c. 2000 Religion News Service
((Dale Hanson Bourke is publisher of RNS.)
UNDATED _ A symbol, by definition, packs a powerful punch in its simple lines. It can offer a shorthand warning or a quick definition. It can immediately tell you you’re in the right place. It can also evoke emotions so extreme that the mere sight of the symbol can bring a tear to the eye or a scream of primal anger.
Symbols get in trouble when their definition is not clear or they represent different things to different people. Symbols can also be tainted by those who understand their power and use it for evil.
Take the swastika, for example. For centuries it was a simple sign of good luck, an ancient smiley face of sorts. It became associated with all things good, including fertility, and was etched in public spaces and private homes. It probably evoked no more emotion than a smile.
Then along came Adolf Hitler who adopted the simple sign as a symbol of the Nazi movement. Now the swastika provokes such strong response that displaying it is illegal in some places, sure to provoke outrage from those who see it only as a sign of anti-Semitism and ethnic hatred.
That’s the problem with symbols. They can easily be co-opted by people with the basest motives. They can attract individuals to a common cause but they can also be used as weapons against those who are different.
To Christians, the cross is a holy sign of faith. But through the ages it has also been used against Jews and Muslims by individuals who believed less in the principles of the cross than the power of using it for evil. Because of that, in many countries a cross is seen as a sign of hatred, not love; of war, not peace.
During the Bosnian war, one of the many atrocities committed against Muslims was having the sign of the cross cut into their flesh. Even though the war was not really about religion, the cross was sometimes used by Serbians to show how they were different from their Bosnian neighbors.
When Christian aid workers arrived in Bosnia they soon learned that displaying a cross provoked fear and anger. The cross no longer represented the true principles of Christianity. In order to live out their faith, they had to do it without the outward symbol.
When a Jewish friend of mine commented that a cross seemed”anti-Jewish”to her, I was surprised to think a symbol so personal to me carried such a negative meaning because of her family’s experience. Even though she never asked me to, I stopped wearing a cross necklace when I was with her. It wasn’t that I was embarrassed about my faith, but it seemed to me the meaning behind the cross was better expressed by not wearing a symbol that brought her pain.
The current debate in South Carolina over flying the Confederate battle flag on the State House centers on the issue of symbolism. To many, the Confederate flag represents all that is good and noble about the South. It is a symbol of patriotism and honors those who died on the battlefields of the Civil War.
But the Confederate flag has also been used by some to represent racial bigotry. Displaying a Confederate flag to an African-American is a sign of hatred. That’s why the NAACP wants the symbol banned.
What some see as good and noble has been tainted by those who have used it against blacks. Trying to reclaim its original intent is a difficult, if not impossible task.
South Carolina and the other Southern states that still use the symbol of the Confederacy as an official emblem should consider not what the sign means to them or what its original intent was, but how its misuse has caused pain to others.
If the symbol truly represents all that is good and noble about the South, isn’t it time to consider such values more important than the symbol? Isn’t it possible that a symbol which no longer represents what it was designed for is not really symbolic at all?
DEA END BOURKE
