Continued use of the swastika in his military and a stubborn refusal to acknowledge how many Soviets the Finns starved to death in Leningrad while working with the Third Reich, presumably.
Playing the “but they have Nazi supporters in their military” game can be played all day. It’s silly. Every military probably does. It turns out assholes love killing people and Nazis. They’ll probably join the military to get permission to kill people.
I think the comment was about the Finnish Air Force not dropping a literal swastika from their coat of arms until just a few years back. Like you know, the official government sanctioned Air Force, the whole thing and not just a single batallion
Ah, yeah. OK. That isn’t a nazi reference. Nazis chose the swastika because it’s present in many cultures. A key thing is there’s is rotated 45°. If you notice, the one the Finnish Air Force had is the tradition rotation. It’d been in use since 1918, before the Nazis started most of their shit. It had nothing to do with them, and was a prominent symbol in their culture. Calling it a Nazi symbol is a lie, and it’s probably on purpose to be misleading.
Edit: They didn’t say it was a nazi symbol, just a swastika. It was implied to be bad though, which implies it was a Nazi reference.
It is bad enough not to remove it for 70 years after the nazi genocide, but I guess Finns get a free pass on anything due to their extremely unique cultural heritage
It sucks that Nazis get to ruin cultures symbols who had no association with them. However, they prominently used eagles in their imagery, and somehow that isn’t ruined. Should every nation have to stop using eagles or be called Nazis? That’s stupid, right?
Also, they largely did stop using it after WWII, as the article mentions. It was still used it some emblems, flags, and decorations, but not as common. It’s still on the Finnish flag of the president, though it’s got different proportions and you’d look like a complete idiot for implying it’s a nazi symbol there.
The swastika is all over the world. It’s a very basic geometric symbol. It is no surprise it’s appealing. Go play Minecraft or something and make a symmetric design, and odds are you’ll make a swastika. I know playing Factorio I see it appear all the time. Nazis ruined a really cool perfectly innocent shape, and it’s honestly time we should try to recapture it.
Or, hear me out, we don’t recapture it because it has a fucked up context. It might not seem like a big deal for those who haven’t been close to the terror, but not everybody lives on the other side of the world.
And yeah, using nazi-adjacent eagles or fasces (like your government proudly displays in many symbols) is pretty fucked up too.
What about neo-classical architecture, which the Nazis loved? What about white marble sculptures? What about the colors red and black?
They used many symbols. Letting them be the owners of them gives them legitimacy. Why do we want people looking at old art, seeing a swastika, and then having the thought that the Nazis actually have a cultural association with that? They don’t. They appropriated cultures to give themselves legitimacy. Allowing this to continue furthers their goals. They don’t own the swastika, eagles, fasces, neo-classical architecture, appealing to Roman culture, or anything else. They stole it all, and continuing to let them own it is an issue.
You are free to reclaim the symbols, make an account Cethin88 (it’s a birth year!) with a marble statue profile pic, then complain about how it’s Nazis’ fault you’re being misunderstood.
And there is also quite a difference between taking a work from x hundreds of years ago that might incorporate some symbol (like Ancient Roman fasces or swastikas in Eastern Slavic pagan art), and being a modern state that refuses to drop the MAIN nazi symbol. And just so we are clear, the Finnish Air Force did eventually drop the symbol a few years back, I guess it must have been because of woke. Or maybe they actually realized it doesn’t look great what with the fascist revival in the entirety of Europe, but many people have had a problem with that for a long time before that already, especially since so many Finns are PROUD of their nazi collaboration history.
Continued use of the swastika in his military and a stubborn refusal to acknowledge how many Soviets the Finns starved to death in Leningrad while working with the Third Reich, presumably.
There are plenty of people with swastikas fighting for Russia too. For example Dmitry Valerievich Utkin (Дмитрий Валерьевич Уткин).
Playing the “but they have Nazi supporters in their military” game can be played all day. It’s silly. Every military probably does. It turns out assholes love killing people and Nazis. They’ll probably join the military to get permission to kill people.
I think the comment was about the Finnish Air Force not dropping a literal swastika from their coat of arms until just a few years back. Like you know, the official government sanctioned Air Force, the whole thing and not just a single batallion
Ah, yeah. OK. That isn’t a nazi reference. Nazis chose the swastika because it’s present in many cultures. A key thing is there’s is rotated 45°. If you notice, the one the Finnish Air Force had is the tradition rotation. It’d been in use since 1918, before the Nazis started most of their shit. It had nothing to do with them, and was a prominent symbol in their culture. Calling it a Nazi symbol is a lie, and it’s probably on purpose to be misleading.
Edit: They didn’t say it was a nazi symbol, just a swastika. It was implied to be bad though, which implies it was a Nazi reference.
It is bad enough not to remove it for 70 years after the nazi genocide, but I guess Finns get a free pass on anything due to their extremely unique cultural heritage
It sucks that Nazis get to ruin cultures symbols who had no association with them. However, they prominently used eagles in their imagery, and somehow that isn’t ruined. Should every nation have to stop using eagles or be called Nazis? That’s stupid, right?
Also, they largely did stop using it after WWII, as the article mentions. It was still used it some emblems, flags, and decorations, but not as common. It’s still on the Finnish flag of the president, though it’s got different proportions and you’d look like a complete idiot for implying it’s a nazi symbol there.
The swastika is all over the world. It’s a very basic geometric symbol. It is no surprise it’s appealing. Go play Minecraft or something and make a symmetric design, and odds are you’ll make a swastika. I know playing Factorio I see it appear all the time. Nazis ruined a really cool perfectly innocent shape, and it’s honestly time we should try to recapture it.
Or, hear me out, we don’t recapture it because it has a fucked up context. It might not seem like a big deal for those who haven’t been close to the terror, but not everybody lives on the other side of the world.
And yeah, using nazi-adjacent eagles or fasces (like your government proudly displays in many symbols) is pretty fucked up too.
What about neo-classical architecture, which the Nazis loved? What about white marble sculptures? What about the colors red and black?
They used many symbols. Letting them be the owners of them gives them legitimacy. Why do we want people looking at old art, seeing a swastika, and then having the thought that the Nazis actually have a cultural association with that? They don’t. They appropriated cultures to give themselves legitimacy. Allowing this to continue furthers their goals. They don’t own the swastika, eagles, fasces, neo-classical architecture, appealing to Roman culture, or anything else. They stole it all, and continuing to let them own it is an issue.
You are free to reclaim the symbols, make an account Cethin88 (it’s a birth year!) with a marble statue profile pic, then complain about how it’s Nazis’ fault you’re being misunderstood.
And there is also quite a difference between taking a work from x hundreds of years ago that might incorporate some symbol (like Ancient Roman fasces or swastikas in Eastern Slavic pagan art), and being a modern state that refuses to drop the MAIN nazi symbol. And just so we are clear, the Finnish Air Force did eventually drop the symbol a few years back, I guess it must have been because of woke. Or maybe they actually realized it doesn’t look great what with the fascist revival in the entirety of Europe, but many people have had a problem with that for a long time before that already, especially since so many Finns are PROUD of their nazi collaboration history.