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News & ArtsFriday, September 4, 2009
??!! The Pink Swastika
Posted by Dan Savage on Fri, Sep 4, 2009 at 7:29 AM
Well... um... gee. I'm not sure it'll prevent many HIV infections, but maybe this loony AIDS awareness campaign will put an end to all that crap about how Hitler was secretly gay.
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DAN! Give us a NSFW warning here. Would that I worked at a place like the stranger, but it isn't so!
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Well, at least I know what images will be rolling through my fevered night terrors this evening. Good lord, Germany...
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i'm disappointed that there isn't actually a pink swastika being used here. for thousands of years, the swastika was just a nice, positive decorative symbol, often associated with eastern religions. then the nazis come along and fuck it up for everyone. now the swastika is completely taboo throughout the western world and is associated with hate, genocide, bigotry, etc. i would like to see us take back the swastika from criminal hateful groups who use it as a symbolic weapon. i think a pink swastika, taken as a marker of some sort of peaceful, universal group would help rehabilitate this ancient symbol. it'd be nice to see a day where hate groups could no longer use a swastika as a sign of hate.
10
i'm disappointed that there isn't actually a pink swastika being used here. for thousands of years, the swastika was just a nice, positive decorative symbol, often associated with eastern religions. then the nazis come along and fuck it up for everyone. now the swastika is completely taboo throughout the western world and is associated with hate, genocide, bigotry, etc. i would like to see us take back the swastika from criminal hateful groups who use it as a symbolic weapon. i think a pink swastika, taken as a marker of some sort of peaceful, universal group would help rehabilitate this ancient symbol. it'd be nice to see a day where hate groups could no longer use a swastika as a sign of hate.
11
i'm disappointed that there isn't actually a pink swastika being used here. for thousands of years, the swastika was just a nice, positive decorative symbol, often associated with eastern religions. then the nazis come along and fuck it up for everyone. now the swastika is completely taboo throughout the western world and is associated with hate, genocide, bigotry, etc. i would like to see us take back the swastika from criminal hateful groups who use it as a symbolic weapon. i think a pink swastika, taken as a marker of some sort of peaceful, universal group would help rehabilitate this ancient symbol. it'd be nice to see a day where hate groups could no longer use a swastika as a sign of hate.
12
i'm disappointed that there isn't actually a pink swastika being used here. for thousands of years, the swastika was just a nice, positive decorative symbol, often associated with eastern religions. then the nazis come along and fuck it up for everyone. now the swastika is completely taboo throughout the western world and is associated with hate, genocide, bigotry, etc. i would like to see us take back the swastika from criminal hateful groups who use it as a symbolic weapon. i think a pink swastika, taken as a marker of some sort of peaceful, universal group would help rehabilitate this ancient symbol. it'd be nice to see a day where hate groups could no longer use a swastika as a sign of hate.
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@ 13 fail as you may, as a student of symbolism and religions, I completely agree with your quadruple posts.
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@gcm
They didn't fuck it up for everyone. On a recent trip to Taiwan, I saw swastikas everywhere. They're still innocuous sybols of buddhist harmony there.
They didn't fuck it up for everyone. On a recent trip to Taiwan, I saw swastikas everywhere. They're still innocuous sybols of buddhist harmony there.
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10 15 It's true tho here in the west that symbol has a clear meaning and it's one of hate. So out of respect for all the Jewish, Gypsies and other non-aryan ethnic groups that perished due to the nazi, eastern religious groups that do immigrate here need to be a little more prudent when thinking about displayin this symbol. I don't remember what they call themselves but there's a group that are sorta like Buddhist tho they strictly refuse to eat any meat, they also revere that symbol and sometimes they even wear it around their necks.
Concerning Hitler's sexual proclivities, there's a book called "The Hidden Hitler" by historian Lothar Machtan and there's also "The Mind of Adolf Hitler" by Walter C. Langer, so to simply dismiss it as a rumor or "crap" falls on the realm of being uneducated and refusing to listen to what others who have studied that mind have to say about it.
Concerning Hitler's sexual proclivities, there's a book called "The Hidden Hitler" by historian Lothar Machtan and there's also "The Mind of Adolf Hitler" by Walter C. Langer, so to simply dismiss it as a rumor or "crap" falls on the realm of being uneducated and refusing to listen to what others who have studied that mind have to say about it.
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It's a shame that the symbol has lost it's original meanings.
It's been used for over 3,000 years. Artifacts such as pottery and coins from ancient Troy show that the swastika was a commonly used symbol as far back as 1000 BCE.
The swastika was used by many cultures around the world, including in China, Japan, India, and southern Europe. By the Middle Ages, the swastika was a well known, if not commonly used, symbol but was called by many different names:
China - wan
England - fylfot
Germany - Hakenkreuz
Greece - tetraskelion and gammadion
India - swastika
Though it is not known for exactly how long, Native Americans also have long used the symbol of the swastika.
Traveling through Canyon de Chelly you can find them painted and carved into the walls. Our guide told us that to the Navajo, the swastika represents the legend of the whirling log. The tale is of a man, outcast from his tribe, who rolls down river in a hollowed-out log. With the help of sacred deities he finds a place of friendship and abundance. Until the late 1800s, when J. Lorenzo Hubbell and J.B. Moore opened their trading posts in Arizona and New Mexico, Navajos portrayed the swastika solely in their religious ceremonies in the form of sand paintings. But by 1896, with prodding by Hubbell and Moore, the symbol proliferated on Navajo rugs, sometimes lifted directly from the images in sand and depicted as a central cross with a male-female pair of standing figures ("yei" or "dreaming twins") at the end of each of the four arms of the cross.
The Hopi who also resided in the canyon had their own meaning as well.
The word "swastika" comes from the Sanskrit svastika - "su" meaning "good," "asti" meaning "to be," and "ka" as a suffix.
More...
It's been used for over 3,000 years. Artifacts such as pottery and coins from ancient Troy show that the swastika was a commonly used symbol as far back as 1000 BCE.
The swastika was used by many cultures around the world, including in China, Japan, India, and southern Europe. By the Middle Ages, the swastika was a well known, if not commonly used, symbol but was called by many different names:
China - wan
England - fylfot
Germany - Hakenkreuz
Greece - tetraskelion and gammadion
India - swastika
Though it is not known for exactly how long, Native Americans also have long used the symbol of the swastika.
Traveling through Canyon de Chelly you can find them painted and carved into the walls. Our guide told us that to the Navajo, the swastika represents the legend of the whirling log. The tale is of a man, outcast from his tribe, who rolls down river in a hollowed-out log. With the help of sacred deities he finds a place of friendship and abundance. Until the late 1800s, when J. Lorenzo Hubbell and J.B. Moore opened their trading posts in Arizona and New Mexico, Navajos portrayed the swastika solely in their religious ceremonies in the form of sand paintings. But by 1896, with prodding by Hubbell and Moore, the symbol proliferated on Navajo rugs, sometimes lifted directly from the images in sand and depicted as a central cross with a male-female pair of standing figures ("yei" or "dreaming twins") at the end of each of the four arms of the cross.
The Hopi who also resided in the canyon had their own meaning as well.
The word "swastika" comes from the Sanskrit svastika - "su" meaning "good," "asti" meaning "to be," and "ka" as a suffix.
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