Thursday, January 20, 2005

'Good to be'

You have to feel sorry for the Hindus, whose second most sacred symbol, the swastika, was hijacked by Hitler and has been taboo in Western culture ever since. According to the BBC, they are going to launch a campaign to prevent the ‘good luck charm’ being banned across Europe, as some have proposed in the wake of Harry’s Nazi gaffe. I wouldn’t worry too much if I were them; the scandal has almost died out and all plans to ban the swastika will most likely be forgotten in a day or two -- at least until the next scandal. Still, you have to wonder how much good luck a charm that was adopted by the Nazis can possibly bring. (Any thoughts on that, Harry?).
The BBC does, however, include an interesting history of the swastika, which was selected by the Nazis precisely because of its Indian origin:
The word is derived from the Sanskrit "svastika" and means "good to be". In Indo-European culture it was a mark made on people or objects to give them good luck.
It has been around for thousands of years, particularly as a Hindu symbol in the holy texts, to mean luck, Brahma or samsara (rebirth). It can be clockwise or anti-clockwise and the way it points in all four directions suggests stability. Sometimes it features a dot between each arm...
But it is its association with the National Socialist German Workers Party in the 1930s which is etched on the minds of Western society. Before Hitler, it was used in about 1870 by the Austrian Pan-German followers of Schoenerer, an Austrian anti-Semitic politician.
Its Nazi use was linked to the belief in the Aryan cultural descent of the German people. They considered the early Aryans of India to be the prototypical white invaders and hijacked the sign as a symbol of the Aryan master race.
More here.

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