Part Two: Behind the Swastika | BEHIND THE BASTARDS

[@TitaniaBird]

Swastika, Ontario residents refusing to change their town's name has real "Why should I change my name? He's the one who sucks." energy.

[@samcyphers2902]

Michael Bolton

[@dragonsword7370]

Sounds like either Hitler's Nephew who was in the YS Army. Or the other guy who was fully named Adolf Hitler who also served. Was asked if he'd change it and sarcastically said "Let him first."

[@JoshuaHowey]

I'm from Kirkland Lake about 10 minutes from Swastika, ON and to be fair while the name didn't change, the pronunciation may have. We always called it "Swast-ee-ka", moving the emphasis to the end. Maybe that's just our Canadian accents doing the work, but it feels like a deliberate move, eh? I don't think Robert mentioned this, but the story goes that the town residents tore down the Winston sign and posted the original town sign with an additional message that said "To hell with Hitler, we came up with our name first.” - so yes, pretty big "fuck Hitler" energy. Haha! Also, Swastika is a town of like 500 people so I doubt Canada would have sent the RCMP, the Canadian national police, to replace a sign. :) Likely the OPP (yeah you know me.) When I moved to the States to in the town of Berlin, Ohio, I learned they had a similar story. It's not pronounced like the German capitol, but rather the emphasis is up front and it's almost pronounced like it only has one syllable, kind of like BUR-lin. Though I think this change was made for WW1 instead of WW2, following a trend of other "Berlin" towns in America at that time. Still, funny how stubborn folks can be. "No no, it's not "Berlin", it's "Berlin". Ok then!

[@natmorse-noland9133]

​@@JoshuaHowey that region of the US has a whole slew of towns named after larger, more famous cities except with insane pronunciation. Like Cairo, IL. Pronounced KAY-row for some fucking reason.

[@MrLeafeater]

As an abstract artist, can I just tell you how often that shape just HAPPENS, when randomizing a geometric border or something. It's older than history, but I work hard to make sure finished work doesn't contain it. Cave people were using it, but we really can't now. I get it, but it's bizarre.

[@DDoS_Your_Pineapples]

😢😢🎉😢😢😢😢😢😢😮😮😢😢😢😮😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😮😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢🎉😮😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😮😮😮😢😮

[@xidarian]

It seems to me like it's a derivation of a spiral. No one has a problem with spirals showing up in every culture but once you make it angular it looks more complex.

[@cringlator]

Human brain: “mmm right angles are soooo cool.”

[@alexcarter8807]

Speaking as a vet myself, actual combat vets who actually fought the Nazis were not big on that shit. Now, your guys who worked in Supply, the guy who mopped floors in WWII because it's all they could teach him to be good at, as well as the guys who washed out in Basic, or who could not serve but wanted people to think they had served .... now those guys looooooooved Nazi iconography.

[@chris999999999999]

Not "What's rollin' my looooogs!" as the opener? Seemed like a gimme to me.

[@sholem_bond]

"what's whirling, my logs?" (Agreed.)

[@casspurp]

Natives serve in the US military at higher rates than any other ethnic group. Those tribal nations made the decision to disavow the symbol because of their sacrifices in the military. Jewish refugees in the desert southwest often allied with Natives and provided legal services (many still do). Code Talkers were established during WWI, so the veterans and new soldiers had a level of familiarity with European politics that most Anglo US citizens lacked.

[@ArawinaHagerty]

The Natives I know from here on Turtle Island all have a better understanding of politics around the world.

[@BrandonPilcher]

I can't wait for the episode you dedicate to old men's adventure magazine covers. Those are insane!

[@dickbrain42069]

Weasels ate my face

[@DStecks]

My take is that rehabilitating the swastika is just something not worth pursuing while there are still living Holocaust survivors.

[@sholem_bond]

It's a cool thing to learn about in an anthropological, historical, or semiotic context, and I feel like I can't morally tell people not to use a religious symbol of theirs. But I also kind of question why it's so important that swastikas be totally cool to hang everywhere in every public space (I feel the same way to some extent about a lot of religious symbols, especially in government and publicly-owned spaces). Like, when Catholics in the US decorate for Easter week, they don't put out little "passion play" dioramas or bloody effigies of tortured and dead Jesus in every public space. Even though it's religious iconography, we recognize as a society that that's not really appropriate for public display, whether it's your religion or not. With the exception of Jainism's case, is there not a symbol that could be used that ISN'T associated with genocide? (Given stuff like the amount of Jews who can't wear shirts/clothing with stars of David anymore because the clothes look too similar, layout-wise, to the star on the Israeli flag (I remember when a bunch of Jewish attendees at Dyke March during Pride month 2019 got in trouble for that)... Idk, maybe one of the tragedies of war and genocidal regimes is that you lose all sorts of things, big and small, and it's not fair, but neither were any of the things that regime did.)

[@BeastNationXIV]

What's....parting my TWOOOOO'S?! ✌🏽✌🏽✌🏽😁

[@ArawinaHagerty]

There is an old, (pre 1920's) absolutely beautiful apartment building in my city. The front entrance has a black and white tiled floor pattern made of small Swastikas.

[@gurusmurf5921]

I think the various tribes said what they meant. I think they felt their religious symbol had been desecrated. It's like if you love plaid and have all sorts of plaid things. One day you walk in on your parents doing some unspeakable sex stuff on your plaid couch. You might never be able to look at plaid the same way again.

[@KaiTenSatsuma]

One thing that keeps coming up and is incredibly interesting is how disconnected a lot of Asia is from WWII. (Japan being the outlier here, Swastikas and Nazi shit is oddly popular *despite* their having to know this shit) It's like, almost the exact same thing but on "the other foot" - most Americans *_don't even know there was a theater in the rest of Asia and Australia_* - just the Pacific Islands. So do they not cover WWII to any meaningful depth in India or something?

[@sholem_bond]

If you ever want to throw up in your mouth a little, look up the anime "Hetalia." All my friends (who were also raised Christian/culturally Christian) were into that one in middle school. Axis powers: so kawaii.

[@malcolmdarke5299]

Speaking as a Brit, the British Raj was still a thing as late as 1947. Indian soldiers were serving in the British army, and those soldiers would have brought back stories of these funny white people they were fighting against who were using the swastika as *their* symbol. The idea that some Indians would be able to build a narrative that ties their own beliefs to the beliefs inherent to fascist ideology (albeit chopping out the Euro-centric elements and swapping them for subcontinent-specific fragments) and keep using the same symbol doesn't strike me as a huge leap. It is also worth pointing out that the fascist regime of 1930s and 40s Germany was fighting *against* Britain, and that there are *very* mixed feelings about the Raj in India. Some people see it as a net good, some as basically a massively bastardly thing that brought nothing but bad, and some people see it as having both good and bad elements in roughly equal mixture, but nobody (to my knowledge) sees it as entirely good, except some *deeply* racist people. Those people who lean more towards "the Raj was awful and we should hate the people who implemented it" may well lean more towards thinking that India needs a strong nationalist streak to prevent something like the Raj being possible again, and turning that into the ultra-nationalist ideology that is fascism does rather feel like a natural progression to me. Disclaimer: I'm only a tolerably-educated individual who happens to have an interest in history; this is mostly speculation and regurgitating what other people have said.

[@vonriel1822]

There's a problem with the fiery cross vs swastika conversation, fiery crosses were used to terrorize one group of people in a subsection of a country while the swastika was used as a symbol of oppression for a full continent. I have no doubt the KKK may have murdered as many people as the Nazis did given even half the chance, but the fact is they didn't, and there's going to be a massive public perception difference between the two symbols as a result. And that's before talking about how there's really no modern Neo-KKK movement, but there is a modern neo-Nazi one. I truly feel for the people whose culture was appropriated by the *_fucking_* Nazis, though. The whole situation feels impossible to me, an outsider, I can't imagine what it must be like to be within it.

[@Jakeurb8ty82]

The Tibet temple out toward Gresham on Stark by the old head shop has swastikas. Or did back in the day.

[@brianbuch1]

A highlight of my 1950-60s youth, in a household that got the Sunday Times magazine was the Book of the Month Club promotion. They featured William Shirer's "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" as the freebie. And so its image was large on the page, and upon the cover was of course a big black swastika. If you google image the author the cover comes up in all its variations. So even a book that was indeed anti-Nazi used the symbol in marketing. Nobody raised a stink, so far as I know.

[@dragonsword7370]

Farther back then, the use of that symbol for history was allowed. Or for display in TV and movies. It took a GI from Illinois, who went to Europe for that theater of Europe, who fought Actual Nazis to them come home and start the US Neo-Nazi Party. That sort of support for the literal evil regime was what had made it everfield more sore an image to portray.

[@RyanReenBattikh]

"and Fall" is doing a lot of heavy lifting

[@11myricka]

Aww Chelsey and I live close by 🤣🤣

[@trioptimum9027]

In fact, it's not even just "cross good, burning cross bad." Several Christian denominations have cross-plus-flame symbols, and it doesn't seem to be a problem: having it on a sermon board seems a sufficiently different use from planting it in someone's yard that people can tell the difference.

[@sholem_bond]

If it helps, as a Jew I'm also somewhat skeeved out by crosses, and don't & wouldn't wear them (like in casual/secular, aesthetic or goth contexts). So unless it's got church-y embellishments or a corpse-Jesus on it, feel free to toss out that one, too (and the symbol that's like a stick-figure fish shape, while you're at it; Christians who use that one tend to be missionaries/modern colonizers, and annoying).

[@malcolmdarke5299]

I think that there's also the fact that we're less than 100 years past the swastika's association with a massively-genocidal campaign, whereas the cross went through its own similar phase over 800 years ago. The Crusades are a *lot* more distant than the Holocaust with at a bare minimum 20 or 30 more generations in that gap, and there's a lot more movement now than there was in the Middle Ages (which means more exposure to cultures that have negative associations for the swastika). Give it 500 years, and I'd guess that the *ability* to reclaim the swastika (by Native American communities and by Asian religions) is going to be significantly increased.

[@Zomonitan]

You know, on the subject of shit Hitler ruined, it's a real shame he ruined the name Adolf. It's such a cute name, but everybody just thinks of Nazis when they hear it.

[@templarw20]

Hard to talk about Sweden’s kings…

[@ankitk236]

who knew, among the world of humans, the allegedly auspicious symbol was the real basterd all along

[@absinthefandubs9130]

The Hahgen Kroi?

[@stgjr]

"Hakenkreuz", you mean?

[@absinthefandubs9130]

@@stgjr Thats how it's spelled but not how Evan pronounces it.

[@elliott614]

Whats sheazzin my tikkah chicken

[@elliott614]

Masala

[@alexcarter8807]

What's tikkin' my chicken? Now I'm hungry.

[@ZBott]

For 4 right angles connected at central hub it's really strange how it has so few meanings that prevented the nazis from taking it as a neutral icon.

[@FakeSchrodingersCat]

You would probably have an easier time rebranding the non nazi symbols as Hakenkreuz then trying to label the Nazi version that.

[@snorpenbass4196]

Robert? Say after me: "Haa - Ken - Kroy - Ts". Hakenkreuz.

[@justinmillette9110]

(A Jain walks past a synagogue while sporting religious paraphernalia) Rabbi: "You're attacking me for my religion!" Jain: "No, YOU'RE attacking ME for MY religion!"

[@sholem_bond]

Christians love fantasizing that everyone is a fanatic like they are.

[@zdover]

Robert, you have got to learn the proper pronunciation of “Hakenkreuz”.

[@ludo_narr]

Just go with hooked cross. It's fine. He also calls it the whirling log and not tsil no oli.

[@alexcarter8807]

I grew up watching this: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secrets_of_Isis plus swastikas were, and are, everywhere. My Buddhist temple has them, at least one of my shakuhachi covers has swastikas in the pattern in the cloth, and when I was little one book my parents had on the living room book shelf was "The Rise And Fall Of The Third Reich" by William L. Shirer, which in hardcover has a big ol' swastika on the dustjacket.

[@jordanharper5795]

...first?