Robinson-Regis’ Swastika

Politicians appear to think that due to the perverted nature of our race-based electoral system that masquerades as democracy that they can pronounce on matters which they have no locus standing. Many politicians feel that the area of religion in particular is fair game to make comments that are based essentially in ignorance. One politician for example attempted to make a person recently victorious in the High Court equal to that of the Hindu Divinity of Mother Sita. Another political leader insulted Hindus by ending an address to a Hindu function with an Islamic injunction. This leader continues to defend this act of ignorance by attacking devoted Hindus. Hinduism and Hindus also continue to be exploited by a financial institution that appears to be launching a political party, under the guise of crime fighting.

It is however the onus of Hindus to correct those who wish to exploit religion for merely political ends. It is indeed unfortunate that many so filled with fear are willing to sacrifice the eternal principles of their religion to pander to a political agenda. In the recent abuse of Hinduism, Minister of Legal Affairs Camille Robinson-Regis during debate on the Police Reform Bill (Hansard 29th June 2004) attempted to link the political symbol of the Opposition with the National Socialist Party of Germany under Adolph Hitler, that party’s symbol and the debunked concept of an Aryan race. In that debate Minister Robinson-Regis only insulted Hinduism with her glaring ignorance of matters, which she was clearly uneducated to discuss. The question has to be asked why is it that Minister Robinson-Regis saw it appropriate to attack Hinduism in the process of heaping calumny on the Opposition.

Minister Robinson-Regis during this debate sought once again to repeat the debunked theory of the Aryan Race and by implication the Aryan Invasion Theory. There are now numerous serious academic works that have discredited the Myth of the Aryan Invasion. These academic works include: JF Jarrige and RH Meadow, “The Antecedents of Civilisation in the Indus Valley,”  (Scientific American, August 1980), J. Shaffer, “The Indo-Aryan Invasions: Cultural Myth and Archeological Reality” (from J Lukas (Ed), The people of South Asia, New York, 1984, p. 85) and “On the Decipherment of the Indus Script: A Preliminary Study of its connection with Brahmi,” Indian Journal of History of Science, 22(1):51-62 (1987). Yet despite this repudiation of the racist Aryan concept Minister Robinson-Regis finds it appropriate to quote the myth with authority and comfort. The Aryan Invasion Myth has often been discussed in this column however there were other aspects of disinformation on Hinduism that Minister Robinson-Regis gave to the national parliament. In the attempt to disparage the Opposition the Holy Hindu symbol of the Swastika was denigrated in the process. It seems as, after the Nazis appropriated the Swastika and put it to their evil use, they contaminated this symbol forever. They have had the Swastika hostage for more than 50 years.

The Swastika, most people believe, symbolises Nazism and evil. But the Swastika had a long life before Hitler and the Nazis. It has been for centuries a symbol of peace, laughter, joy and good luck. It is one of the oldest symbols of mankind. Its Nazi links are only a minor speck in its very long existence. It is a symbol that deserves a better treatment from history (The Swastika and the Nazis by Servando Gonz?lez). In plural societies such as Trinidad and Tobago where there is a significant Hindu population it is expected that at least those in authority making statements should be at least culturally sensitive. The Nazis and neo-Nazis have no registered copyrights on the use of the Swastika. They stole this symbol from mankind and use it for their evil purposes. Allowing the Nazis an exclusive privilege for using this symbol is equivalent to an act of moral cowardice. In Nazi theory, the Aryans were the German’s ancestors, and Hitler concluded that the Swastika, which had been “eternally anti-Semitic,’’ would be the perfect symbol for “the victory of the Aryan man.’’ (Gonz?lez).

Until the Nazis used this symbol, the Swastika was used by many cultures throughout the past 3,000 years to represent life, sun, power, strength, and good luck. This has nothing to do with the symbol of the Opposition – the rising sun — as Robinson-Regis dared to suggest. Hinduism also reveres the various ways in which the Swastika is depicted and the Swastika ranks second only to the OM. Today, the Swastika is known the world over not as a religious symbolism of the Hindus but as the Nazi emblem. Hitler’s use of the Swastika on the flag of National-socialist Germany has besmirched the Swastika. But the Swastika continues to hold a religious significance for the Hindus. Like OM, the origins of the Swastika are lost in the misty realms of the past and they can only be guessed by piecing together of the surviving clues. The word “swastika” comes from the Sanskrit svastika - “su” meaning “good,” “asti” meaning “to be,” and “ka” as a suffix. As per Sanskrit grammar the words Su and Asati when amalgamated into one word become Swasti (as in the case of Su and Aaatam becoming Swagatam meaning welcome).

If this derivation of the word Swastika were true, then the literal meaning of the term Swastika would be ‘let good-prevail’. There exist many types of signs which stand for the Swastika. Even the standard version has two forms – the one facing the right also called the symbol of the right-hand path, and the one facing the left called the symbol of the left-hand path. These two Swastikas are also considered to represent the male and female. There is also a Swastika, which is an amalgam of these two types. These have deep symbolic and religious meaning for the Hindu. One has to wonder aloud why is did Minister Robinson-Regis attempted to paint Hindus in Trinidad and Tobago today as Nazis. We note that David Koresh, Jim Jones, etc all used the Christian cross as their inspiration for terror and murder, yet Minister Robinson-Regis did not similarly attack the cross. Was this a veiled manner in again labeling the Hindu community as “hostile and recalcitrant”?