[Lazarus] Do we really need a PaintSwastika procedure?

[Juha Manninen]

On Fri, Jan 8, 2016 at 1:14 AM, Anthony Walter <sysrpl at gmail.com> wrote:
> I have five uncles, on both my mother's and father's
> side, who fought and died in WW2. When I've visited their graves in France
> and Hawaii everyone I met seemed to a good understanding of the war's cost
> in human life on both sides, and also the new connotations symbols like the
> Swastika had taken, for better or worse.

My relatives, including my would-be-uncle was killed by Russians, yet
I don't feel like I should advertise it in a programming mailing list.
Of course people in France and Hawaii know the symbol of the evil
Nazis because it has been repeated again and again in books,
TV-documentaries and Hollywood movies. It has been kind of
brain-washing. Even if the facts are correct, many other facts are
left out.
Think for example the victims of Stalin's genocide in eastern Europe.
They were called traitors and "enemies of Soviet Union" in the
propaganda. Their relatives had to live in shame. Nobody felt sympathy
for them. No Hollywood movies were made of their fate. Yet they were
good people just like your uncles.
To get more perspective, please read also other parts of the history,
not only the Nazi part.

I have seen similar attitude from English and US people before. Strong
feeling of being right, at the same time ignorance of many facts. I
can confess it irritates me.


> Even if you like the shape of the Nazi style Swastika, and have appreciation
> of its history in Finland, most everyone in the developed Western world now
> recognizes it as a symbol of Nazism, and by extension a symbol of
> prejudicial racism and hate.

Yes, because it has been repeated again and again. It must change! It
has been 3 - 4 generations already. It is time to see things in
historical perspective and stop punishing a graphical symbol.


@Mattias:
> The historic relativism in some mails are shocking and shows horrific lack of historic knowledge.
> There was nothing good about the Nazis and it was their ideology and
> symbolism that got them to power and still attracts people to their twisted beliefs.

Nobody here was pro-Nazi.
Your view of history is also strongly biased. You were taught that
your country-men did wrong. You learned your lesson, good.
However there are other horrible things done in the world but the
guilty parties did not got punished and didn't even feel guilty. It
means the world is very unjust. Nazis got what they deserved but most
other bad guys didn't.

Hence I stick with my plan and will put up a graph routine library
after consulting from Seppo.
It can contain any important symbol from human history without any
bias. It certainly must contain the Hammer-and-Sickle symbol, too,
although it has been for many eastern European people like the
swastika was for Jewish people. Any old religious symbol can be added
equally well.

Censoring graphs does not belong to the domain of an international
programming project!
We can show good example here by being completely neutral politically.
Besides it may be important for the future. When the project is pulled
into politics, it can escalate rapidly.

Political correctness is not desired if it means that a subset of bad
things can be criticised and everybody must agree with it, but other
bad things must be ignored.
No, this project must be politically NEUTRAL instead.

Juha