Store uses NAZI symbols - was unaware it would cause offense!

[Verto]

Originally posted by Comrade Tassadar
I hereby procliam the Apolyton Civilization Site to be a



NAZI FREE ZONE

What about this?

[Master Zen]

Originally posted by Ned
Still, Hong Kong as a British colony and someone in the company should've known better.

Ding, dong, HK is Chinese...

[Master Zen]

1) first of all, to all those who mindlessly claim communism is even remotely the same as nazism is a total bumbling fool. Whatever Stalinist or soviet perversion of "communism" was adopted does not mean communism had the same rascist and murderous tendencies of nazism. Read a little about communist ideology before spouting nonsense about things you've only learned about in the movies.

2) Regardless of how tactless displaying nazi paraphernalia is in a store, live and let live. Plain and simple. Trying to stop them from displaying that crap is no better than trying to stop anyone else from displaying whatever else offends you people. I hate colonialism and imperialism, I guess I should ban the Union Jack and the Star Spangled Banner from public display too. Silly stores like those shoot themselves in the foot by selling those items, no need to make a law to prohibit them. And ultimately for the idiots who happen to buy nazi crap, there's just one remedy I can think of: EDUCATION.

[Nubclear]

Originally posted by Verto



What about this?

[Verto]

Originally posted by Master Zen
1) first of all, to all those who mindlessly claim communism is even remotely the same as nazism is a total bumbling fool. Whatever Stalinist or soviet perversion of "communism" was adopted does not mean communism had the same rascist and murderous tendencies of nazism. Read a little about communist ideology before spouting nonsense about things you've only learned about in the movies.

Well, I never said anything like this, although I'm sure everyone has interpreted it that way. I said no one would react like they did here, if people had put up the flag of the Soviet Union, which committed just as great of atrocities as Nazi Germany.

[Odin]

Tass

[Master Zen]

Originally posted by Verto


Well, I never said anything like this, although I'm sure everyone has interpreted it that way. I said no one would react like they did here, if people had put up the flag of the Soviet Union, which committed just as great of atrocities as Nazi Germany.

And the slaughter of millions of native americans by the spanish? Does that mean we should be similarly outraged? The hammer and sickle like the swaztika represent two political and economic systems. Now read The Communist Manifesto or Lenin's Imperialism, then read Mein Kampf and tell me which one clamours for murder and discrimination.

[Verto]

Originally posted by Master Zen


And the slaughter of millions of native americans by the spanish? Does that mean we should be similarly outraged?

This goes back to my original statement: people become so outraged at the Swastika because it has come to represent evil, but are not equally outraged at other symbols, such as the Hammer and Sickle which represents the Soviet Union - not communism. At least, in my eyes

Oh well, each to their own...

[MrFun]

During the Holocaust, gays were often forced to wear the upside-down, pink triangle to distinguish them from other camp inmates.

Contemporary gay society has turned the pink triangle into an affirmative symbol for their own form of expression.

Just an example of an originally offensive symbol used to oppress and exterminate, was turned into something else.

[notyoueither]

I wonder how many victims of the camps would embrace the pink triangle. However, I get your point, Mr Fun, it is a case of the class of victims adopting the symbol of oppression as a sign of strength.

When the gypsies, or the menatally disabled, or the Slavs adopt the Nazi Swastika, I will fall silent on the issue. But not before then.

[Dr Strangelove]

While I can concede that in Hong Kong some merchant might not know what the swastika stands for, I still believe that it and other Nazi regalia ought to be suppressed. People who use these symbols know what they represent. They are an open call to the hatefilled and the paranoid. Their display is hurtful to many, and not just to Jews, and people who use these symbols know this and use them intentionally.

[St Leo]

Originally posted by notyoueither
Do you have a point here other than displaying what a blithering idiot you are?

My point is that the philosophic implication of the Nazi logos is as nearly as irrelevant in Hong Kong as it is on Alpha friggin' Centauri. Not everyone spends every waking hour learning the history of another continent and how we whiteys genocided each other.

Yes, the ambassadors were right to complain. However, the store's design experts have a perfectly valid excuse for making the mistake.

Originally posted by notyoueither
...the menatally disabled... adopt the Nazi Swastika

/me coughs

Originally posted by notyoueither
... the Slavs adopt the Nazi Swastika, I will fall silent on the issue. But not before then.

Could a Russian poster tell me what Zhirinovski (is he still around?) and those to the right of him use as symbols?

The thing about this is that Slavs or any other group is not a monolithic entity. We are all individuals with our own feelings and associations.

"Burn all your symbols! Male and female, tribal and global. Give up your Fatherlands and your Earth Mothers -- it's Childhood's End! Desecrate your ancestors, screw your cousins -- just do what you think is right because it's right."
- Greg Egan, Mitochondrial Eve

Yay for randomness.:P

[Darius871]

Originally posted by notyoueither
...the menatally disabled... adopt the Nazi Swastika

Originally posted by St Leo
* St Leo coughs

[David Floyd]

I can see how this might be offensive - but no more so than displaying Soviet symbols. To me, in fact, Soviet symbols would be much more offensive.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by St Leo
My point is that the philosophic implication of the Nazi logos is as nearly as irrelevant in Hong Kong as it is on Alpha friggin' Centauri. Not everyone spends every waking hour learning the history of another continent and how we whiteys genocided each other.

Yes, the ambassadors were right to complain. However, the store's design experts have a perfectly valid excuse for making the mistake.

I guess I responded as I did because I doubted that you had very many Neo-Khans running around your neighbourhood pillaging the local poultry and besieging the odd house.

The Nazis are not done. There are some who think it is a fine ideology to follow. Maybe in a hundred years, maybe...

I have nothing against people from Hong Kong who make a mistake and correct it, although I do note that it is bloody unlikely that anyone who went to school there before a few years ago would be ignorant of the issue. I have everything against people in the West who follow that ideology of hatred, and I have a bit of a problem with people who think it is wrong to call them down.

'They' may well have a right to express themselves by flaunting social customs. I am equally free to call them down and hold them to account for it.