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this post was submitted on 04 Dec 2023
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United States | News & Politics
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Hakenkreuz, not Swastika. Stop letting the symbolism of peace be appropriated by forces of hate. Willfully choosing to accept this as the symbol of hate means that you're not willing to normalize it, at the cost of other cultures having to suffer, even if they had nothing to do with the Holocaust.
In the US, neonazis fuck up the symbol so often that it makes no sense to differentiate between the two. I don't even think most neonazis know there's a difference.
I don't think you're going to get rid of that symbolic appropriation either. Once you see a family member murdered by someone carrying a symbol, you're never going to see that symbol the same again. A trauma has been fused to it.
The Hakenkreuz was on the flag, but other swastikas were used too, and they used both orientations of the swastika.
The only thing differentiating between the Hakenkreuz and the swastika does is give Nazis plausible deniability. We can talk about letting it be a symbol of peace again when we don't have fucking Nazis actively using it all the time.
Normally I would play devils advocate and agree with you, but when someone explicitly draws/presents a swastika as a swastika… it’s a swastika.
"Swastika" is the Sanskrit word for the symbol. Hakenkreuz ("hooked cross") is the German word for a visually similar symbol.
The Hindu meaning of the symbol is not offensive. It is the German association of the symbol with the Nazi party that is offensive.
This is the first time I've encountered an attempt at de-appropriating the term "swastika" from the Nazis, but it's not an unreasonable correction.
I think we all know the context this was used in. Not much we can do.
Interesting. So, for some reason, you think it's not a malicious attempt to call a hate symbol, which is clearly called a hooked cross or hakencruez, another word from a different part of the world where it was used in good faith by multiple Asian cultures? Why not call it a gammadion or flyfot, since it seems to be geographically closer?
Swastika (स्वस्तिक, 卐) means conducive to well-being. Swastika also has a counter-opposite symbol called sauvastika (सौवस्तिक, 卍). Both of them are not tilted. Swastika also does not come with a hooked cross on top of a white circle, behind a red background. That's just deliberate attempt at letting the appropriation of word and willful ignorance.
this is your response to a story about someone spreading anti-jewish rhetoric
This is my response to a imperialist culture that misappropriates words from the other parts of the world, and attaches it to vile, atrocious histories of their own. Forget the symbol for a moment, the word doesn't even mean what it is supposed to be. Why is it that this particular word was used as a loanword? To deliberately make people from the East feel uncomfortable and alienated, just to practice their own beliefs?
And besides, it is also a part of multiple Native American culture - also used in similar context, like for example, the Navajo people. Oh, it also happens to be a character in the Chinese and Japanese culture. It also appears in three Eastern religion - namely Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism. It also has it's significance in the Middle East and Africa.
Your ignorance is in full display - you know that the alternative, tilted symbol called the "hooked cross" or "hakenkreuz" signifies hate. And yet, you want to using a word that is sacred for some other culture.
don't put words in my mouth. i never used either term. im criticizing your decision to call out people for using the wrong term instead of the person who wants jewish people dead.
your point is true, it's just that you're defending it in a way that diverts attention away from the more immediate problem of anti-jewish hate