Swastikas, Symbols and Art

[Bob F.]

You may be right but as I remember pictures of Churchill, it was palm towards body.


Michael

Always palm out - otherwise would be very rude indeed (not that he was averse to being very rude indeed when the mood took him... ) http://images.google.co.uk/images?n...0&q=churchill V sign&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&tab=wi

Cheers, Bob.

 

[blansky]

Always palm out -

Are you sure?

 

[catem]

Sorry to witter on about this, but I keep reading about how the English Flag is a right-wing symbol and it simply is not true.
..

No, of course the English flag is not simply or by any stretch of the imagination only a 'right-wing symbol'. But it has been used as a 'right-wing emblem' , and therefore it carries with it - in part though not in whole - a symbolism that has an association with the far right. I agree the Union Jack was associated with the National Front from the first, but they - and the BNP - have also embraced the English flag and with it their own definitions of 'nationalism'. The following comes from the bbc news website and is quoting directly from an article on the BNP website. The article is entitled "St George is For Life".

"Although a few tabloid newspapers have lately and cynically jumped on the bandwagon, it has been the BNP over the past four years that has been the driving force to promote the consciousness of the red and white in England... The St. George flag has featured prominently at all national and local events and the party has publicly supported the campaign to have St. George’s Day recognised as a national holiday in England."

I'm not sure you read the second article - the writer was clearly applauding the use of the flag by the new generation of football lovers, and stating that this is a good way to retrieve the flag from less pleasant connotations, that are real enough anyway for some who belong, like herself, to a racial minority.

BTW My personal feelings about football are completely neutral! Having two sons who have either been through or are still going through a love affair with football I certainly do not think football supporters who wave English flags are right-wing thugs, - or 'working class' for that matter. Not quite sure what I said for you to jump to that conclusion.

I really didn't think I was saying anything controversial - certainly don't want to get into an argument, or wish to discuss it further.

As far as relevance to this thread goes, forget the English flag, if you want. Take my comments to refer to the Union Jack, which is and has been stuffed with symbolism through the ages and as someone mentioned re the Confederate flag, means very different things to different people.

 

[André E.C.]

Are you sure?

That was photoshoped !

Cheers

André

 

[Charles Webb]

Blanski's photo is simply Churchill ordering two hot dogs while attending a
an outdoor concert near his residence on Downing Street.

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

I think Christopher Colley's comment was tongue in cheek. Besides, these are obviously Bohemian supremacists.

 

[Bob F.]

Are you sure?

Like I said: "not that he was averse to being very rude indeed when the mood took him"



Cheers, Bob.

 

[Claire Senft]

I do not believe that it is necessary for the likes of me to rise to Mr. Churchill's defense. However, he was not ordering hot dogs, he was ordering bangers and sour mash.

 

[Bob F.]

As I wrote, you will certainly see the St. George's Flag used by the cretins, but it is not the symbol they associate with their "movement" - and as such does not need reclaiming in the way the Union Flag does. You will also see them invoke the Scottish and Welsh flags in those countries, but no one suggests that the Welsh dragon or the Cross of St. Andrew needs to be reclaimed from them.

I'm sorry to make a fuss over it but it just irks me that people sometimes link the English flag specifically with the racists, which suggests that this is an English only problem - I'm not suggesting that you are doing so, just that others will infer it...

Cheers, Bob.

 

[copake_ham]

Aw, Jeez, I can't read through all this stuff to get to the simple point the first few posters made!

I don't know about Bhuddist symbols and other non-North American, but the straight swastika (if that is a correct word to use for the symbol) is a well known Navaho sign.

In fact, well into the 1930's Arizona used the straight swatstika as a symbol on its road route markings.

But the reality is that the Nazis "co-opted" the symbol (if offset) and made it notorious.

Oh, and why does this thread come up every now and again anyway? Are the "boys"(or more likely, their descendants) testing the waters for when it is safe to rise up out of Argentina and Chile?

 

[Christopher Colley]

I think Christopher Colley's comment was tongue in cheek. Besides, these are obviously Bohemian supremacists.

Indeed it was !

(I thought the audience would be able to navigate the blatant sarcasm, apologies for not including a smiley or the obligatory </sarcasm> tag)


I for one welcome any symbol in art and in galleries (online or not). Myself, it would take a lot to offend me.. but for the more strongly opinionated/sensitive folks I think being challenged with this type (stuff relating to the Nazi regime and any other hard subject) of thing is exactly what is needed in this day and age..

With the 'think of the children' attitude being applied to everything (can't play TAG anymore? no dodge ball?) being exposed to something that doesn't make you think "aww isn't that cute" could only do something to make one stronger... What kind of a world would it be if we never exposed ourselves to things that made us cringe or remember something bad?

It may sound crazy, and in no means do I support the acts of any person who decides to murder another for any reason but I think it might do our world a whole lot of good (considering what is happening in africa, and has happened all over europe) to have these terrible symbols in every town square in the world..

Remembering these events (mass murder, ethnic cleansing of all types), fearing them and respecting their impact and avoiding them in the future (and the present) is something that can only happen if we have access to the history, the symbols...artifacts, expression of artists and stories of the people who saw it happen or experienced it firsthand.

 

[catem]

Bob,

No worries. We probably don't disagree too profoundly when it comes down to it, although I have my own view about how flags have been used or misused (and have also been involved in Anti-Nazi League marches). In fact the state of the national flag currently is not a question I feel too strongly about, and could have easily chosen another example. Sometimes in these sorts of discussions it's all too easy to tread on someone else's toes without intending to. Sorry if I did so.

We've probably bored the pants off everybody but I think the discussion and this thread shows how motifs/emblems/symbols (it's not easy to separate them) mean different things not only over time but at the same time, depending on people's viewpoint and life experience.

The use of symbols therefore become quite complex, and combine it with a visual medium especially, and the effect is a potent one (in literature, it's easier to digress, and explain and give context so the meaning you are after becomes clearer).

It seems an obvious thing but maybe it's all too easy to forget that things do not have an essential or universal significance and therefore the effects and interpretations will vary widely.
Cate

 

[Struan Gray]

FWIW, the Cross of St. George is the proper flag of the Church of England. Many churches fly the Union Flag, and others fly things like the White Ensign because of their associations, but your typical Home Counties country church will usually have a Cross of St. George flying from the tower flagpole.

They are a common feature of the English portions of my visual childhood, which was spent shuttling between Scotland and Hampshire. Boy Scouts and others would march behind a Union Flag and a Cross of St. George on St. George's Day parades, and on other public quasi-religious occasions like Remembrance Day. I mentally connect the flag with little-England establishment retirees - the acceptable face of fascism if you like.

Symbolism in photography is alive and well in Eastern Europe and the Far East. It is only in American photography, and other schools derived from it, that symbolism has almost completely disappeared, largely because of Modernism's distaste for it. That said, symbolism is re-entering public life (witness all those coloured wristbands and little bits of ribbon) so it may be time for a revival.

 

[Bob F.]

Indeed Cate, I think we are about 99.9% in agreement on general principles! Sorry to have wittered on...

Somewhat appropos to the OP however, the Boy Scouts in England used the Swastika symbol widely during their early years, until the Nazis appropriated it. Baden Powell was stationed in India for some years I believe.

Cheers, Bob.

 

[stormbytes]

Within a generation or two, the Nazi bastardization of the symbol could be a faint memory or footnote in history.

Michael

Why don't you tell that to my grandfather, who witnessed 7 of his 9 immediate family members gutted alive with pitchforks by "folks" brandishing said "symbol of peace and love" on their arms. See what he thinks of the "deep philosophy" behind it. Tell HIM you'd like to see it used in "art" without any connection to Fascist Germany. See what he thinks.

It's very easy to take a "purely objective" (not to mention cold and utterly insensitive) position on something when it was someone elses family members who were massacred in the name of that "symbol". After all, weren't the Nazis themselves "objective thinkers" ? It was said of them they wouldn't "kick a cat" as doing so was "inhumane".

I think its fair to say that any use of this symbol, beyond the study of its blood stained history, is by all means a retired notion. For the sake of the memory of all that were murdered for its sake, and for all it was made to stand for, I hope no one EVER forgets its "bastardized form" and all it stands for today. Doing so would bastardize not the symbol, but the memory of the masses that were sent to their graves.

Lets not think TOO deeply into matters of common sense.

 

[Gerald Koch]

Sarcasm doesn't work very well in a written medium like APUG since it often depends on vocal inflection and body language. That is why when I am being sarcastic I use an emoticon like ;-) to make it clear what I really mean.

 

[blansky]

Why don't you tell that to my grandfather, who witnessed 7 of his 9 immediate family members gutted alive with pitchforks by "folks" brandishing said "symbol of peace and love" on their arms. See what he thinks of the "deep philosophy" behind it. Tell HIM you'd like to see it used in "art" without any connection to Fascist Germany. See what he thinks.

It's very easy to take a "purely objective" (not to mention cold and utterly insensitive) position on something when it was someone elses family members who were massacred in the name of that "symbol". After all, weren't the Nazis themselves "objective thinkers" ? It was said of them they wouldn't "kick a cat" as doing so was "inhumane".

I think its fair to say that any use of this symbol, beyond the study of its blood stained history, is by all means a retired notion. For the sake of the memory of all that were murdered for its sake, and for all it was made to stand for, I hope no one EVER forgets its "bastardized form" and all it stands for today. Doing so would bastardize not the symbol, but the memory of the masses that were sent to their graves.

Lets not think TOO deeply into matters of common sense.

Since you're obviously too emotionally caught up in this to have any form of rational thought about it, I won't bother.

But the fact of the matter is that the symbol didn't pitchfork or kill anybody, the Nazis did. And since in a couple of generations your grandfather will not be amoung us and neither will any of us, the rebirth of the original intent of the symbol could easily flourish. My point was that it should. In order to take it away from the murderers who bastardized it.

Symbols have gone in and out of "favor" throughout the centuries.

And I'm sorry about your family, but not my opinions on the symbol.

Michael

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

Another example of symbols being usurped for their betterment would be the Nazi use of the Pink Triangle to indicate homosexuals being sent to the concentration camps. The gay rights movement literally upended the Nazi pink triangle (turning it from point down to point up) and took it as their own to symbolize resistance to oppression. I know there are some folks here who would see this as a false canard at best, arguing "what oppression?" or "gay rights, that's an oxymoron! more like 'gay wrongs' ", but the fact remains that the Nazis tried to exterminate a LOT of folks, and used symbols and signs to categorize, sort, segregate, degrade and humiliate them. One of them was the pink triangle. God help you if you were a gay Jew - wearing a pink triangle over a yellow star was about the fastest recipe for horrendous death you could come by.

 

[mark]

Interesting. Symbology is a very powerful marketing tool. The Nazis take a European symbol for peace and reverse it, thus giving it it's reverse meaning. This symbol is everywhere and therefore it becomes theirs in the eyes of history. I do not mean to offend anyone, and no I do not think we should close our eyes to the atrocities these people commited, but I do feel we need to realize that this is one group that used the symbol in this manner. There are many others.

Here is one example. I live on the Navajo Reservation. I am surrounded by petroglyphs and several different native cultures. All of whom use the symbol facing the same way the Nazis faced theirs. For the Navajo the symbol was used to denote the path one travels through life: East, South, West, North. You used to see this symbol everywhere and more importantly on rugs. The symbol was left out of the rugs after WWII because people would not buy rugs with the symbol in it. But it is still used in different ways at different times.

A symbol's importance relies on it's context. Without context a symbol is not but meaningless lines. Look at the American flag. A symbol of hate and intolerance and death to many cultures. It is something to be detested and even feared. To others it is a symbol of freedom, protection, and something worth fighting for. Should we ban the American flag because some cultures find it to be offensive?

My point is we need to realize that a symbol must have context to have meaning. I think everyone would know the difference between the nazi use of the symbol, and a Navajo's. JMO

 

[Claire Senft]

It may be on point that the Nazis perfected or at least made much use of the "big lie".

 

[haris]

And question is will we let them win?

That is will we forget about original meaning and original sanskrit symbol because nazis misused it? In the name of political correctnes and sensitivnes.

If we will, we let them win.

Problems with symbols is they are changing. How many of us when look at paintings of rainessance painters understand why there is cat, or apple? They have thiere meanings, they are not there just to be there. Except of historians of art, how may people knows theire meanings?

Art(ists) allways used symbols. And one of "jobs" of art(ists) is to ask questions and to move boundaries and to be controversial. Symbols should be put in context. Swastika can be in context of glorifying it or acusing (attacking) it (its meaning).

It is all matter of context.

Regards

 

[BrianShaw]

Blanski's photo is simply Churchill ordering two hot dogs while attending a
an outdoor concert near his residence on Downing Street.

... or telling the papparazzi to blow off.

 

[davetravis]

No-one is sure of the actual numbers, but most historians agree that Stalins' Soviet Empire "purged" between 25 and 40 million of their citizens.
And yet I don't expect the Hammer and Cycal, or the Red Star to be censored on this site.
We are all in charge of our own responses, and I prefer artistic freedom over censorship.
DT

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

No-one is sure of the actual numbers, but most historians agree that Stalins' Soviet Empire "purged" between 25 and 40 million of their citizens.
And yet I don't expect the Hammer and Sickle, or the Red Star to be censored on this site.
We are all in charge of our own responses, and I prefer artistic freedom over censorship.
DT

Dave- I think there's this psychological difference people maintain about Stalin and Hitler. Part of it is that Stalin was killing his own. Part of it is that "we"(the west) perceived Joe Stalin and the Soviet Union as "the enemy" and were happy to let them bleed themselves dry. Part of it was the fact that evidence of it didn't get out as widely because Russia was a very poor country with underdeveloped infrastructure, so it was hard for someone to place a phonecall or send a letter out of the country to get the news out. Part of it was also a racist response - Hitler was killing not only the jews and the gypsies, but he ended up killing lots of Brits, French, Dutch and Belgians too. Nobody else intervened in Stalin's purges because they didn't care as much - Russia was still "the east", the alien other - not really caucasians. If you disagree, go read some contemporary criticism of Tchaikovsky's music, which was derided as being inferior because it was "wild, 'eastern' music".

Same with Mao in China, or Pol Pot in Cambodia, or Rwanda and Darfur. Actually, Mao stands head and shoulders above the rest as a great butcher of humanity. Hitler was loosely responsible for 12-20 million dead (Final Solution and combat dead combined). Stalin killed somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 million. Mao - 40-60 million. About half that number came from the mass starvation brought about by his policies of The Great Leap Forward. Pol Pot I think takes the cake in terms of percentages; even with Mao's 60 million as an outside figure, Pol Pot managed to slaughter a quarter of his country's popluation. A quarter. And it took a Vietnamese invasion to stop him. The rest of the world sat back and did nothing.

 

[davetravis]

FC,
Yes, other great butchers of history were as vile as Stalin's Empire.
But I can't rationalize censorship of their symbols, based only on the number killed. They were all evil, and should be remembered as such.
I believe I should honor the memory of those who were lost, not those who caused their deaths.
Their symbols provide me with that rememberance.
I'm able to make that distinction, and would hope others are as well.
DT