germany history can essentially be explained as "In the beginning there were Nazis and we were their offspring. Then came those who would liberate us from the Nazis and as punishment, divided us in two. We gave and still give our support to the victims of the Nazis. And we repress any symbolism that belonged to the Nazis, for these are wicked, and tools of annihilation. And only this way, we shall be one nation, and not divided, for we shall avoid the sins that led to our division in the past."

Okay, I let this slip pay as the ridiculous hyperbole it is because it also contains a nuanced truth.

 

[Traitorfish]

I'm not sure it does. For most of the post-war period, the German left was openly contemptuous of German nationalism and consequently the idea of "national unity" implicit in Kaiserguard's explanation, advocating instead a civic or constitutional patriotism which assumed a break with the traditions of the pre-1945 era. (You'll note that, even today, German anti-extremist legislation is framed in terms of the "Defence of the Constitution".) At the same time, the German right consistently attempted to de-nationalise the Third Reich, framing it as an aberrant episode with no deep-seated or peculiarly German causes, but a product of short-term, pan-European upheavals, and deeply resented the idea that German nationality needed to be in any way redeemed or justified. Meanwhile, East Germany cultivated an idiosyncratic German nationalism based around a counter history of leftist or perceived leftist figures from Thalmann down to Müntzer, and explicitly anti-"unity" insofar as unity meant unity with "bourgeois" forces which they regarded as responsible for the Third Reich in the first place.

The explanation Kaiserguard gives, that Germans both view the Third Reich as a national phenomenon and that the nation is something worth preserving, is really an attitude of the post-unification period, a product of Germans' attempts to rediscover a sense of co-nationality with people who'd spent the last forty-five years on the other side of a military boundary, and while it certainly describes some German's experience of their national identity, particularly (I understand) of younger people living in the former West Germany, it's not universally true.

 

[Formaldehyde]

The vast majority of Westerners associate Swastikas with the Nazis, and most are loathe to do any research considering that reputation.

It really has nothing to do with "research". Most everybody knows its roots. It is hardly a secret.

Not to mention the swastika is still being used in Western society as a symbol of hatred, bigotry, and racism. This is particularly true of the Nazi swastika which is invariably tilted at a 45 degree angle and the arms pointed to the left. It isn't an accident when a Westerner picks this particular swastika to adorn his body.

 

[Kyriakos]

It isn't an accident when a Westerner picks this particular swastika to adorn his body.

^Maybe it was his first night at Fight Club?

 

[Domen]

Formaldehyde,

Regarding the issue of the myth of "Judeo-Communism" that you have raised - I answered you here (post #926):

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=490686&page=47

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It isn't an accident when a Westerner picks this particular swastika to adorn his body.

This is a "screenshot" from a movie about a white supremacist who killed a black guy, later black people killed his younger brother in revenge.

I forgot the title of that movie. In the end the main character underwent a "transformation" and abandoned his racist views, becoming a normal person.

Anyway - this photo is not showing a real-life person, but an actor playing this character in mentioned movie.