Aby The Liberal

Aby June 7th, 2007

Sometimes people question us about the image on the blog home page which depicts the Swastika. The questions range from harmless, honest ones like “Why do you have Swastika on this site” or”Are you a neo-Nazi?” to abusive ones with expletives. We have taken all of them in our strides and replying the honest and curious ones.

The most striking concern about these questions is the level of ignorance a lot of us in the west have about Nazism or Swastika. The sight of a Swastika symbol evokes hatred and fear before the brain could think, much like in Harry Potter books where the people are too scared of the name ‘Voldemort’. Beyond a certain such a behaviour is extreme and speak of a phobic attitude coupled by ignorance. A lot of people simply refuse to accept the fact that the Swastika is a sacred symbol and represent good things like peace, elemental harmony and good luck to a lot of people in the world. The negative and intolerant image associated with Swastika has evolved from the use of the symbol by Adolf Hitler’s National Socialist Germany, which a few Europeans, some Australians and many Americans like to connect it with now.

We can do a demographic analysis of the countries which revere the Swastika and countries which consider it as a symbol of Nazism or any other evils. We can see if the Swastika really represents good or evil using mathematical calculations on the available data and logical assumptions.

Group A - Swastika Negative
Countries in the world which assign a negative meaning to swastika - Estimated Population as of 2006

EU - 728000000*
USA - 298,444,215
Australia - 20,264,082
Isreal - 6404637

Population of countries with negative bias against swastika - 1053112934. We can take a safe approximation of -15% for pro-Swastika EU countries or individual people(s) in any of the above countries. So we get, gross demographic population of Swastika Negative people - 895145994 (A).

*European Union (EU) is taken as one because most of the countries here consider Swastika as a sign of racism, holocaust or Nazism. A few countries among them like Belgium, Finland, Denmark, Norway, Greece and Romania have a cultural or national positive significance which is eliminated by a margin of ~15%; deducted to account for their populations in the above calculation.

Group B - Swastika Positive

Countries with majority of dharmic cultures and religions which hold Swastika as a symbol of peace, harmony, purity and elements of nature - Estimated Population as of 2006

Thailand - 64947307
Hong Kong - 6910690
Cambodia - 14051893
Vietnam - 85093000
Korea N - 23261404
Korea S - 48970674
Taiwan - 23165545
China - 1319594685
Japan - 127417000
India - 1125063290
Nepal - 28708727
Bhutan - 2311421
Sri Lanka - 20920911
Burma - 47227633
Laos - 6469824

Population of countries with cultural and religious esteem of Swastika - 2944114004. Again we can take a safe approximation of -15% for people living in those countries who are neutral to Swastika like the strict followers of Islam, Christianity or non-dharmic cultures/religions. In that case we have a final count of 2502496904 (B) who consider the swastika as a sacred or cultural symbol.

The final result of the demographic calculation shows that Group A (Swastika Negative) represents only 13.7% of the world population of 6.5 billion while Group B (Swastika Positive) represents a whopping 38.4% of world population. The rest are neutral or positive to Swastika like the West Asian, South American or African countries. The Swastika Positive people beat the Swastika Negative people of the world 2.8:1 by population. So now, is the Swastika really an evil symbol, from a democratic point of view?

Check out the other post on Swastika - Is Swastika A Symbol of Evil?

• Internationalism , World Culture
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Dmitri June 6th, 2007

Quran 9.29 “Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day…”

Islamic scholars would often cite Christianity when the question of their crimes against humanity is raised. Their method of apologist behaviour is “The Christians have killed more people than we did so we are yet to reach their level”. But on checking the factual data, their killings were and are as bad as Christians if not worse. While a lot of Muslim apologists would justify the aggression of Muhammad and the Ottoman Empire as defensive jihad, an unbiased analytical view of history proves otherwise. Let us do a brief check and a journey back in time in the context of Islamic genocides and see the effects Islam has on genocides in the present world.

South Asia (1000 - 1400 AD) - The entire Hindu population in Afghanistan was massacred in the Hindu Kush region in the year 1000 AD. Timor killed more than 1,000,000 Hindus in western parts of India and on one occasion 100,000 Hindus in a single day. The Bahamani sultans made it an objective to kill 100,000 Hindus a year, effectively reducing the Hindu population in India by several millions.

Greece (1821 - 1822 AD) - The Ottomans under the order of the then Khalifa massacred at least 50,000 Christians including women and children in the Thessaly, Macedonia and the Aegean islands. On Easter Day 1822, the Orthodox Patriarch in Constantinople was hanged by the Ottomans, and his body was later was thrown into the Bosphorus, eventually recovered by a Greek boat and brought to Odessa, where the Patriarch was given a martyr’s burial. The Muslim ulema under the direction of the Khalifa gave orders that ‘the rebels be openly fought and put to the sword, that their property be plundered and their wives and children reduced to slavery’. The Greek Christian captives, mostly women and children were sold as slaves in the markets of Egypt and other Arabian countries to be exploited as sex workers and domestic help.

Dead human bodies sprawled in fields, massacred by Ottoman Turks in 1914 Armenian Massacre

Turkey (1915 to 1922 AD)-1,500000 Armenian Christians and at least 250,000 Greek Christians and Assyrians were killed by the Ittihat ve Terakki government (popularly known as Ottoman Turk government). The methods of killing used were labour camps where the Armenians were starved and overworked to death; concentration camps in the desert between Jerablus and Deir ez-Zor where the Assyrians would starve and thirst to death in the burning sun. Women were either sold in slave markets as sex slaves or crucified to feath if they revolted. The methods varied and the perpetrators took great pleasure is inflicting maximum suffering in their method of killings and torture.

The Balkan Countries (1870s) - Between April and August 1876 thousands of Bulgarian Christians were horrifically massacred by Khilafah forces - 12,000 men, women and children were butchered in May alone for revolting against the heavy taxes which forced them to starvation. Midhat Pasha, a liberal minister under the Ottoman Khalifa Abdul Hamid I, was killed because he made reforms for the better treatment of Christians. More than 250000 Christians converted to Islam to escape death and girls were dressed as boys to prevent rape by the Khalifa’s forces.

These are only a few of the horrors the Islamists have unleashed in this world and it continues till date with oppression and genocides of Hindus in Bangladesh and Pakistan, ethnic cleansing and massacres in Timor, Saudan, Algeria, Nigeria and Somalia and Jehadi terrorism all over the world. If the Khalifa forces had the powers the Christian aggressors had during the period of Crusades, civilisation would have been annihilated from the face of this earth. The swords on the bottom of the flag of Saudi Arabia, the Vatican of Sunni Muslims gives a clue of the true nature of Islam.

More Information -

• Yes This Is About Islam by Salman Rushdie
• The Massacres of the Khalifa

• Ideology , Religion , World Culture
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