For the Sake of Others

Not long after I arrived in India in 2014, we were driving out of the city and into a village when I noticed this all-too-familiar symbol painted on the side of a building. I was dumbfounded. But I didn’t say anything. As we drove a bit further I noticed 2 or 3 more apparent swastikas on buildings, walls, and signs. I couldn’t sit there any longer wondering. I asked my translator, “Why in the world are there swastikas everywhere? What kind of sick people would put those up?” Without hesitating or blinking an eye, Robin (my Indian translator) informed me, “Oh, Hitler stole the swastika from us.”

All I remember thinking was, “What? How on earth have I never heard this before?”

For whatever reason, I became a bit fascinated with this. How could one of the most profoundly powerful symbols of the 20th century actually been hijacked? Stolen? If this was true, how on earth did Hitler and the Third Reich land on this particular work of art to become the brand of their brutal regime and their perverted ideologies? How did this happen?

Here’s what I discovered.

"In the ancient Indian language of Sanskrit, swastika means "well-being". The symbol has been used by Hindus, Buddhists and Jains for millennia and is commonly assumed to be an Indian sign.

Early Western travellers to Asia were inspired by its positive and ancient associations and started using it back home. By the beginning of the 20th Century there was a huge fad for the swastika as a benign good luck symbol.

In his book The Swastika: Symbol Beyond Redemption? US graphic design writer Steven Heller shows how it was enthusiastically adopted in the West as an architectural motif, on advertising and product design.”

"Coca-Cola used it. Carlsberg used it on their beer bottles. The Boy Scouts adopted it and the Girls' Club of America called their magazine Swastika. They would even send out swastika badges to their young readers as a prize for selling copies of the magazine," he says.

It was used by American military units during World War One and it could be seen on RAF planes as late as 1939. Most of these benign uses came to a halt in the 1930s as the Nazis rose to power in Germany.

The Nazi use of the swastika stems from the work of 19th Century German scholars translating old Indian texts, who noticed similarities between their own language and Sanskrit. They concluded that Indians and Germans must have had a shared ancestry and imagined a race of white god-like warriors they called Aryans.

This idea was seized upon by anti-Semitic nationalist groups who appropriated the swastika as an Aryan symbol to boost a sense of ancient lineage for the Germanic people.

The black straight-armed hakenkreuz (hooked cross) on the distinctive white circle and red background of the Nazi flag would become the most hated symbol of the 20th Century, inextricably linked to the atrocities committed under the Third Reich.

"For the Jewish people the swastika is a symbol of fear, of suppression, and of extermination. It's a symbol that we will never ever be able to change," says 93-year-old Holocaust survivor Freddie Knoller. "If they put the swastika on gravestones or synagogues, it puts a fear into us. Surely it shouldn't happen again.”

The swastika was banned in Germany at the end of the war and Germany tried unsuccessfully to introduce an EU-wide ban in 2007.

The irony is that the swastika is more European in origin than most people realise. Archaeological finds have long demonstrated that the swastika is a very old symbol, but ancient examples are by no means limited to India. It was used by the Ancient Greeks, Celts, and Anglo-Saxons and some of the oldest examples have been found in Eastern Europe, from the Baltic to the Balkans.

[Excerpt from How the World Loved the Swastika — Until Hitler Stole It, by Mukti Jain Campion, 2014]

As I said above, when Robin first shared this unknown bit of history with me, my first thought was, “How on earth have I never heard this before?” I have come to believe that the answer to that question actually leads to another question we — as Americans — should be asking. To put if simply: How is it that some of our symbols have managed to not only survive, but continue to be celebrated?

I truly believe that the answer to my question — as to how I had never heard about the origins of the swastika — is that most people throughout Europe, Asia, and around the world have readily allowed this symbol to go the way of the evil, brutal, and horrific plague it came to represent: the Nazi party and the Jewish Holocaust. To dawn that symbol or flag today evokes a level of hate and horror that is still almost incomparable. And no one questions why. Pure and simple, it’s because of what this image came to be associated with: fascism and murder.

Fast forward.

As an eight-year-old boy, the confederate flag was first and foremost a symbol of the two greatest rebel rousing outlaws I knew of: Bo and Luke Duke. It shined atop that bright orange beauty of an automobile, The General Lee, which (much like the flag) at that point in my life was not a person, but a car. It was all very innocent. But then, I went to school. I began learning things. I became a huge fan of history (probably somewhat because I hated math & science). And as I learned more and more about the history, conflicts, and struggles our ancestors battled through to get us where we were, I gained perspective. I had to come to grips with the fact that — fair or unfair, right or wrong — for many, the confederate flag still evokes images, thoughts, and even memories of hate and horror that beg to be forgotten. And no one should question why. Pure and simple, it’s because of what this image came to be associate with: racism and slavery.

But this is where it all gets dicey. It seems as though many who would never for a moment suggest we repurpose the swastika, moreover the Nazi flag, can’t seem to let go of the battle flag of the south. Why is this? 

What is it about the confederacy that’s so valuable that we refuse to let go of a symbol that overtly commemorates times of slavery, racism, and segregation? Can someone answer that question? 

This is not the removal of a monument; this is the surrender of a symbol. The symbol, in many people's minds, that represents one of the darkest movements and ideologies in our country's history. To bring this flag down is not revisionist; it's repentant. 

My real question is this: If we know the wounds, the baggage, and the burdens this symbol and flag still drags along behind it, can we not just give it up once and for all for the sake of others?