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| Gamba Osaka Fined For Their Fans Flags ... |
In particular the Nazi Party is not the bogeyman that would be the case in Europe and the USA. Further illustrations of this fact were exhibited this week:
In Japan, the football club Gamba Osaka were fined for their fans displaying 'Nazi-like flags', bearing a double 'S', which looked a bit like the Nazi Swastika emblem. The fine was two million yen (£13,500), and the league said that the club "immediately identified the supporter group in question and took swift and appropriate measures"
As the Japanese were allies of the Nazi's, and also generally deny their own war crimes, they find it hard to accept that this is a 'crime' in the West. So they carry on committing this 'crime', and then having to apologise for it, without really understanding why they are being made to do so.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the world in South Africa, white Afrikaner students at Stellenbosch University were reprimanded for putting up posters, which were basically photo-shopped Nazi propaganda posters, altered to rally support for the "Fight for Stellenbosch".
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| Stellenbosch - The New Right Can Use Photo-Shop. |
This 'fight' is about calls for the Afrikaans language to be replaced with English as the main language of instruction. This prompted the formation of a student group names "The New Right", and the posters were issued to call the "Anglo-Afrikaner" students to attend a meeting to determine their response to this proposed change ..... the university says it has adopted a multilingual policy as black students preferred English over Afrikaans.
Investigations, led by the university's Equality Unit (I wondered how long before one of these turned up), identified three individuals who were allegedly linked to the "totally unacceptable" and "highly offensive" posters, and more students are expected to be named and shamed.
However the fact remains, that 70 years on, World War II is ancient history to 18 - 21yr olds, and we can't just keep enforcing taboo's from an older generation, on to the current youngest adult one.
Its about time the PC brigade in the West stopped interfering in countries outside of Europe and the USA, and let them do what they want. After all we created the demon, not them, and once we stop demonising the past, the sooner it will simply fade as an issue .. which is how it should be. We don't still fight the hundred years or Napoleonic wars, so why continue to fight WWII?
We have to move on now .... Offensive emblems should be allowed to evolve into something new and inoffensive.
The difference between WWII, the hundred years war and the Napoleonic wars is the Nazis' master race ideology and the genocide that was committed as a result. Also, not only is it closer in time but we have moving colour pictures of WWII which gives us a better connection to it.
ReplyDeleteMarket traders and unscrupulous shop owners will stock their shelves with products which ressemble named brands or items with similar colour schemes and bottle shapes to established, better known products. Just like the examples in this piece they know exactly what they're doing. If anyone chooses to use an SS logo they must take the criticism along with whatever they expected to get out of it, I don't believe they're doing it innocently or that they don't understand their significance, if not to themselves then to others.
It's not even true that they don't relate themselves to the signification because if they didn't, they wouldn't use the symbol. If the symbol isn't immediately significant to the crowd, the instigators are banking on the signification making a mark either subconsciously or consciously sooner or later.
Hitler himself chose the Swastika for its historical or/and mythical connection to "the master race" understanding that the crowd would come to understand its significance, sooner or later.
People don't do something for no reason at all, usually you have to just "follow the money" and this money leads to the surety that these symbols are understood the world over.
In Europe and the Western world, I would accept that people do know what they are doing in relation to these symbols. However as demonstrated many times, the non-western world doesn't see the significance in the Nazi, or Stalinist regimes. It may not even feature much in their education ... I know this is the case with many Indians, who barely know who Hitler was, let alone the finer points of their policies.
DeleteThe same goes for parts of Europe, and the sale of Mein Kampf in Palestine and the Gaza strip shows that where they do know, they don't care, or even approve of those policies. This also applies but more so, for non European areas such as Bangladesh.
So I think that you are falling into the trap of a Eurocentric view of the world. The wider world finds our interests and concerns of far less significance, than our bloated egos think should be the case.
Thanks for the comment as always Vroomfondel .... we can't always agree :-)