In the year 2005, American artist Matt Furie created a comic entitled “Boy’s Club #1.” This comic was just the beginning of a series of comics which featured the anthropomorphic frog-guy named Pepe. By 2008, Pepe had spread across the internet, developing into what would become one of the most iconic memes of this generation. Flash-forward only a few more years, and Pepe, who was intended for use as nothing more than a symbol of awkward contemporary comedy, became the new symbol utilized by the alt-right movement for propaganda. The poor frog-guy would never have the same meaning, and the artist that created him would never be able to reclaim him.
The year is we-literally-don’t-even-know-how-long-ago-because-history-has-failed-to-travel-that-far-back. Ancient eastern cultures have used the symbol we now know as the swastika to symbolize goodness, auspiciousness, and prosperity (among other, similar virtues). Flash-forward to the 1930s, and a radicalized group within western culture had adopted the swastika as a Nazi symbol which promoted the Aryan race, and demoted an entire group of people. Not only did it demote them, but the swastika symbolized the destruction of an entire culture, and the mass genocide of an entire people.
Flash-forward to 2017, a year which sings songs of progression and open-minded thought. A design group called “KA Design” recently posted their rainbow swastika t-shirt designs with the caption “PEACE” to the independent tee-shirt production company, TeeSpring. The company wants to reclaim the swastika's original meaning, to bring it back to its “most Eastern virtues.” In Eastern culture, perhaps the swastika may prevail as a symbol of religion, spirituality, and good fortune, but Western culture will never be able to reclaim and readopt this symbol as anything else other than a representation of alt-right oppression.
I’m saying this not from a liberal standpoint, but from a human standpoint. From the viewpoint of someone who grew up recognizing the symbol, not as something of Eastern virtues, but of Nazi hate and crime. For a great portion of the world, such is absolutely the case. Trying to “reclaim” and give the swastika a renaissance of sorts is insensitive, because to so many people, its meaning is so much darker and painful than its originators could have ever anticipated. Instead of putting energy and time into trying to repurpose old, often recognized as horrific symbolism, we should create and promote new symbols of peace and unity. We should continue holding up the peace sign, flying rainbow flags, and showing love to one another in non-symbolic fashions. Western culture should make no place for the swastika in the catalog of peace and love.
