lol at zara swastika bag!

[Beenleigh]

zara bag

Oh and resorting to calling someone a moron just because you don't agree with their personal opinions is stooping low.

or thick,
I don't post for people to just be rude to me so I'm off
Enjoy your personal opinions FGS

there is a taboo around it.

but I FAIL entirely to understand people being offended that zara made a mistake by commissioning this bag somewhere where it is not associated with nazism, and as soon as it was noticed withdrew it.

and looking at it, it does seem to me that you would be hard pushed to consider that a nazi bag!!!

at 'moron'.

It's not because I don't agree with your personal opinions (although I do think they are slightly ridiculous); I called you stupid because that is how you are coming across.

calling someone 'thick' and 'moron' really isn't nice and is totally uncalled for.

also leaves what was actually an informative thread.

In fact, it's pretty offensive...

i see where you are coming sophable, but Zara are also Western, and should have know better, unless they wanted lots and lots of lovely free publicity ....

I can understand your point Lulumama, but could you also agree that the Nazi bastards 9and they were) stole enough from mankind by their very existence, that their choice of taking an emblem from an already pre-existent cultue- well if that was banned say, wouldn't that add to the damage done by the Nazis? I eman, I'm not Hndu, just a student of, but part of the Nazi weaponry was a corruption of faith and ideology- the way they turned neighbour against neighbour. If a Hindu eprson wants to wear a Swastika as an emblem of their ancient faith 9and remembering Hinduism is a faith of reincarnation, so its a longenity thing as well)- if they are rpevented doing so because of an evil regime, does not that add to the injustice overall?

I am not saying BTW that Zara should retail these bags- I ahev no idea if Zarra have an idea at all of religious symbology and i suspect a lot of sick bastards buy them for horrid reasons, but I do think the Sawstika should be gradually reclaimed by those who opriginated it partly as symbolic of the failure of the nazi's to wreck human variation, but also becasue the power of symbols is challnged in that way- look at for example, pictures of devils etc- once they were considered terrible, now walk into Asda near Holloween and they're everywhere.

I would be deeply suspicious of an individual with this bag. At the same time, if we make it completely taboo then we re doing toehr peoples a disservice.

Bessie youa re entitled to your opinion- but I do know of a Hindu movement to reclaim the imagery. Is that really less valid?

Peachy, no, of course not. All I am saying is that possibly a movement to 'reclaim' the symbol is not appropriate if it is instigated by a load of white, non-hindus.

i absolutely take your point peachy, and i thikn you hvae made it really well... my visceral , gut reaction when i see a swastika is that i am deeply offended ... maybe as a Jewish person, it makes it more 'personal',

I understand the reasoning for having it reclaimed, by Hindus, but i fear it would undermine the keeping alive of the rememberance of the holocaust, and wearing a swastika would be anotehr 'cool' thing to do..not just by hindus.

'I would be deeply suspicious of an individual with this bag'

i cant imagine skinhead members of the BNP skipping around carrying this bag though!
The kids who would have bought it probably wouldnt even know the connotations unfortunately.

When I heard on the radio I couldn't imagine how it happened but now I see it I completely understand.

When I was in Rajasthan initially I was completely shocked by the number of swastikas everywhere - on lots of house doors etc. It's a good luck symbol.

Now I see it's an embroidered bag that's obviously been made using fairly basic Indian fabrics - possibly even home sewn. It's probably even one of those which stipulates that "designs may vary" depending on the batch of embroidery they got in. I bet the first version they saw didn't have this and then later versions it crept in and obviously the original embroiderer was using it as a good luck symbol and Zara obviously don't check each individual piece.

Not all Nazis are skinhead men, you know.

It asn't, the article (if I can access my stuff nect week I'll happily CAt you a copy) iirc was taken from a Hindu magazine, my Professor is an editor working on the Hinduism of village deities so is very close to the Indiam cultural movements, because of course there is a big variation between classic Brahmanic Hindusim and the village religions in the way they are practised (apparently there's a huge movement now in academia to disassociate the two and teach H9nduism and Brahmanical hinduism as separate sujects, would be way above my head i think- my specialty in eastern religion is Buddhism, most of my course seem to be covering Jainism at dissertation level).

To be honest, if you really look at the bag it's far more indicative of the Hindu religion than any kind of Nazi paraphernalia, (IM very very HO - as MNetters seems to be becoming very quick to jump down people's throats and be abusive at present ) and I believe that Zara themselves probably looked at demo bags (made up with different materials) then swatches of material where the emblem in dispute was not shown.

I certainly wouldn't judge anyone for having the bag and am still chuckling at vision of some BNP fascist skipping along with it!

These things do happen but wouldn't it be good if the symbol could be taken away from the Nazi culture and reintegrated into the west as what it was originally intended for?

sadly dirtygertie, questioning the historical accuracy of the Holocaust is something that seems mroe and mroe common in perfectly normal young students throughout academia. I wonder if becasue we're expected to question everything (where did that come from, who wrote it etc- first thing we're taught at Uni), I think its having a more awful and universal backlash and people are questioning things more, and coming to some very dangerous answers.

Lulu i totally take yur point, I guess my concern isn't that the Swastika can be used as a day to day pattern- actually when a lot of religious imagery is used by people who don't understand it, mandals, crucifixes etc- it makes me uncomfortable. My concern is mroe that should a person who is a follower of an Eastern religion choose to wear the iamge, that people will know why, rather than assume horrid, horrid things about them. IYSWIM? The understanding of each toehrs cultures etc- that's the main reason I want to teach at secondary level in the field. course might not be for a few eyars what with Bump, but i hope so. One day.

i do see what you mean, peachy.

i also find it uncomfortable when religious symbols are hijacked and worn without understanding of what they mean.

seeing every other person wearing a red string around their wrist, after madonna started wearing one really irritated me .

hey ho

I don't think questioning anything is offensive per se. questioning is always a good thing.

that doesn't mean I hold any truck with holocaust revisionists.

I do think that young history students should question everything as history is usually written by the victors and as such part of being an historian is questioning the bias of that.

of course it wasn't planned by Zara. However, you can;t help thinking that although they can;t have noticed before the bag went in to production, someone must have noticed before it went in to store, and actually allowing it to go in to stores was a little, lets say cynical.