Teaching The “S” Word

New legislation proposed to fight hate speech and imagery is currently steaming through the New York State Senate and igniting passionate criticism from surprising sources. Senate Bill S2727 “Requires instruction regarding symbols of hate to be incorporated into the curricula for grades six through twelve.”

The Bill, if passed as written, will “require New York school children be educated regarding the meaning of swastikas and nooses as symbols of hatred and intolerance.” The Bill further states: “As many of our youth are not aware of the hateful connotations behind swastikas and nooses, it is necessary for the legislature to mandate compulsory education in all schools across our great state in regard to the meanings of these two symbols of hate. Requiring students be educated in the significance of these displays of bigotry will go a long way toward fostering a more inclusive and tolerant society for all.”

Ordinarily these sentiments are unassailable. The target is “bigotry” and the goal is “inclusive and tolerant society for all.” Yet notice I use the word “ordinarily.” For me, this legislation has rekindled a nagging paradox that I have grappled with since the publication of my books, The Swastika: A Symbol Beyond Redemption? (Allworth Press 2008) and The Swastika and Other Symbols of Hate: Extremist Iconography Today (Allworth Press 2019): Is it acceptable (and accurate) to refer to this ancient spiritual symbol of good fortune found in all corners of the world — the swastika — as the Nazi emblem? Is Adolf Hitler’s putative logo, which is generally called swastika, which is banned in postwar Germany and seen as the quintessential symbol of twentieth century bigotry and genocide, something altogether different? In short, is this Hitlerian mark really a swastika or is it not?

The first correspondence I received, when my book was initially published, came from a Native American art student who branded me “a cultural colonialist” for posing the question whether the Nazi swastika could be redeemed. This was years before the currently common critical indictment, “colonialism,” suggesting white-centricity over culture and art, was introduced into socio-political discourse. The student wrote that he had hoped I would debunk the misconception that the swastika should be forever damned because of the Nazis. At the time I dismissed the accusation as being overly hardcore. I wasn’t attacking Native Americans, Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, or any of many faiths or nationalities that historically applied or worshiped the swastika. I was referencing how a virtuous mark could be twisted and distorted (before the advent of copyright protection) into something anathema. Who would argue that the Nazi’s ubiquitous mark was not the most toxic hate symbol of the 20th century?

Well, it turns out there were others who challenged my assumption.

“The swastika is one of the world’s oldest and most universal symbols, dating back to prehistoric times,” writes T.K. Nakagaki in The Buddhist Swastika and Hitler’s Cross: Rescuing a Symbol of Peace from the Forces of Hate (Stone Bridge Press, 2018), a thesis that he said was authored, in part, to counter my argument against redemption. Through lucid scholarship, Dr. Nakagaki, an ordained Buddhist priest, argues that the Nazi cross is neither a swastika nor did it derive from the traditions that had made the swastik such a sacred symbol. Rather Hitler’s cross is actually the Hakenkreuz or hook-cross that according the Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary is “used as the symbol of anti-Semitism or of Nazi Germany.”

This past November I spoke along with Dr. Nakagaki and other clerics at “The Swastika in American, Jewish & Asian Cultures” Zoom panel, co-sponsored by The Jewish Community Relations Council of NY and South Asian American Voice. I stated then, as I do in my books, that thousands of years of ancient representation was tragically tainted:

“It is one of those cruel ambiguities. For some it means something good, for others it means something abhorrent. . . The symbol, whatever you call it, Swastika or hooked-cross, has become adopted and co-opted as a symbol of racial and ethnic prejudice and white superiority . . .  I am convinced for Americans and Europeans it must be maintained as a taboo sign.”

Dr. Nakagaki and I have debated this issue before. He insists that the design (or intent) of the Nazi cross is not even a true swastika and never was. In rebuttal I invoked a version of the old bromide: “If it walks and talks like a duck then it is…”  At some point whether Hitler wrote or spoke the word or not, this symbol of good fortune (also known as a sun wheel) was distressingly reconceived as the brandmark for Nazi Germany and its holocaust. The word swastika was affixed to it, and forever there it remains. Admittedly, I have not deeply considered how this regrettable characterization offends the billions of people who embrace this icon of “heavenly peace”. Words and symbols have meaning as well as emotional resonance. Often, however, these meanings differ according to their context. In the Trump era, truth and fiction were interchangeable, and cliches and stereotypes often substitute for reality — the notion that there are “good people on both sides” is absurd. That one side worshipped the Nazi cross prompted my second swastika book.

My comment suggesting “branding” the swastika as evil in the U.S. and Europe touched many a raw nerve. A few months after the Zoom panel, the editor(s) of Macro Viewpoints, an online publication that until now was unknown to me, wrote: “Hmmm! So now the Svastik is a symbol of ‘white superiority’? That’s a new one for us!” It is true that many westerners associate the word swastika with past and present graphic expressions of racist white supremacy. Nonetheless if those billions who revere the swastika insist that the Nazi Hakenkreuz is not their symbol, then I believe that belief must be respected.

The Swastik(a) or Svastik originated in sanskrit as “Any lucky or auspicious object, (especially) a kind of mystical cross or mark made on persons and things to denote good luck (it is shaped like a Greek cross with the extremities of the four arms bent round in the same direction; the majority of scholars regard it as a solar symbol.”  If that is true (as some scholarly studies confirm) passing a law branding the swastika as hateful and racist poses a moral and pedagogical problem.

Section 1§801-B.: INSTRUCTION REGARDING SYMBOLS OF HATE. THE REGENTS SHALL ENSURE THAT THE COURSE OF INSTRUCTION FOR GRADES SIX THROUGH TWELVE INCLUDES A COMPONENT ON THE MEANING OF THE SWASTIKA AS THE EMBLEM OF NAZI GERMANY. [Caps are in the legislative document.]

So how did the word enter our lexicon? Where did the word swastika first appear in relation to the Nazis. Dr. Nakagaki asserts that in the first German edition of Hitler’s infamous memoir/manifesto Mein Kampf, “neither the words ‘swastika,’ ‘svastika,’ ‘swastica,’ or any other variations are used in the original … or in any other materials written by Hitler in German”. Conversely, “all but one of the English translations that exist use the term swastika as a translation of Hakenkreuz.”

The mark was called a swastika in western books, newspapers, and other documents, so it seems that hardly any translators of Hitler’s tome were aware of its ancient religious symbolism. Or were they? I own a number of histories, including those published in Germany, which trace the lengthy evolution of the swastika from benign to nationalist cult symbol. Critics argue that those who associate the term swastika with the Nazis are overtly or incidentally “helping” eviscerated the mark’s heritage and legacy. In the final analysis maintaining the name swastika in conjunction with Nazi atrocities has maligned one of the most powerfully positive forces in the world.

Supporting any legislation, however, that promotes education is a step in the right direction. My books provide history of the swastika’s origins and relevance. Yet I now have profound doubts regarding the designation of the Nazi cross as a swastika. It is complicated. Although there is little chance of a word change in the near future, I believe that if New York State legislation does not include a proviso that this “education” distinguishes the spiritual swastika from the Nazi cross, then swastika will be become an “S” word that will misrepresent believers who have nothing to do with Nazis, white supremacy, nativism, and racism resulting in an unjust law that perpetuates the very hate it wants to irradicate.