That's right! Above the friendly little deer(?) is a bright green swastika which happened to appear on each corner of the bag. Here's a little clip of the actual news story from the daily mail:A Zara spokesman said today: "We did not realise Swastikas appeared on some of these bags, the swastika was not on the bag which was sourced by us after being supplied by an external producer. "Of course we apologise to anyone who was offended by the bag, and we will be withdrawing it from all our stores."
The Spanish firm has 1,026 stores in 68 countries across the world and is considered to be one of the largest fashion retailers in Europe.
The swastikas were discovered when a 19 year-old girl bought the bag (without looking at it?) and then returned to Zara the same day asking for a refund.
So this is all well and good, Zara apologized for the oversight, but some recent debates online have caught my attention. People are saying that this bag offers a chance for the swastika to be "rejuvenated" back to its original meaning. From what I understand- it is a Native American symbol for peace and unity, along with a Buddhist, Hindu, or Indian lucky charm for goodness and well-being. As we know, Hitler decided to adapt this symbol for himself, rotate it, and use it to represent white-power, the aryan race, Nazi genocide, and the annihilation of 6 million Jews along with countless black, physically and mentally disabled, and gay people. Some people are even saying that it was ethnocentric to remove the bags from the shelves, because even though there are lots of Jews who were offended, there are also Hindus and Indians who may have liked the bag because it used a symbol that is holy to them.
What do you guys think? Can the power of a symbol as powerful as the swastika be revoked and just changed back to the original meaning? Should the bags have been removed off the shelves?
2 comments:
Wow. I'm surprised by this. I knew that the swastika was once used as a good luck symbol but with so much global trade I'm really surprised that this happened. It's a good decision by the company to take the bags out of stores. If this was a company in the US I'm sure someone would try to file a lawsuit against the company. The company has every right to sell the purse-but people are completely naieve to think that years of hatred and suffering can be reappropriated with one cute handbag. It was not ethnocentric to remove the bags from the shelves it was out of respect for people who were rightly offended by the symbol that carries so much historical weight. It would take years to reappropriate this symbol to mean something positive, and with such a stigma I don't know who would want to try.
Although the swastika might have a peaceful and holy meaning with Native Americans or Buddists, I still think that the bag shouldn't have even gone into production and should be pulled from the shelves because of it's worldwide association with hate. Most people recognize the swatika as the nazi symbol that carries the weight of pure evil and the murder of 6 million jews. Something as heavy as that will never be forgotten, so to put the symbol on a purse is incredibly disrespectful and irresponsible. It amazes me that the bag even got through production with anyone at the company realizing it was on there. Don't they have designers, producers, inspectors, etc. looking over the bag with each step of production? I just can't believe that no one noticed it and it accidently was designed into the bag. I think that there's more to the story, but now they're going to pretend like no one knew.
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