Re: The Honourable Finnish Swastika - a history

"Andrew Clark" <aclark@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> did this:

"Ari Asikainen" <asikaina@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote

[Longevity of usage is] an indication that Finns didn't - and in the
existing cases still don't - associate their versions of the swastika
with the terrible things the Nazis did, not that they wished to
associate themselves with Nazism. I don't find it plausible that
[politicians who were far from Nazis] wanted to be associated with
Nazi crimes and that the way this secret desire manifested itself was
in the military's continued use of swastikas that looked a bit like
the Nazi version.

This seems a little hard to accept. The symbolic association was
exceptionally evident, in a period when Finland and Germany enjoyed close
political association also.

The visual similarity between the Finnish swastikas and the Nazi
swastika was just as apparent in a period when Finland and Germany did
not enjoy close political association, including the period during
which Germany stuck to its end of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact while
the other signee invaded Finland. The similarity remained apparent
during a period in which Finnish and German troops were shooting at
each other. When something happens both when a relationship is good
and when it's bad, the apparent conclusion is that the thing wasn't
contingent on the state of the relationship.

If there really was no intent to have any symbolic association, then
there was certainly an astonishing indifference to the certainty of a
perception by others of an association.

A visual link between national symbols isn't a particularly damning
piece of evidence. An explanation that the Finnish swastikas predate
the Nazi swastika and that they carry no endorsement should be
sufficient to dispell mistaken notions that may have arisen. Of
course, a person who leaped to the conclusion that the use of a
swastika indicates a desire to associate with the Nazis must not have
known very much about Finnish society and politics in the first place,
which may have limited the need to explain the matter.

As I said in another post, the Finns either wanted an shared visual
association or didn't care if others made that association. Neither position
is very honourable.

The bad thing about Nazism is the ideology itself and the crimes to
which it has led, not the symbolic use of a shape the Nazis neither
invented nor owned. Expecting people to understand that an abstract
shape can signify different things in different contexts may be naïve
in some cases, but it's not the least bit dishonourable.

--
Ari <fun.no@xxxxxx>

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Unnamed posters in the NG
    ... i was thinking of using a clockwise swastika ... because i always thought the swastika was a beautiful eidetic image ... i've always thought the nazis kinda ... so the nazis were turning time back ...
    (sci.math)
  • Re: Oops
    ... connotation the Nazis gave it in many other cultures. ... The Falun Gong ... Apparently the swastika is the symbol ... it was a symbol meaning motion of continual ...
    (sci.military.naval)
  • Re: Oxford English Dictionary OED shows swastika as "S" for "Socialism."
    ... discovery that the swastika was used by the Nazi Party to symbolize ... Oh, what the hell. ... relation to the Nazis to 1932. ...
    (alt.usage.english)
  • Re: Oxford English Dictionary OED shows swastika as "S" for "Socialism."
    ... discovery that the swastika was used by the Nazi Party to symbolize ... relation to the Nazis to 1932. ... before the OED cites anybody using "Hakenkreuz" in English. ... the form of a cross with equal arms with a limb of the same length ...
    (alt.usage.english)
  • Re: In what circumstances is a swastika illegal?
    ... The swastika IIRC was the reverse of the ... was instrumental in the founding of the German Workers' Party, ... evolved into the NSDAP (Nazi Party). ... became a symbol of the Nazis. ...
    (uk.legal)
Loading