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Monday, January 16, 2012

??!! / History Nazi-Themed Sports Day in Chiang Mai

Posted by Brendan Kiley on Mon, Jan 16, 2012 at 10:14 AM

Here's a photo I never expected to see—Asian schoolgirls marching down the street in Nazi uniforms:

Questions are growing in Thailand about how school students in Chiang Mai were able to adopt a Nazi theme for their school sports-day on Friday, wearing outfits modeled on those of SS guards and waving huge swastika banners.

Which reminds me of this photo an artist-friend sent me when he was living in India.

Bombay shopkeeper, 2007.

"I dunno," he wrote when I asked about the photo, "I have noticed that more than a few Indians (and Indonesians, when I lived there) have a regard for Hitler."

As for the Thai kids, school officials explained that the students hadn't cleared the costumes with teachers—they're supposed to be a surprise—and they "didn’t realize it would upset anybody." And, as the article notes, swastikas are all over Asia (temples, religious altars), "possibly softening the impact of the Nazi version among locals."

Still... maybe the school wants to consider revising its history curriculum?

Comments (10) RSS

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But why is this necessarily a sign of a bad curriculum? How much more do kids in the US and Europe learn about Idi Amin or Pol Pot or even Stalin than Asian kids learn about HItler?

Posted by seatackled on January 16, 2012 at 10:32 AM

The Axis powers supported the militant parts of the Indian independence movement against the Raj and Thailand was fascist and eventually formed a military alliance with Japan.

Britain was far more of a threat to India and Thailand than Germany.

Posted by dirge on January 16, 2012 at 10:40 AM

That's hot.

Posted by Banna

on January 16, 2012 at 10:40 AM

http://www.riazhaq.com/2010/06/hindu-nat…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rashtriya_S…

Posted by palamedes on January 16, 2012 at 11:17 AM

Asian schoolgirls in Nazi attire? I've never seen Rule 34 followed more efficiently.

Posted by foolish-rain on January 16, 2012 at 11:43 AM

Oh, it was a Catholic school. And we all know the high regard the Catholic Church has for all things Hitler.

Posted by Vince on January 16, 2012 at 12:17 PM

Pictures of Hitler are popular amongst people with far-right political leanings in India because they reflect belief in the concept of Aryan superiority. Some Indians claim to have pure Aryan ancestry, just as the Nazis did. The Nazies seized bad science, mixed it with mysticism and created the idea of an ancient Aryan master-race which never actually existed. They co-opted images such as the swastika to symbolize the idea that Germanic people were the pure-blooded descendants of the people who had created the Indo-European language family. As we know know languages are easily transmissable and have nothing to do with race. Nazism was a horror built on a lie.

Posted by thatsnotright on January 16, 2012 at 3:41 PM

@2 Even Gandhi has a bunch of pro-Hitler quotes for that reason

Posted by vooodooo84 on January 16, 2012 at 11:28 PM

Ya know, there's a statue of Lenin in Fremont.
Just sayin'.

Posted by SPG on January 17, 2012 at 2:01 PM

Along the lines of #2 - a very small set of Hindus believed that Hitler was the tenth avatar of Vishnu - Kalki, I believe - whose incarnation essentially brings about the end of this universe. Which is sometimes a good thing, I guess? There was also some conflation of Hitler's Aryan race and the Aryans that invaded India and brought along much of the structure of modern Hinduism. Hitler also adopted the Nazi swastika from a very old symbol of good luck that is still very prevalent in India and South Asia. It's not uncommon to see a swastika next to a Star of David on the mudflaps of trucks in India as two twin signs of good luck.

Posted by hindi nerd on January 17, 2012 at 7:04 PM