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this post was submitted on 31 Oct 2024
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It sucks that Nazis get to ruin cultures symbols who had no association with them. However, they prominently used eagles in their imagery, and somehow that isn't ruined. Should every nation have to stop using eagles or be called Nazis? That's stupid, right?
Also, they largely did stop using it after WWII, as the article mentions. It was still used it some emblems, flags, and decorations, but not as common. It's still on the Finnish flag of the president, though it's got different proportions and you'd look like a complete idiot for implying it's a nazi symbol there.
The swastika is all over the world. It's a very basic geometric symbol. It is no surprise it's appealing. Go play Minecraft or something and make a symmetric design, and odds are you'll make a swastika. I know playing Factorio I see it appear all the time. Nazis ruined a really cool perfectly innocent shape, and it's honestly time we should try to recapture it.
Or, hear me out, we don't recapture it because it has a fucked up context. It might not seem like a big deal for those who haven't been close to the terror, but not everybody lives on the other side of the world.
And yeah, using nazi-adjacent eagles or fasces (like your government proudly displays in many symbols) is pretty fucked up too.
What about neo-classical architecture, which the Nazis loved? What about white marble sculptures? What about the colors red and black?
They used many symbols. Letting them be the owners of them gives them legitimacy. Why do we want people looking at old art, seeing a swastika, and then having the thought that the Nazis actually have a cultural association with that? They don't. They appropriated cultures to give themselves legitimacy. Allowing this to continue furthers their goals. They don't own the swastika, eagles, fasces, neo-classical architecture, appealing to Roman culture, or anything else. They stole it all, and continuing to let them own it is an issue.
You are free to reclaim the symbols, make an account Cethin88 (it's a birth year!) with a marble statue profile pic, then complain about how it's Nazis' fault you're being misunderstood.
And there is also quite a difference between taking a work from x hundreds of years ago that might incorporate some symbol (like Ancient Roman fasces or swastikas in Eastern Slavic pagan art), and being a modern state that refuses to drop the MAIN nazi symbol. And just so we are clear, the Finnish Air Force did eventually drop the symbol a few years back, I guess it must have been because of woke. Or maybe they actually realized it doesn't look great what with the fascist revival in the entirety of Europe, but many people have had a problem with that for a long time before that already, especially since so many Finns are PROUD of their nazi collaboration history.
88 isn't really the same thing, although, like you said, some people perfectly innocently use it, which is why it's a dog whistle. 88 became a thing when Nazis had to hide they were Nazis. The swastika is not that obviously.
Why they dropped the symbol is likely because people were using it to say the Finnish government were Nazis, like th comment above implied. It's an easy target for people like Russian apologists to say "we're denazifying Finland" or whatever, while they do plenty of actual fascist shit.
Symbols are as useful as they're interpreted. If they're interpreted wrong then you should probably change them. It doesn't mean we should allow people like the person above to imply anyone using them is a fascist. They should be countered and shown how stupid their arguments are. I have no idea why you're defending them.
The swastika was swapped out before Russia invaded Ukraine, before Russia tried to claim the "denazifying" shit, so you're barking up the wrong tree.
And I am defending them because it was perfectly adequate snark to point out the hypocrisy of "yeah it's okay, he's Finn after all" when it comes to ugly xenophobia, when Finns themselves have a shitty track record. They did actually literally ally with Nazis, and if we now want to talk about "historical context" then it's fair game to look into shit like refusing to drop what is now a nazi symbol by the official organ of the state, for decades.
Or we could stop running defense for any shitty actions somebody from "our side" does towards anybody else, and do some actual self-crit every once in a while. I've had Russian friends literally get attacked for simply being Russian (and no, not supportive of the invasion) after 2022, so I am not going to shut up when people give xenophobes a free pass, but push back super hard against what is a mild burn at best.