Jun 1, 2004

I See your Che...

by Liberty and Power

...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.

More Comments:

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....