Aby The Liberal

Aby April 12th, 2007

After days of deliberation, I have decided to write something on a cultural issue that I often had arguments with my Anglo-Saxon friends about. In  countries like UK or US where Abramaic religions represent a majority of the population, the swastika has very little or no cultural significance. This lack of awareness, coupled with a general taboo of Nazi symbolism give the culturally ’sacred’ Swastika a negative connotation. A symbol that has  had a rich history and millenniums of positive cultural meanings is often vilified, because of its resemblance to the Nazi emblem.

The Nazi Emblem Containing the Swastika

The Swastika officially became the emblem for the Nazi Party on August, 7, 1920, at the Salzburg Congress. Describing the new flag in Mein Kampf, the German fuhrer Hitler claimed that the swastika symbolized the victory of the ‘Aryan man’. Hitler had a penchant for distorting religious symbols which could be one of the reasons why he chose swastika with distortions. It is a cultural insult to use the Swastika as a war symbol, propagating a supersitition among Dharmic people(s) that the adoption of Swastika led Hitler to his downfall, despite his overwhelming military might. Today the symbol is commonly associated with Nazi Germany, the Holocaust, neo-Nazis and other hate groups who play on the fear psychosis and ignorance of Jews associated with Swastika.

Right facing Swastika used in a Buddhist temple in China

The Swastika originated and has been used for over 3000 years, with the anti-clockwise swastika dating back to 1000 BCE. It is used as a cultural symbol in China, India, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Japan, Vietnam and many other Eastern countries. As a religious symbol, the Swastika is used in Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and other Dharmic religions.In Buddhism, it represents resignation or enlightenment. In images and statues of Buddha, it could be seen on his chest, palms and feet during meditation or standing position. In Jainism the four arms Swastika re-affirms the belief of cycles of rebirth. The swastika was also a symbol of the Aryan people, a name which, in Sanskrit means “noble”. The Aryans were a group of people who settled in Iran, Northern India, Southern China, Pakistan, Slavic Russia, etc.. They believed themselves to be a pure race, superior to the other surrounding cultures. This inspired the National Socialist Germans to use the Swastika as an Aryan symbol as quite a number of North Germans were Nordic Aryans by ethnicity. Contrary to popular stereotypes, Aryans are not necessarily ‘white skinned blue eyed nordics’. Aryans come from different ethnicities across Eurasia, claiming their nobleness based on their numerous civilisations.

A left facting swastika used by Hindus and Jains

The word swastika is a corruptionof the word S-vasti-ka in Sanskrit which means “hastening of well being”. The Swastika is also given various names in different regions like wan-ji in Eastern China, man-ji in Japan, geg-gsang in Southern China, tetraskelion or gammadion in Greece.. It is a symbol of prosperity and good fortune in the Dharmic and Eastern cultures. It is widely used in both the ancient and modern world. One could find Swastika in temples, road signs, houses and various other public buildings in countries where cultural significance with the swastika is present. It could also be found on shops, necklaces, flags, letter pads and sometimes stamped on ballot papers during elections as a sign of good luck and fortune.

Road Signs in Taiwan Containing Swastika

The presence of Swastika in religious places in Asian countries gives the unaware or ignorant western tourists the impression they are ‘in the house of evil’ or the religious place has strong Nazi connections. Such an attitude leads to cultural clashes and racial insults which prompts the people to take drastic steps like having such tourists thrown out of the sacred places or the temple cleansed after their departure. In Puri in India, the Jagannath temple has been banned to foreigners and cleansed several times when an American couple insulted the Swastika symbol.

Beyond the Eastern and Southern Asia, the Swastika also used in many other cultures around the world. It was found in the relics of the lost city of Atlantis under the Atlantic Ocean. Greek priestesses branded Swastikas on their arms and goddess statues dug up at ancient Troy by Dr. Schliemann have Swastikas on the vulva. Romans took the Swastika with them on their march across Europe. It was emblemed in the female genitalia in those cultures as a sign of fertility or to ensure fertility.

Today more than half the world considers Swastika as most scared and precious symbol. The swastika has meant a lot to humans over this entire planet for all of our human history. It has had that high status and respect for thousands of years till today, the 23 years (1920-1943) when Nazis abused it is too short to smear the 3000+ years of elemental purity that this symbol represents.

Sadly there are groups today which still misuse the symbol of Swastika for racial hate and Antisemitism.  This provokes people who think this symbol represents evil and Nazism and go ahead to insult the cultures associated with it. Condeming and banning the Swastika is the equivalent of banning the cross or the crescent - hardly a measure to combat racism. When we seek to stamp out an evil, we should take care not to perpetuate it in some other way. Hitler’s totalitarian regime banned many symbols. Adopting his methods is scarcely a wise way of removing his legacy. In ignoring the sensitivities and culture of people in the East, a ban would be an act of Western arrogance - the very kind of attitude Hitler encouraged. It would also be an ideological victory for Nazis and Adolf Hitler who would be deemed to have succeeded in robbing a religious symbol of its sacredness. The best way would be to let the Swastika be out in the open and give a sign to Nazi sympathisers that Hitler is not the winner, he failed in the desecration of a holy symbol of peace.

More Information On Swastika

• I am Not A Nazi Swastika Gallery
  
• Friends of the Swastika

Special thanks to Dmitri and Kris for their input for this article.

• Historical Bias , World Culture
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Aby April 11th, 2007

It is generally acknowledged in Europe and United States that Hitler and his forces committed the worst massacres in human history. For an internationalist who grew up learning history in different country and from different perspectives, I learned a very significant thing – there is no absolute truth in history. The history that one learns is often coloured by the victors in the society or nation where their version of history is written. It is selective, manipulative and uses psychological factors like social sanction to approve one’s ideology over the other. For example, in Europe and United States, the Nazi holocaust is given a lot of hype and social taboo effect while similar scale of crimes by Allied victors is largely ignored. I’m writing in brief about the major Allied crimes during World War 2, the part of history which shows the dark side of Allied countries, mainly US and UK during World War II - from a neutral and humanistic viewpoint.

Bodies sprawled around the city after Dresden firebombing

Dresden Massacre – It is considered as the largest single act of mass murder in the 20th century, carried out on 13th February 1945 at Dresden, a cultural city of Germany. Over 300000 people including men, women and children refugees were burned or gassed to death in  firebombings by Britain and United States. The exact number is not known because of the presence of 1.2 million refugees in the city but a close estimate was made by the Germans from the body counts. The raid of 14 hours was carried with repeated bombings after short intervals ending with US Mustangs destroying all rescue vehicles, hospitals and Red Cross zones to ensure no survivors escaped. 16000 acres of land were destroyed in one night. As the perpratators of this horrific massacre were victors, there was no trial after the incident. To add an insult to injury the German corpses were piled up, photo shoots made and shown to Anglo-US media as ‘Auschwitz massacre of Jews’. The  authenticity of these photographs came into scrutiny by the Red Cross and news agencies covering the Dresden massacre, on various grounds. As a damage control, it was made a social taboo and even a legal offence in some countries to question the Holocaust figures. For more details about the Dresden Massacre click the link here.

Hamburg Massacres – Carried out throughout 1943, more than 50000 civilians were killed by Bomber Harris, who was authorised by Churchill to bomb civilian locales. On questioning on the morality of bombing civilians by his cabinet, Churchill quoted “Now everyone’s at it, it’s simply a question of fashion - similar to that of whether short or long dresses are in”. A technique called ‘Shock and Awe’ , similar to Blitzkrieg was used which caused casualties in many ways – not just by burns, but also from smoke inhalation, carbon monoxide poisoning and asphyxiation, as the oxygen is sucked out by the conflagration. R.H.S. Crossman, a cabinet minister under Winston Churchill authorized the mass murders as he wanted to pound the Germans civilians into submission. Source –> History Net

Tokyo Firebombing – At least 100000 people were massacred in Tokyo bombing by US on March 1945. Incendiary bombs, made of a mixture of thermite and oxydising agents (sometimes including napalm) burned 200 km2 of the Japanese capital. The fires were so hot they would ignite the clothing on individuals as they were fleeing. Many women were wearing what were called ‘air-raid turbans’ around their heads and the heat would ignite those turbans like a wick on a candle. In the context of war, the large number of Japanese civilians killed by strategic bombing was seen as acceptable by the American administration. Curtis LeMay, commander of the Tokyo bombers quoted after the World War 2: “Killing Japanese didn’t bother me very much at that time… I suppose if I had lost the war, I would have been tried as a war criminal.” (The same Curtis Lemay was honoured and became a General during Vietnam War and known for this notorious quote “We should bomb Vietnam back into the stone age.“)

Aftermath of the atomic holocaust on Hiroshima, Japan in 1945

Hiroshima Atomic Bombing - 140,000 people were killed in Hiroshima by a U-235 Nuclear Bomb names ‘Little Boy’ in August 6, 1945. People were vapourised instantly and the floor melted to glass due to the extreme heat generated by nuclear fission. The few survivors were crippled for life and their genetic defects caused their descendants to be genetically defective and deformed. After the Hiroshima bombing, President Truman announced, “If they do not now accept our terms, they may expect a rain of ruin from the air the likes of which has never been seen on this earth.”

Nagasaki Atomic Bombing – On the morning of August 9, 1945 Nagasaki was destroyed. 80,000 civilians were instantly killed by  the US Atomic Bomb ‘Fat Man’. The bomb caused the temperature of Nagasaki city to rise to 7000 degrees C and a wind of 1000 kph. An unknown number of survivors from the Hiroshima bombing made their way to Nagasaki and were bombed again. Casualties followed days after the bombings and most of the city’s 150000 survivors had a grisly death in the next 10 years. Their offsprings were subject to genetic aberrations.

It must be noted that an overwhelming majority of Americans agree that the atomic bombings of Japan are justified or even necessary. They argue that these mass massacres were needed “to hasten the end of the war” and  to avoid a theoretical casualty figure that a land based invasion would have supposedly caused. The fact that a conditional surrender of Japan was already underway is conveniently ignored, in favour of claims that favour the Anglo-American justification. (The same Americans would be vehemently outraged if anyone were to presumptively suggest that the 11 September 2001 attacks could somehow be justified.)

• Historical Bias , World Politics
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