Swastika - Democratically Nazi or Sacred?
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?
- World Culture , Internationalism
- Comments(9)
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The Swastika haters would not care if the swastika lovers are majority or not. They are too blinded by their blind faith on biased history to bother about the world outside their own countries.
[…] fact they don’t. Seeing the actual huge world is an eye opener… Here is something to enlighten - Swastika - Democratically Nazi or Sacred? Is Swastika a Symbol of Evil? Perhaps we should stop using the world ‘Hitler’ either, instead we […]
The hakenkreuz (swastika) of National Socialism originates ( like the Buddhist version) in ancient culture. In the 20th century it may have been brought back (as a political symbol) to post WW1 Germany by troops returning from the Baltics, where they saw it, liked it, and even painted it on their helmets. The Latvians for thousands of years have had the “thunder cross” (swastika) in N. Europe. It is known as the Hakaristi in Finnish culture as well, even BEFORE it was suggested for use as the Finnish Air Force symbol. The Finns by the way, during the time they were “under the sway” of the “socialism” swastika, did not get into bed with Hitler on the Holocaust. Kind of shoots a hole in Rex’s “world socialism” theory. The Finns like to say ‘We didn’t help the Nazis, the Nazis helped us - when no one else would.’ I don’t know where to begin with the Latvian Air Force’s use of a “Nazi”-like 45 degree swastika and how that relates to Curry’s “socialism”. William of Ockham would probably say the simple answer is the most likely here: The “thunder cross” is an ancient indigenous symbol chosen for Latvia’s first independant air force. The symbol appears in European history from the Bronze Age. This garbage from Rex Curry about two S’s for “Socialism” is just that: Garbage. Would he have us believe that the neo-lithic Europeans and later the Etruscans and Greeks and Romans were thinking about “Socialism”? Certainly not in the modern sense regarding “class struggle”. And William of Ockham on Rex Curry? The simple answer is most likely: Curry’s a CON MAN.
hi nice post, i enjoyed it
The Swastika is a religious symbol for Hindus (Indo Aryan Followers of the Sanatan Dharma) of India. The symbol essentially represents, good luck,prosperity,peace and faith in the all mighty. This symbol was brought to India by the Indo Aryan settlers and thereon spreaded to all the south and south east asian cultures during hundreds of years of cultural and religious exchanges.Buddhism which grew out of Hinduism as an offshoot was also instrumental in spreading it, as many Indian rulers, notably Ashoka sent missions to Sri Lanka,China,Indonesia,Java,Bali,Sumatra,Borneo,Vietnam and many more countries. No logical person should associate the Swastika with Hatred and Fear just because the Nazis misused it as their symbol for Aryan Valour. The ancient Aryans may have revered it due to spiritual or religious faith and thats true for all other existing Aryan cultures…but assuming that anything related to the Aryans or the Swastika is evil or nagative is totally biased and hurting to all such cultures and religions that have an ancient Aryan lineage and use the Swastika in their cultural and religious practices.
the fact is that there is alot of killling/genocide in the culture related to india/asian civilization, eg ,pol pot, china revolution, india killing during their internal partition war, etc. it is most deceitful to associate the evil symbol with peace when obviously it has not. i have long suspected hitler was influenced by some sort of evil eastern influence and when i analyse this article, it seems to have a link to the evilness of hitler. it is scary to imagine that what eastern power or eastern religious organisation (eg,hindu, islam, buddhist,etc who preach peace but never meant it) will do to us if they become powerful and murderous like hitler.
Since when did the Anglo-Saxon values become so superior that it transcends everyone including East Asian cultures? Since when did the West make up only the world? When the West realise that there are 6 billion people who as are important, then the world might be better. By the way, the concept of western culture championed by Saxons is just a romantic view. To outsiders, Wars, divide and conquer, Opium Wars, resource theft, colonisation, economic sanctions is the actual face of the West.
umm… politics in general isn’t democratic, in case you didn’t notice.
The fact that we have little or no way of knowing what people in Myanmar think about swastikas MATTERS. The fact that they were used by a group that made a gigantic difference in the lives of millions, MATTERS.
When the people who revere the swastika have more political power in the world than those influenced, for better or worse, by knowing of the existence of the Nazis, then the swastika will lose its negative connotation.
The fact remains that when it is encountered in America or Europe, the odds of it representing Naziism are much higher than of it representing Hinduism or European paganism, except that European paganism is seen as connected to Naziism. In India, in China, in Laos - of course not. There is no reason there to connect the symbol with a European political movement.
Frankly, people who are willing to give that much power to a mute symbol terrify me, regardless of what they claim the symbol represents. They tend to forget that it’s only a symbol, and is likely a symbol of something ELSE to other people i.e. I’ll tolerate your symbol if you’ll tolerate my image of Calvin pissing on your symbol.
As Steven Heller´s book “Swartika - Symbol beyond redemption?” last sentence sums it up…”For every well-meaning artist who thinks the swastika can be tamed, there is a devout racist who embraces it. That the swastika prompts such complex debate only goes to prove that debate is a smoke screen. As long as it embodies even an iota of evil, it will never been redeamed”.
Do you agree or disagree?
Is the christian cross so tainted by its use by the Klu Klux Klan? (not neary so?) Are the runes so tainted?
Why isn´t the hammer and sickle of mother Russia so tainted?