nazi symbols controversy

growler

I guess many of you will have seen the furore in the media caused by Prince Harry's poor choice of fancy dress costume , like many I assume that this was simply a lack of judgement by a young lad with no sinister intent.

But it did get me thinking about the upset that is caused by the symbolism of the nazi party might equally be applied to the symbolism of the British Empire, of which Harry is a living representative.

It's arguable that the Union Jack or even the Royal insignia might well be viewed with similar disgust and revulsion by many peoples around the world as the swastika evokes in those who suffered and died during the height of nazi power. It's not like the Union Jack hasn't presided over the deaths of thousands, perhaps millions of innocents around the world. It was the flag of war and colonialism, it presided over the slave trade etc. I'm almost surprised that the Liberals in the UK haven't suggested that it is a tainted symbol of their country, certainly most countries in the world have seen evil committed "under" it's flag, but the Union Jack/ British Empire would be a clear leader in terms of it's historic usage.

I wonder do the natives of Australia, Nigeria, India, Burma, Afghanistan et al. ( never mind those countries where there may currently be conflict with british troops) keep a special place place in their hearts to revile the symbols of the Empire ? The Star Spangled banner seems to be gaining popularity as a symbol of evil in the Muslim world in a rather short space of time. The Union Jack has been the flag of the conqueror since the mid 1500's.


Anyone got any thoughts as to why the swastika (perhaps even the stars and stripes) are so reviled, even banned in some countries , while to the best of my knowledge the Union Jack doesn't suffer from the same overt negative connotations? Will the swastika lose it's potency as time goes by?

oscarBravo

growler wrote:

The Union Jack has been the flag of the conqueror since the mid 1500's.

Unless I'm mistaken, the Union Jack was created with the Act of Union in 1800.

pickarooney

growler wrote:

Anyone got any thoughts as to why the swastika (perhaps even the stars and stripes) are so reviled, even banned in some countries , while to the best of my knowledge the Union Jack doesn't suffer from the same overt negative connotations? Will the swastika lose it's potency as time goes by?

Perhaps if something positive for humanity was done under the banner of the swastika, it could regain some of its former popularity. Unlikely though.

spanner

come on this is mainly the british press, it was a stupid thing to do and i am sure he realises this now, i cant see much difference in it than dressing up as hitler like many comidens do.
he is still 20 years of age, this was a private party, i am 20 years of age and i have made a lot worse mistakes than him. now that they have killed his mother they need someone for the column inches

Zombrex

pickarooney wrote:

Perhaps if something positive for humanity was done under the banner of the swastika, it could regain some of its former popularity. Unlikely though.

The swastika is actually the ancient sandscript symbol for "good luck" and "strength". It was used for thousands of years as a positive symbol in Asia, India and the middle east. Hittler mis-interpreted the "strength" bit (it means inner strength not strength by force). Shame really.

DadaKopf

I'm more offended by the fact that he obviously didn't put any effort into the costume. If you're gonna go to a fancy dress party, you should do it well.

Shane™

I though it was because it was the desert troop uniform, not just the swastika?

simu

The boy's an idiot, the boy does something idiotic - not much of a surprise then.

As for the Union Jack being offensive - I don't care about it as we now have our own flag in Ireland. Seeing it draped all over the place the one time I went to NI was unpleasant though, especially as, unlike English people, many Unionists probably would hate me for being from the Republic and having an Irish name etc. Seeing it when I went to London made no impression on me.

therecklessone

growler wrote:

It's not like the Union Jack hasn't presided over the deaths of thousands, perhaps millions of innocents around the world. It was the flag of war and colonialism, it presided over the slave trade etc.

Credit where its due. It was also the flag of the navy that helped bring the slave trade to an end.

FTA69

simu wrote:

As for the Union Jack being offensive - I don't care about it as we now have our own flag in Ireland. Seeing it draped all over the place the one time I went to NI was unpleasant though

It was draped all over the place in the south during the War of Independence too, when peoples' national identity comes under threat they usually respond with explicit indicators of their culture ie putting tricolours all over the place.

sceptre

oscarBravo wrote:

Unless I'm mistaken, the Union Jack was created with the Act of Union in 1800.

Ah a bit earlier than that for the older version but as you say, not 1500s. The design dates from 1606 though it wasn't used as a flag of a single country in any way till 1707 (it was designed as James I/VI's personal royal flag and remained in usage only as a royal flag for quite some time). It's also worth keeping in mind that unlike here that there's never been a law making it the national flag (it's achieved that through usage) and the first plain statement made by a member of government that the flag was in fact the UK national flag didn't come till 1933. So, no, it certainly couldn't have been used in any context in the 1500s and wasn't used as the flag of "the conqueror" for a long long time after.

therecklessone wrote:

Credit where its due. It was also the flag of the navy that helped bring the slave trade to an end.

Red ensign/white ensign (before 1864 the red ensign was the flag of the fleet patrolling north atlantic and caribbean, after 1864 the white ensign was the flag for the whole navy (red switched to the merchant navy). Though obviously the Union Jack never presided over the slave trade boats either.

(I had an interest in flags when I was younger. May have been all the purty colours)

therecklessone

sceptre wrote:

Red ensign/white ensign (before 1864 the red ensign was the flag of the fleet patrolling north atlantic and caribbean, after 1864 the white ensign was the flag for the whole navy (red switched to the merchant navy). Though obviously the Union Jack never presided over the slave trade boats either.

(I had an interest in flags when I was younger. May have been all the purty colours)

Pedant...

Point taken re. the relevant flag, but that aside, the central point of my post remains the same.

SkepticOne

growler wrote:

Anyone got any thoughts as to why the swastika (perhaps even the stars and stripes) are so reviled, even banned in some countries , while to the best of my knowledge the Union Jack doesn't suffer from the same overt negative connotations? Will the swastika lose it's potency as time goes by?

Because the Union Jack is still the current flag of the UK but the Swastika is associated not with present day Germany, but with Germany of a certain era and, more specifically, with a political movement and ideology. Moreover it was used in a very deliberate and overt way during the Nazi era. Every newsreal of political events and anything assocated with Hitler seems to contain the symbol.

The same cannot be said to anywhere near the same extent of the Union Jack or even the US flag. The UK today is not quite the same UK of the colonial times and so the associations have changed. If the UK had adopted a specific symbol whenever it carried out masacres, then that symbol might be regarded the same way as the Swastika.

It is not really surprising to me that the Union Jack is not looked at the same way as the Swastika.

Oh and the press reaction to the fancy dress incident is a little overblown but the press (and not just the Brit press) is obsessed with the British royals. I've very little interest in what some idiot dresses up in. As far as I'm concerned he can go aroud wearing just body paint and a flower pot on his head if he wishes.

Manach

In part it depends on the context where the swastika is worned. A while back whilst on a bus I happened to notice the pattern on a women's shirt <as you do :rolleyes: >. A multiple swastika pattern. The women herself seemed to be of Southern Indian origin. It seemed unlightly she was a proponent of the new Reich.

As for the British Empire - well at least it passed into retirement fairly gracefully.

sovtek

For Chissake...they sent the boy to a rehab for smoking a bit o dope...

goin'_to_the_PS

They need to dope the lot of 'em up they should relax a bit

Peanut

From BBC news:
"German politicians have called for Nazi symbols to be banned throughout Europe after Prince Harry was pictured wearing a swastika to a fancy dress party.
The Liberal group in the European Parliament says all of Europe suffered because of the crimes of the Nazis, so there should be a continent-wide ban."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4178643.stm

What is wrong with these people... ..this is the country that arrested a man for teaching his dog the nazi salute! http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_828619.html

BTW I think part of the reason the Swastika has a greater impact is that the design of the symbol is very much more striking than the Union Jack for example.

pwd

that harry guy is just an attention-seeking twat. That's why he wore that, not anything else.

simu

Peanut wrote:

From BBC news:
"German politicians have called for Nazi symbols to be banned throughout Europe after Prince Harry was pictured wearing a swastika to a fancy dress party.
The Liberal group in the European Parliament says all of Europe suffered because of the crimes of the Nazis, so there should be a continent-wide ban."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4178643.stm

Sigh. If people put half the effort they put into getting wound up about this sort of thing into preventing discrimination and hate crimes against minorites in *today's* world, we might lessen the possibility of future holocausts ocurring.

mike65

Nothing to see hear, move along.

How the fvck does one impliment a total ban on a symbol? Would that mean a film or even documentary would be breaking the law if the swastika was featured. A nonsense knee jerk reaction and a pity comming from Germans who really should have some wit about this having lived with the Nazi cloud for 60 years...

Mike.

Boggle

Interesting comparison:

Swastika: Nazi symbol - used to brainwash millions of germans into believing they had the right to invade foreign countries and kill masses of innocent people for national gain. Evil.

American flag; American symbol - used to brainwash millions of americans into believing they had the right to invade foreign countries and kill masses of innocent people for national gain. Erm.... ??Good??

SkepticOne

Boggle wrote:

Interesting comparison:

Swastika: Nazi symbol - uued to brainwash millions of americans into believing they had the right to invade foreign countries and kill masses of innocent people for personal gain. Evil.

American flag; American symbol - used to brainwash millions of americans into believing they had the right to invade foreign countries and kill masses of innocent people for personal gain. Erm.... ??Good??

I think this comparison could do with a bit of explanation. Seems a bit rubbish as it stands.

Boggle

The nazi's are condemned with the benefit of hindsight - because we have had sufficient to look at their actionsand judge them. We see that invading other countries was wrong, mass murder was wrong... deprivation of human rights was wrong.

Trouble is we don't seem to learn from hindsight as the american govt currently appears intent on controlling the world - not necessarily by occupation but by fear and intimidation. They invade Iraq, for no discernable reason (WMD was the reason and thats been disproved), they take control of the resources and ideally leave behind a puppet govt that will be so grateful for their 'liberation' (i.e. those now in power will owe the US for their cozy little jobs) that they will effectively do as they are told. Countries are being invaded, thousands upon tousands die and are dying, many are deprived of their human rights - and all for a stupid little vendetta mixed in with the temtation of oil.

Tell me, hypothetically speaking, if things were to go belly up for the US - say if they invaded Iran and it backfired - and they ended up losing their war. Do you think that in 60 years that they would be remembered as good? I'd doubt it - every atrocity they have committed would come bach to haunt them - Abu Gharaib would become the new Auschwitz - and it is them who would be portrayed by history as evil ..... After all, I'm sure that the Nazi's were sure that they were the good guys too.

pork99

Boggle wrote:

Interesting comparison:

Swastika: Nazi symbol - uued to brainwash millions of americans into believing they had the right to invade foreign countries and kill masses of innocent people for personal gain. Evil.

American flag; American symbol - used to brainwash millions of americans into believing they had the right to invade foreign countries and kill masses of innocent people for personal gain. Erm.... ??Good??

"Collateral damage" (reprehensible though it may be) v Babi Yar ?

No comparison really

magpie

Anyone seen wearing a swastika should be rounded up and shot... oh, hang on.

toiletduck

the nazis are condemned because they deliberatly set out to exterminate an entire race and built death camps to that end. Abu Gharaib isnt comparable to Auschwitz at all. Auschwitz = a death camp, Abu Gharaib = a prision where Iraqi, Syrian etc. terrorists, insurgents whatever were held, interrogated and where necessary tortured.

Boggle

the nazis are condemned because they deliberatly set out to exterminate an entire race and built death camps to that end. Abu Gharaib isnt comparable to Auschwitz at all. Auschwitz = a death camp, Abu Gharaib = a prision where Iraqi, Syrian etc. terrorists, insurgents whatever were held, interrogated and where necessary tortured.

The jews were pawns used by hitler. He decided that if you got everyone hating the jews then they would not only agree with you and keep you in power but they also woudln't notice when you took away their freedom's and forced them into a war that they probably didn't want to be in at all... Auschwitz resulted from that.

Notice that by getting the americans to fear Al-Quaida and the muslims that Bush has managed to start reigning in the American people's freedoms?? Abu-Gharaib is an unpleasant precendent if things really do go to pot....

The point I was getting at but got caught up in my own rant was that you shold never forget or deny history because if you do, you are doomed to repeat it. And the Nazi symbol is a part of history.

pork99

toiletduck wrote:

interrogated and where necessary tortured.

Well that's a key difference - use of torture by a Gestapo offficer brought reward & promotion, use of torture by a US soldier gets him a 10 year jail sentence; http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4177883.stm

And yes I'm aware he's only in the dock because he was dumb enough to get in the photos, that there's superior officers who should be joining him etc

pork99

Boggle wrote:

The jews were pawns used by hitler. He decided that if you got everyone hating the jews then they would not only agree with you and keep you in power but they also woudln't notice when you took away their freedom's and forced them into a war that they probably didn't want to be in at all... Auschwitz resulted from that.

Hitler successfully tapped a long tradition of German anti-Semitism. I recommend you read this

DoctorGonzo

This is off topic im sorry[/url]


Don't be sorry. Be banned for spamming the boards - sceptre

SkepticOne

The reason I thought the comparison rubbish was more due to the fact that the Swastika is a Nazi symbol used by the Nazis. The fact that it might have helped rally Americans (or Russians, or British) against them is fairly incidental.

Boggle: "Swastika: Nazi symbol - uued to brainwash millions of americans into believing they had the right to invade foreign countries and kill masses of innocent people for personal gain. Evil."

It seems bizarre to me to associate WW2 US actions with the Swastika symbol while ignoring any associations of that symbol same with Nazi Germany. I doubt if the Nazis, when they decided to adopt the symbol, wanted the US to act in the way that they did: ultimately participating in the destruction of Nazi Germany.