Music Banter - Su-asti-ka

The point about the swastika that you appear to be missing is that it's not the symbol that earns the hatred, directly: it's what it represents. As with all symbols, they have to stand for something and nobody is going to say something like "KKK?! Fuck that! I'm never gonna use the letter K again! (Oops! I just did!)" To make a comment like "the symbol didn't kill all those people" is beyond ignorant. Nobody would say such a thing. Nobody is going to go out hunting wild Swastikas; they can live in peace.

But even though it WAS a symbol of good luck and peace --- and in some places as you and others say, still is --- the fact is that for 99% of the population of at least the West --- and let's not forget, this was a World War --- the Swastika represents an evil, totalitarian empire who murdered countless millions and almost succeeded in the extermination of an entire race. To say "get over it" is glib and also quite an insult. Say that to anyone who had parents or grandparents killed by the Nazis, or to any concentration camp survivor.

If the ankh symbol, to use a pretty stupid and unlikely premise, were to be taken as their sigil by say Al Quaeda, if you saw it on their webcasts every time someone was beheaded, or any time anyone flew a plane into a building or blew one up, you would eventually come to associate what was/is a symbol of peace with one of hate. It's what is most current that sticks in the memory, and what matters. As for that kid: there's no way he meant that as anything other than an insult, up-yours etc. You telling me some teenager who work(ed) in MacDonalds knows about the ancient connotations of the Swastika, other than he's seen on maybe Castle Wolfenstein et al? That's a clear case of trying to excuse something on a really shaky defence.

Why do you want to wear the Swastika? Is it only for shock value? If nobody cared would you be so tied up about it? And you know, without question, what a massive proportion of the people who see it on you are going to think, so really it would seem all you want to do is wind people up and then cover it under the guise of "freedom of speech/expression". Yeah.

It comes down to this: you can't tell me, or anyone else, what to think or how to view certain objects, and you can't whine if, when the vast majority of your peers see it a certain way, and you see it another, you get flak for that. If you do. I don't know if you do, you haven't said. Some people (most really) do and will forever see the Swastika as a symbol of Nazi Germany, and therefore a symbol of evil, and you're not going to change their minds, no matter how much you want to. If 9 out of 10 Western people were asked to name one single thing that symbolised the Nazis, you can bet they would say the Swastika. It's just recognised as such and is forever ingrained on the human consciousness now. Many of us know it can/could stand for something totally opposite, but history has set it in stone now and it will forever be seen as a symbol of evil, hatred and prejudice.

So people will always think of the Swastika as evil, and you and others do not. Why not take your own advice and "get over it"? What does it matter to you? Do you think you can change the opinion of the whole world? You can't. You may bemoan people's close-mindedness, but you have to, you must accept that for millions of people across the world the Swastika represents evil, and it always will.