Blogs Liberty and Power I See your Che...
Jun 1, 2004 11:36 amI See your Che...
...and raise you a hammer and sickle. I can't find the pictures at
the moment, but the old Soviet symbol has been making a return in posters and
banners on my campus, presumably as some sort of class solidarity sign. I
hardly need to say what would happen if swastikas suddenly appeared on banners
as a symbol of national solidarity. The ignorance of students (and
faculty?) who think it's perfectly fine to use the hammer and sickle in a positive
light given the truth of 30 million innocents murdered in a fashion indistinguishable
from Hitler
goes beyond amazing into the incomprehensible. Have they never studied the Soviet
atrocities? Or have they, and they choose to ignore them in the name of
some greater (?) cause? I'm offering my comparative economic institutions
course next spring, and I will spend a little more time than usual on this issue. In
the past, I've preferred to talk about more narrowly economic concerns, though
certainly discussing the barbarism, so as to really focus on the failures of
socialism as an economic system. But given the ignorance I've seen on display,
it's time to shift the focus.
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Max Schwing - 6/1/2004
Since you are educating College Students, I thought they had better taste, but well, that's not surprising.
Here, in Germany, it is even worse, since we still have a lot of Socialist traits left and those have shown of in pictures of Che Guevara and the old DDR/Soviet symbolism. However, there is a new trend, the Jamaicanism, I call it and i hope this will outlast Guevaraism.
Although, I am still horrified to see the Hammer and Sickle symbolism in my classrooms. But I am also astounished by the answers of many students. They can quite clearly state the dangers and horrors of it and they say that they only wear it, because the state authority is trying to suppress it....
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