Their leader also ruined Charlie Chaplains mustache.. fucking nazis..

Man, I'm really starting to think those Nazis weren't the nicest of people.

The word swastika is derived from the Sanskrit root swasti, which is composed of su 'good, well' and asti 'is; it is; there is'.

With well-being (swasti) we would follow along our path, like the Sun and the Moon. May we meet up with one who gives in return, who does not smite (harm), with one who knows. — The Rigveda V.51.15

Didn't know that the symbol spread far and wide. That's some very interesting history (minus the Nazis).

The extra context being they were into a bunch of hinky new age shit because they were trying to replace Christianity - even monogamy - for their idea of breeding giant ancient wizard warriors back into existence.

This is really neat

Seems to me though that the Israelis only have themselves to blaim though.

At least that one is usually only negative when its on the Israeli flag. Change it up and I don't see a problem.

You mean the Star of Remphan?

Kind of antisemitic the way you frame it.

Uh the symbol is still used today as its original meaning. My family is buddhist and in any buddhist place you can see it in places.

https://www.whatsonweibo.com/wanisnotanazisymbol/

“Ignorant foreign travelers simply don’t understand Buddhist traditions”.

Apple maps still uses the left facing symbol for temples.

Yes and yes. I grew up Hindu and before we did our math worksheets in 2nd grade, our teacher let us draw on the back. I would draw the Hindu swastika for good luck. I did it all the time, but not until some kid tried to badly copy the design did the teacher notice and pull us both aside. She said not to draw that again because some bad man used it a long time ago. I was utterly confused but didn't say anything. I wonder if she ever found out about the history of swastikas and thinks back on that moment as often as I do.

Yeah that's where Hitler got it from I think. "Aryan" is an Indian word weirdly enough. I work with an Indian woman named Arya.

On one hand, symbols with sufficiently strong emotional pull can last a very long time. Hell, the fasces itself was a representation of magisterial authority from the earliest days of Rome until the 19 fucking 20s. That's some ~2500 years of symbolic endurance. Who's to say, especially with how widely used the swastika is in the West as indicative of fascism and tyranny, that the swastika won't endure in the same way?

On the other hand, the swastika, despite widespread Western cultural influence even outside of the West, still enjoys significant usage outside of the West. It may just take time for the swastika to return first as an 'outside' symbol, and then be reclaimed fully in the West as an ancient and common symbol of human societies, as it once was.

Or maybe we'll all be ash in a smoking husk of a planet. The future is unknowable, and all that jazz.

Outside of western countries, you can still see it in reasonably common use even today as a religious symbol. So the first step to reclaiming it is to not automatically denounce anybody you see carrying the symbol (though it's probably questionable if you're a snow-white guy)

While I'm sympathetic to the impulse, I can't avoid feeling that the design space for symbols is so vast that there is no particular need to reclaim things, and the better path forward is to focus on creating new a context and new symbols. History cannot be undone, only recontextualised.