Swastika, Swastika

When in India you can play a game called "Find the Swastika". Swastikas are used in advertisements for cultural events, motorbikes, batteries, restaurants, gem stores, medicine (or sexual enhancement aids), fireworks, Internet cafes... I've seen swastikas embroidered onto pillow cases, blankets, and drapery. There's even a Hotel Swastika. In short, swastikas are everywhere and still very widely used.

It seems most temples and churches have them; and these aren't museums but "working" places that are quite new.

There's even a Hotel Swastika. In short, swastikas are everywhere and still very widely used.

For Indians the swastika exemplifies life-force and the wheel of life. It exists at the center of the mandala and being flows out from it. It's complicated, but suffice to say that it is not a bad thing here; it's a "lucky" symbol.

The picture above is of a special welcome sign made of sand that was placed at the entrance to an Indian home to celebrate Diwali.

Everyone in west knows that German Nazi's re-appropriated the swastika for their rather brief, however gruesome, reign of terror more than 50 years ago. Even so, the swastik symbol remains a symbol of deepest evil for many in North America; some find it downright repulsive.

As I considered the widespread use of the swastika here in India, I also pondered why we should hate it so.

I've since concluded that the swastik symbol has been re-re-appropriated by the United States to sell a massive military industrial complex to citizens around the world and, specifically, to taxpayers in the USA. The campaign was (and still is) brilliantly simple: "Clearly, we need a huge military or a group with a flag like this one will rise again to wreak havoc." We had that notion further reinforced by films like the Indiana Jones series (which I still love) and in many books--both fiction and non.

So, in the west today, the swastika is actually an ad for big guns. And nothing sells military programs (or bigger guns) better than fear.

Consider this the next time you see a swastika and feel repulsed. Sure, you can stand against racism and intolerance, but the swastika is obviously not necessarily indicative of that. Hating the swastika or the crucifix or the five-pointed star or any symbol is not a stance against racism or intolerance because these concepts, in action, are more complex than any symbol(s) used to express them.

However, if we are not conscious, symbols may be used to manipulate us; and we should consider just who has to gain from any successful manipulation.

Coincidentally, the swastika is not the only symbol in the US military's advertising arsenal: Osama Bin Laden, the towers falling in NYC on 9/11/01, even the color red was once considered evil simply because it was the color of a communist country's flag, the USSR.

NB