The swastica good or evil?

I went and saw some Buddhist monks last year, and they had the walls decorated with nice mats and with Swastika's on them. I think it was Chinese for Peace....It was weird seeing it symbolising something good when it's origin had been taken and transformed into symbol with such evil behind it...

We get some 'nazi punk' idiots who paint swastika's over our school and down the street, it frustrates me so much. It's a symbol that stands out to me so much, I can't help but notice and be suss about it

Sometimes however, I think people deliberately take offence to it; a strange kind of matyrdom, I don't know. But I remember watching a TV show where well-off American families went to live in remote parts of various developing countries. And one family went to live in a small village in India.

The American family were Jewish, and during their stay in India where they were supposed to learn about their culture, they were presented with elements of the local families' religion - including the swastika. And this family took huge offence at being presented with the swastika by an Indian family in a remote farming village who probably had never heard of the Nazis, let alone that their symbol was the swastika. And I just felt that they were being offended by it simply because they could.

Without going over everything I posted in the previous thread, I just think that sensitivity is needed when using the swastika. Because, to some (many) people, it symbolises great pain and suffering, on a scale which is barely imaginable. And it is still used to symbolise those things by some very nasty people.

However, that understanding needs to go two ways. If someone presents you with a swastila with good intentions, trying to be friendly, because their culture uses it for that reason, then you have no right to be angry with that person. However, I think just through the act of conditioning it would hard not to be internally offended by that, especially if it was a total surprise. Unfair, yes, but the nature of the mind - a symbol is given meaning, and presentation of that symbol generates that meaning in the mind.

If "F**k off" meant "nice to meet you" in another country, I'd be fairly taken aback.

Generally in the west, and I do mean generally, people have no specialist knowledge of the swastika. Generally in the west, people associate it with the Nazis. So generally in the west, the Swastika is an image that offends, because obviously the nazis are about as offensive as you can get. So... sensitivity.

I think a sensible rule of thumb is a black swastika on a white circle in the centre of a red flag is the horrible one.
Around my neck I wear a silver pendant with a swastika and the CND symbol side by side and I have had a mural of a swastika of intertwining branches and leaves on my chimney breast in my living room for around 10 years as a tribute to the power, strength, harmony and everchanging nature of, um, nature.
It is always noticed at parties etc and by visitors and I explain my reasons for it being there and most people react positively.
The only time it has led to any disharmony was when a friend of a friend, when we were alone in the kitchen at a party, said something along the lines of how cool it was to see a racist so proud! The disharmony it caused was me turfing him out of my house in short shrift.
I think it's kind of unlucky for good luck charm to have been so abused and fully applaud the campaign to reclaim it from Nazism.

When i was a young lad i saw the swastika somewhere or it just "came" to me,so i took one of my crayons and drew it all over my wall.It was just a fun symbol,I didnt know about Nazi's or Peace Symbols,I just had fun drawing it.I think that shows how the symbol can just appeal in its meaning of balance and peace and suggested motion.

don't get me wrong here, hitler was a mass murdering [censored] head, but when i see the swastica i don't connect it with hitler/nazis unless someone mentions it

to me the swastica is mainly a symbol of balance, and is thus sacred like the symbol of the ying and yang... but i live in a jewish area so everyone hates me when i say that

one question... is there another word OTHER than the 'swaztika.' it seems to be an obviously german word, and as long as it will be used, will have the context of the german history - mainly the nazi's.

if the word for the symbos is replaced by another non-german word, surely the symbol will gradually become more accepted by westerners? and perhaps only the dedicated neo-nazis and their beloved aryan supremacatic ideas will use the german word?

surely theres must be words in other cultures to describe the symbol.

as a interesting side note, many neo-nazi's now use an amended swastika flag - with three arms rather than four.

check vanizes link on the history of the swastica-

http://history1900s.about.com/cs/swastika/a/swastikahistory.htm

according to which 'swastica' is the Indian name for the symbol.

actually, germans don't even call it a swastika, and swastika is definitely not a German word. Here it is called a 'Hakenkreuz', which means 'hooked cross'.

I see it, and I am revulsed.

Dont get me wrong, I dont hate you guys for it, and I know its correct history now, thanks la, but years of seeing swastikas on the bad guys flags have made me conditioned against it. I couldn't have one anywhere near me, as I see it connected with evil, BUT I do want not to be conditioned against it.

Symbols are powerful, but they are, after all, just paint or ink or pixels...

Sorry, but thats how I feel...

PS anyone know a good hypnotist?

PS I will help in the fight to get it recognised properly in the West, colour me signed up...

A symbol, not unlike letters of a alphabet ( which are grouped togther to form ideas or concepts ), should be discouraged, just as foul language is taught to be 'bad' as young children until one is old enough to distinuguish between, and with knowledge of, the history and agendas of all forementioned data.

swastika, by itself, meh, not particularly bothered.
nazi flag, bothered.

that, i spose, is like saying stars dont bother me, but flags do, or carrot is nice, but i dont like coleslaw. which i do. coleslaw is yummy.

kinda like nuclear physics, really. the sum of the parts is less than the whole or something.

ok I wanna say something to that I am German and the whole discussion evokes some emotional reaction in me
First I know about the earlier meanings of that symbol the whole history in one direction ore the other, I don't care, fact is "neo-nazis" here (some stupid or more dangerous not stupid, fortunatly, minor group here) take the peaceful history to apologize the use of it.
Sorry, maybe Hitler highjacked the meaning but it is now in this way, it is the symbol of terror, murder, horror ...
I don't wanna highjack it back or something it still a symbol of guilt for Germans even our generation has nothing to do with that time anymore.
We just started to deal with our history, to forgive the generation who lived in that time. That is not easy to see how a whole people was following an insane, ridiciulous, little man, I still have problems to understand that a whole generation was so blind or better wanted to be so blind but the more we study over and over again the german history the more we can see the processes (much ealier than 1930) which lead to that desaster.
And can care for the future that never again from Germany.
To make it short it is in history text books that is enough I can also deal with it at modells (Vanize), or in museums, some reminding is not the worst.
Hope I could make my point clear since English is not my first language as some of you know.

My second hobby is quilting, and I was reading about this just yesterday, so I thought it valid to include from a slightly different perspective.

There are several quilt blocks which resemble the swastika, but all have different names...flyfoot seems to be the most popular. The pattern has been around since the 1700's, and is one of the older quilt patterns of note. An interesting thing to note is that people who had quilts made from that block put them away during the period of WWII so as to not look like nazi supporters. Sadly, many of those quilts remained stashed away even after the war. Today, many relatives are finding them in attics and putting them back on display and in use. I think that is the proper thing to do. The quilts made from that pattern had nothing to do with the nazi's (in fact the quilt pattern is noted for being one of wishing luck and good fortune so was frequently made as a wedding quilt). To keep those hidden just because of an unfortunate time in history seems rather silly to me. They were made to be loved, cherished, and used, and I think they should be brought out jsut for that.

It is a thing. It has no power unless it is bestowed upon by an outside force.

It has come to mean two very seperate ideals, and I do know many people from the middle east and several will tell you that you only display the swastika clockwise, and that is how it was always done in their culture, so to say it does not matter as a blanket statement is not entirely true.
And in context, if people take the time to notice, with the Hitler variation going in counter clockwise, then perhaps the clockwise one is more wisely implemented in this day and age as the representative of peace...just for ease of understanding for those who wish to reclaim it.

However, when I studied Hitler I learned he chose it as a symbol of peace and his dream of one united world. That in and of itself is not bad at all. The dream of Utopia, of unity and peace is not evil. In this respect Hitler is ranked among some of the most charismatic and great visionaries in history. Where he screwed up is how he went about it. Yup, it was pretty vile. However, no worse than the Romans, the Huns, the Mongols, the Nords who were all equally as brutal for their own eras. As pointed out the only reason we are so touchy is because it is, in linear speech, relative fresh for us.

What we are talking about with the swastika is political correctness. It is not evil. Nor is it the harbinger of peace. It is a series of lines and to ask if it offends, well, that is rather like asking me, as a Pagan, if crosses are evil because Christians seem hell bent on persecuting us throughout history. Not at all.

What offends are the idiots who wave it around and ignorantly use it as a symbol of their offensive actions. What offends are the absolute morons who believe that it is somehow alright to fill an otherwise inoccuous symbol with hatred. And I feel this way about the KKK, about the Black Panthers and in many ways about the American Flag in it's current use as a symbol of pride in the war.

But that is only my .02.

only my view hitler had no idea of stragedies so that he wanted something for the world or for the future of the world
all his deeds were tactic only for himself (he took advantage of the zeitgeist and the processes in germany) that was the reason all had to happen in his lifetime with all forces, there was no dream, he wanted to see and take credit of the results, he wanted to lead something strong and belong to it so he can feel as something he knew he wasn't maybe he wasn't conscious I read partly his "Mein Kampf"( you get sick then you read it) all was so obviuos if somebody had really read it in the 1920`s he was just a looser who got ears who wanted to hear him(germans wanted to hear that they are something better after lost WWI) more and more then he saw his chance to get out of looser time o o i get too much in the topic sorry

Very well said, Pele, and I agree completely with it.