If an image is known to represent a hate-driven ideology, then we should not allow it to flourish.
(1939), and countless books and songs about the old South.
That South Carolina has moved on is definitely evidenced by the fact that the state’s governor Nikki Haley (originally Nimrata Randhawa) is female and of Punjabi descent.
But somehow, many traditionalists are hanging on to this one symbol they’ve been taught to love.
A cousin who lives there says: “Many of my friends and colleagues have been participating in rallies outside the statehouse to take it down. But the Ku Klux Klan is protesting.”
Well, I do think the racist KKK should have been clamped down on decades ago for a start. And that is further proof of a sort of myopia practiced by apologists.
I do understand that the same symbol can mean something hateful to one group and honourable to another, but surely the respectful thing to do in this case is to consign that flag to the history books and the museums.
Yes, perhaps we take symbols too seriously. Certainly the Jolly Roger no longer conjures up fearsome pirates and it was rather amusing when CNN mixed up a gay pride flag with an IS one.
But I do think they still have their place in society and must be treated with a degree of caution and sensitivity. After all, you wouldn’t wear a vulgar T-shirt to your grandmother’s house, would you? A FEW weeks ago, The Star received a rather unusual complaint. A reader was doing her daily exercise when she came across a household flying a number of flags – historical German flags to be specific.
Now, there’s nothing amiss about flying flags from Imperial Germany or the Weimar era, but the sight of a Nazi-era flag flapping in the winds of the Klang Valley was too much for our reader.
The owner was contacted and the offending item swiftly removed.
Now, perhaps some of us can look at the Nazi swastika as merely a historical curiosity, but in general it is viewed as representative of a genocidal regime that should be condemned not lauded.
I certainly have never understood why a handful of Malaysian skinheads and bikers like to use an emblem of a group that considers Asians to be racially inferior.
In fact, there was an occasion when I was a teenage leftist zealot and declined to enter a vegetarian restaurant bearing that symbol, until it was properly explained to me that the swastika had Asian origins (dating back to the Indus Valley civilisation some 4,000 to 5,000 years ago) and was still used by certain religious organisations.
At the same time, I have wondered about the potential offensiveness of Communist symbols. While the Che Guevara T-shirt has long become part of popular culture, how do people feel about the use of the hammer and sickle or the red star? After all, Stalin and Mao were responsible for millions of deaths. assure you that most people there are pleasant and non-racist. But some have a blind spot when it comes to admitting the harsh reality of the slavery era and post-Civil War atrocities like lynchings and segregation.
Apologists of the Deep South’s slavery-owning era point to a quaint sense of honour and genteel ideals.
These impressions were bolstered by movies like The Birth of A Nation (1915), Gone With The Wind defunct racist regimes – Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and apartheid era South Africa.
Now, however, the heated discussion is over the Confederate flag, the symbol of slavery era Southern United States, which just happens to be South Carolina’s state flag.
Defenders of the flag insist that it is about a tradition beyond slavery, but honestly I find that position to be indefensible.
Having studied in Virginia, I can
In 21st century Malaysia, would it be considered acceptable to walk around wearing a Communist Party of Malaya cap, a Chin Peng T-shirt or the Jewish Star of David? I think not.
This debate about symbolism cropped up again in the aftermath of the mass shooting at Charleston, South Carolina, on June 19.
In a vile hate crime, a white supremacist shot dead nine African-Americans. He was wearing a jacket bearing the flags of two Star Online Martin Vengadesan wanted to get a hammer and sickle tattoo for many years, but chickened out when the time came.