To be shocked and horrified at Etsy shop selling goods with a swastika on?

[ILearnedTheTruthat17]

Went searching for boys' wallets and found a shop based in Ukraine selling tooled leather goods, some of which have a swastika. WTF?

I have reported it to Etsy.

I haven't posted the link as I don't want to violate any MN policies or give them publicity.

There is a 'reclaim the swastika' movement because it is actually a religious symbol and didn't originally have anything to do with the Nazis. It was actually a symbol of peace before then.

I don't know if thats the intention of the shop you are browsing, though.

And even then I find the whole reclaim the swastika thing quite ham fisted.

Oh wow. I was aware of its use in ancient India (and when seen in that context I wouldn't have a difficulty with it) but I wasn't aware of the reclaim movement. If so, I find it odd that the shop offered no explanation consistent with the reclaim movement and thereby risked offending and upsetting people...

It is more complicated than just its use in ancient India, though. I lived in the USA for a couple of years and there was a swastika on the local fire station. Which had been there since the 1910s. I think there were campaigns to remove it every so often, but its local history trumped its later use.

Having said that, I'd be extremely wary of its use in an Etsy shop based in Europe.

It is used as a symbol of a form of quite extreme anti-Russian nationalism in Ukraine.

The ideology behind it is a kind of 'my enemy's enemy is my friend'. The Nazis fought against the Russians then, so they are role models for Ukrainians who oppose the Russians today.

In reality, that ideology is very often used as a cover for the kind of white supremacism espoused by the Nazis. It is difficult for political leaders and others to fully condemn it or ban its use without sounding like they are condemning Ukrainian nationalism, which they can't do in the current climate.