Ha! That ad!

Symbols can be so strangely used, misused and appropriated. Hitler's "hijacking" of the swastika did not go unnoticed among the right-wing Hindu revivalists of the 1930's and 40's.

The meanings that the symbol gained/lost in its movement to Germany and back to India can be seen in the recent uses that a right-wing government put it to.

True, it remains an auspicious Hindu symbol used during religious rituals and is also seen regularly as an ornamental or a decorative motif; but when it is used by the followers of Hindutva , one has to be vigilant.

 

halfway thru that article. interesting stuff. will read rest of it soon.

when i was over on that side of the world i would see "swastika" drain covers. must be the company that makes them or something.

p.s. i liked the photo but bagpiper whisky is not particularly nice stuff.

 

Sorry, man. Once again I feel obliged to apologize for the idiots of my country.

If it makes you feel any better, everybody knows these people are idiots and they are the subject of constant satire and derision throughout the culture.

The most recent example is a bad one, the recent violence in Ohio when a Klan rally was scheduled, but generally when these pigs show up for a scheduled event, a march or a protest, they are outnumbered between five and ten to one by counter demonstrators.

I'm sorry if our idiots are besmirching your country. Don't worry about it. They're the Klan; they are just widely ridiculed idiots that no one listens to here.

The far more frightening elements are the more mainstream groups who hide their bigotry behind policy. Watch the immigration debate and the "minutemen" vigilante group here for an example. This anti-immigrant wave is being astroturfed right now so that the anger will rise and be usable by the republicans as a soft bigotry issue in the 2006 midterms.

At some time I'm going to sit down and write a significant post on this, but we gotta get through this week of Plame first.

Mike

 

Thanks for this enlightening post, Michael! Quite cerebral actually ...
Helga from Australia

 

thanks helga

no need to apologise mike - its not you. like i said, in any country, race or religion you will find a few mindless moronic bigots. the trick is not to let them run the country. unfortunately, on that front, most of us are failing.

 

You have the KKK in Scotland?

I must say we didn't see too many minorities in either Glasgow or Edinburgh except for the guys at the falafel stands.

You'll be fine if you can keep the Russians out. Ha ha.

 

no, we don't really have them here but they try to claim scottish roots based on a bizarre reading of history.

 

'Braveheart' is utter bollocks, isn't it? Hollywood revisionism really gets my goat.

 

mostly bollocks, yes

 

You seem to have an extremist opinion yourself, even if it is extremly liberal. That is as bad as a far right point of view. Do you desire to have the whole world be a melted pot of race and culture? That is what you are proposing. I appreciate diversity, but I prefer to appreciate it from a distance. The way things are going in my great grandkids will be black, and that's something I'd rather not happen. I don't consider myself to be racist, or a bigot, or any of the other classifications you may want to stick on me after reading that. Rather I appreciate diversity, which you don't.