Quoting "Mark E. Shoulson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > However, now that you mention it, it is true that the stylized S used in > the abbreviation for the SS was actually required in all fonts by the > Nazi government, so by that reasoning it, at least, has some standing > for being encoded (though I can't say I feel any great desire to see that).
Apparantly that S is the Futhark rune Sigel, encoded at U+16CB. Some who use runes symbolicly avoid it for similar reasons as Native American tribes who dropped much of the use of the swastika (or at least those variants that look similar). >> I'm embarrassed to admit it, but I find myself thinking that the >> swastika, THE Nazi swastika, right-facing, tilted 45°, proper ratio >> of stroke-thickness, the whole deal, should be encoded in Unicode. >> As a matter of history: it *is* a symbol of profound significance in >> the history of the world. If we have U+262D HAMMER AND SICKLE and >> U+262E PEACE SYMBOL and all the various crosses and crescents and >> whatnot, the swastika should be there as well. Considering the guidelines for encoding characters it would seem that we would have to ask first; is the 45° swastika an emblem of a particular political organisation, or has it grown from that to have a wider semantic value? Alas it would appear that the latter is the case, and not in a purely historical context either. Of course if encoded it will be used by hate groups, but they already have dingbat fonts full of just about ever symbol the nazis ever used and plundering Nordic culture for any the nazis never got around to using. Anti-fascist groups could also just as easily use it in combination with U+20E0 COMBINING CIRCLE BACKSLASH I suppose. Anyway, I'm not sure what I think about this, but I see your point. On the general question of banning swastikas altogether, apart from the discrimination this commits against those cultures that use these symbols it strikes me as a matter of squeamishness more than respect for those who perished in the holocaust, and that squeamishness is more likely to diminish the attrocities in our memories than any number of so-called "revisionists" claiming the Shoah never happened.
