Saving the Swastika?

[Zephyros]

In many older decks such as the Thoth, the Swastika is a prominent symbol, with a variety of meanings. A solar symbol, a symbol of the changing of the seasons, renewal of life but... also the ending of it. In the Far East it is still a symbol of good fortune.

We all know who used the Swastika and why (whatever its orientation be it right to left or left to right). Myself, as a Jew living in Israel, it evokes powerful emotions, none of which have anything to do with Tarot.

My question is, do you think the Swastika can be redeemed? Should it?

 

[Richard]

I think that scholars who encounter the swastika in ancient cultures are knowledgeable enough to know that it does not represent the ideals of a certain central European fanatic and his lackeys. While it is a shame that a perfectly acceptable symbol can be corrupted by blatant misuse, I don't think that it necessarily should be resurrected. The meanings of symbols are determined by their useage, and this one has been used to death (literally).

 

[Le Fanu]

Most (or maybe many) people know that the Nazis didn't invent it, that it has another meaning etc etc.

However, I simply cannot see the swastika ever being redemmed. I don't think we should even go there. For all the spiritual things that the swastika is said to represent, I think with a bit of searching we can usually find another symbol to mean something similar.

It is one of the few symbols - that and the cross - that it's simply impossible to see with neutral eyes now.

I can't even see it changing within the next few hundred years. If anything, what the swastika has come to mean will simply consolidate.

 

[Richard]

Agree 100% with Le Fanu.

 

[ann823]

I agree with LRichard and Le Fanu. You can understand what it means when seen in a pre-Nazi context (like the Thoth) but I think the meaning has been changed by the evil it was used to represent.

 

[Bhavana]

Years ago someone gave me a native american cuff bracelet with silver swastikas on either side of the center stone - I never wore it, and wound up giving it away. I can't look at it without thinking of the Nazis - and I feel that is the case for most people. I think the symbol has been so horribly tarnished that it can never be redeemed.

 

[tarotbear]

I doubt that any symbol that has been corrupted so completely into a symbol of evil can ever be made 'clean' again.

 

[tarotcognito]

What everyone else here has said.

 

[Zephyros]

I want to stress that I agree with everyone here, and that in my opinion I feel strongly about it as the symbol of the concept of evil itself, and I feel this not only intellectually, but due in great part to my circumstances and personal acquaintances who are Holocaust survivors; I am also very emotional about the symbol as well.

I feel the need to stress that I am not making a case here, 20 million deaths have already made it.

However, I found this article

ia.rediff.com/news/2005/jan/19swastika.htm

It is an old one, from 2005, and although I think they are wrong, I have to wonder where they are coming from. It is a beautiful (visually) symbol thousands of years old, and would probably have been pretty anonymous in other circumstances, but surely they must know it has been forever mutilated. Their intentions are not pro-Nazi either, I think it goes without saying. Don't they know that firstly it`s a lost cause and secondly, don't they have basic, oh, I don't know, common decency? It seems strange anyone would pursue such a target, even if they feel very rightly culturally robbed.

(mods: this is bordelining the political forum, sorry about that.)

 

[Carla]

I don't think it can be redeemed in the near future, but who knows what it may used for in the distant future. For now, though, as LeFanu says, it's too heavily identified with the Nazis to be freed of the association. Just like I cannot look at a cross of any type (including so-called Celtic crosses) without thinking of Christianity. (Not that I want to make any particular association between Nazis and Christianity. Just that those are two very iconic symbols).