Ps. My thoughts are a little disorganised, so if there’s anything problematic or inaccurate, just let me know.
Let’s begin by talking about the hooked cross. Most of the culture around the world see it in a positive light. In India, they call it swastika, in China wan or wanzi, in Japan manji, in Korea manja, and so on. There are also various native American groups as well as Europeans (Ukraine, Finland) who revere this symbol. And from little that I know, I also heard about it being part of Jewish synagogues in some places.
Despite these groups being cooperative and making heavy changes to the symbols, by rejecting the angled cross, and adding dots and curves, the hate against PoC for following their beliefs did not stop. Could you deny the bigots a symbol for their evil ideology, by letting PoC reclaim the symbol? Yes. But would they choose to? No. For about 3000 years, it was a revered symbol in most parts of the world. For almost a quarter of a century, it was a hate symbol in a small part of the world. And yet, here we are.
Putting aside the symbol, let’s talk about the word itself. For most of the Indians out there, having the word “swastika” appropriated by Nazi is horrible - it robbed the original meaning of the word स्वस्तिक. People out there name their kids Swastik (masculine) and Swastika (feminine). I can’t just imagine how they’ll be bullied. Swastika is also related to various figures in the Hindu mythology. There’s also a yoga pose called the Swastik asana. There’s also Buddhist references out there that I’m unaware of.
If there’s so much concern about this hooked cross being a hate symbol, why isn’t it being calling it flyfot or hakenkreuz? Surely, those are Euro-centric words, right? Why drag a culture that had nothing to do with the Holocaust?
Enough about the swastika. Let’s talk about an imperialist symbol that is still respected. The symbol of terror, bloodshed, capitalism and colonialism. The Union Jack.
The first Union Jack was made in the early 1600s, when England and Scotland unified. In the 1800s, they colonized Ireland, and thus formed the modern Union Jack that you all know today.
Under this symbol and every version of it that has existed, 165 million Indians were killed in just forty year’s time - colonialism lasted for almost 200 years, starting from 1757 to 1947, and also add the other victims of colonialism of the British Empire, from America, Africa, Australia and Asia, as well as Europe. We are talking about atrocities like artificial famines, starvation, pogroms, slave-trade, and apartheid, just to name a few. National and religious artifacts were desecrated and stolen. Territories were robbed of their wealth. Natural resources destroyed. Artisans and craftsmen, torch bearers of culture were killed, or handicapped. Let’s also not forget the aftermath of disastrous independence of colonies. Like for example, the Partition of undivided India.
And yet, this hate symbol exists out there. People wave this flag in pride. The vilification of swastika was never about the Nazis. It is a convenient excuse to deflect how the Allied forces and anyone associated with it are the good guys at the expense of making vulnerable groups feeling uncomfortable. Invasion of Vietnam? War crime sponsored in Gaza? Genocide in Bangladesh? “We defeated the Nazis, we can’t be that evil”.
as well as Europeans (Ukraine, Finland) who revere this symbol
Those are Nazis. Finland got the symbol from a founder of the Swedish Nazi Party.
And yet, this hate symbol exists out there.
Inshallah the United Kingdom will break apart and the Union Jack will be no more.
Ukrainians and Fins revering the Swastika in the modern day isn’t exactly an example of its good usage. iirc fascists in Finland were using the Swastika before the Nazis did, and the Nazis partly drew inspiration from the Fin usage.
I think the reason the Swastika gets the treatment it does is that it’s necessary to the mythology of liberalism that the advent of Nazism was basically a demonic invasion from another plane of existence or some atavistic awakening of an evil in the heart of the human species. It – and fascism generally – can’t be recognized for what they are, the inevitable consequence of capitalism interacting with Euro imperialist culture, so they need to either be something totally Other or something that exists at the core of humanity. Hitler needs to be a special, powerful demagogue who basically cast a spell on the people of Germany, because if that’s not what happened then we might need to grapple with how the liberal Wiemar Republic produced the Nazis. The Swastika is an extension of this, just as Hitler is Satan and the Nazis are demons, the Swastika is the Mark of the Beast, a magical symbol used in evil rituals to corrupt people, and therefore totalizingly reviled. What other explanation could there be for the way Germany bans this iconography while allowing fascists to run wild? It’s not a measure that is preventing another Holocaust, it’s a measure that creates a basis for the next one, so long as it looks a little different.
I don’t feel as strongly as you do about the cultural reception of the Swastika, honestly I just wanted to talk about Hitler not being a wizard because it bothers me. Really, ever since I saw an offhand comment here about Trump keeping a book of Hitler’s speeches it’s been on my mind, because the myth also produces exactly that kind of fetishization of Hitler’s words, which is, uh, not great.
“We defeated the Nazis, we can’t be that evil”
Even this couldn’t be further from the truth. They had no problem whatsoever allying with the fucking Nazis to take down their common enemy, the communists. Because the communists, unlike the fascists, pose a real threat to their rotting system based on exploitation, if left unhindered it would mean an end to their glorious days of being the modern slave owners. But the fascists only posed a geopolitical threat, their ideology goes along just fine with capitalism, that’s why we still see Nazis get standing ovations to this day while communists are being witch hunted.
You might find it a little bit interesting, but try reading about Subhash Chandra Bose. He was an oddball for a leftist, given his interaction with the Axis power. He met Musolini, he tried asking for help from Hitler against the British, felt betrayed, and finally got that help from imperial Japan. He led his army, the Azad Hind Fauj against the British India Imperial army.
I’m not so sure he really “counts” as a leftist. He was talking about incorporating fascism into his “policy and programme” years before he met Mussolini. He called those that sided with communism only “fundamentally wrong”. Some more quotes from him that really illustrate his beliefs:
“Both Communism and Fascism believe in the supremacy of the State over the individual…Both believe in the dictatorship of the party”
“And we have come to the conclusion that with a democratic system we cannot solve the problems of Free India”
“Now I would like to compare some good points of National Socialism and Communism. You will find some things common to both. Both are called anti-democratic or totalitarian. Both are anti-capitalistic.”
He occasionally publicly distanced himself from fascism (but that first quote is from the beginning of his career, and that last months before his death). He was not a particularly huge fan of the racial component (but really only towards Indians), but Bose never openly discussed Germany’s antisemitism (but did himself oppose Jews because of their connections with Britain). Not one of his Berlin wartime associates or colleagues ever quotes him expressing any indignation. He only brought up the discrimination against Indians when it personally affected him (he was called slurs by children while in Germany and objected to that, and requested they allow interracial marriages with Indians right before his marriage to an Austrian). He denounced German racial policy in 1938, but then in 1942 wrote that Indians were “true Aryans and the ‘brethren’ of the Germans” and in that article in Angriff made out his support for these policies.
Quite a few groups were to the left of him, and I feel like the CPI, HRA, or even Nehru would be better examples of the Indian anti-colonial left wing. Sorry for the rant, I’ve kinda been wanting to say something like this for a while. I have an Indian great-grandfather (still alive, my family’s longevity is epic), but I can’t really claim the heritage because I don’t look it, speak it, or really have any connections with India at all. I have much more familial connection with Germany (a bit ironic, considering the topic of discussion). Again, sorry for the big block of text.
I read a post recently, I can’t remember where, that had a phrase that’s been rattling around my head ever since: “Hitler was the Jesus of Europe”
Hitler took all the sins of European colonialism onto himself and then died, absolving Europeans of the guilt for every crime they committed before, as well as the crimes they would go on to commit after. By raising Hitler and the Nazis to the position of ‘ultimate evil’, and then pretending the western allies opposed and rejected the Nazis from pure and simple moral goodness, they can spin the lie of Europe as being fundamentally good - rather than the truth that the Nazis were a mere intensified extension of the same brutual colonialism that is the true nature of the European powers.
And of course as part of that, the swastika has to be considered a symbol of literally unspeakable evil, as in you cannot talk about it at all. It’s a huge shame that such a widespread and ancient symbol (I’ve heard it may be based on the positions of the constellation Ursa Major around the pole star on the solstices and equinoxes) is stained in this way, to the extent that any design with curving radial symmetry seems inherently suspicious.
I’m also glad to see someone else put into words my true revulsion at the Union Jack - needless to say, the same goes a thousand-fold for the Stars and Stripes. When the true history of the world is finally written, that will go down as the single most utterly evil symbol of all time.
You see, the Nazis lost. Their symbols are recognized as what they stand for: evil and genocide. The British haven’t lost yet. They remain part of the dominant power bloc, and their ideology is seen as normal and fine.
