"These young ladies obviously do not realize how their actions can affect so many around them and in ways unimaginable to the impervious teen mind."
"Should they be removed from the squad?"
Ignorance is not bliss, at any age.
Intent is the question to be asked of the girls.
Should they be removed from the squad, maybe if their intent was based on hatred.
Maybe they should be educated on the history of the cross and it's evolution to it's current meaning. Maybe they should apologize for their ignorance and then present their findings to the school with an emphasis on the original meaning of the cross, thus
educating the whole school at once.
Maybe if they took this approach they could help dispel the hatred that a war and a countries leader have left in our minds on the true meaning of the cross?
So let's look at it's history:
1) It is one of the oldest symbols in the world dating back 3000 years and predating the ancient Egyptian symbol, the Ankh
2) The word "Swastika" comes from the Sanskrit word for "good luck"
3) Was used by many cultures around the world, including in China, Japan, India, and southern Europe.
4) Has many names including China - wan, England - fylfot, Germany - Hakenkreuz, Greece - tetraskelion and gammadion, India - swastika.
Even Native American Indians used the symbol.
5) The swastika was used by many cultures throughout the past 3,000 years to represent life, sun, power, strength, and good luck.
6) Because of the Nazis' flag, the swastika soon became a symbol of hate, anti-Semitism, violence, death, and murder.
7) For Buddhists and Hindus, the swastika is a very religious symbol that is commonly used.
8) During the war, the Government of Ontario banned all German sounding names for towns and changed most of them to better sounding names.
Berlin was changed to Kitchener and Swastika was changed to Winston. The people of Swastika Ontario took offence to this and thus the town is still called Swastika today. (nice place by the way)
9) For 3,000 years, the swastika meant life and good luck. But because of the Nazis, it has also taken on a meaning of death and hate.
10) The swastika was a symbol for the Aryan people, a name that, in Sanskrit means "noble". The Aryans were a group of people who settled in Iran and Northern India.
They believed themselves to be a pure race, superior to the other surrounding cultures. When the Germans looked for a symbol, they looked for a symbol that
represented the purity, which they
“believed” they contained. The Nazis regarded themselves as "Aryans" and tried to
steal the accomplishments of these pre-historic people.
In other words…. They bastardized the symbol and it’s meaning because they lacked the true genealogy to be just that, a pure race.
So what does all this mean today? It means that as a people we have the power to take away the negativity that we all have come to know surrounding this ancient symbol. If we as a people want to make a change, knowledge is the way to accomplish this. If the stigma remains an indelible part of our history, will it also remain to be that for our future?
I don’t believe it needs to be and at the very least, when the horrible history is presented, the original history needs to be presented as well.
Yes it was horrible what Hitler did and yes it is the last historical event that affected how peoples of the future viewed the symbol. But does it need to remain that way?
If we are living in a time where we can elect a black man or a woman to be president of the USA, maybe we are living in a time were we can "help soften" or even change the perception of a symbol that was
abused by a madman during a very horrible event.
I am not suggesting that we forget what Hitler did, but I am suggesting that we have the power to make a change here, through knowledge and education.
Maybe the girls could be used to get that message out to the impressionable minds of their peers.
Couldn’t hurt could it?
Further readings:
Swastika, Ontario
Swastika Origins
Swastika History
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