Swastikas, Roman Gear, modern reenactment (cont from market)

[Salvianus]

I could never wear one myself, for personal reasons: I too detest its usage by the far right (as well as analogues, as already covered) to deliberately hark back to the racist power politics of the National Socialists. I'm rather fond of the shot in Indiana Jones where the symbols burns in contact with a Judao-Christian holy relic, although obviously they have an appropriate Hindu religious context unaffected by our concerns as re-enactors.

I detest seeing them in re-enactment, as I consider it wholly contaminated in the eyes of the public and all of us are tarred with the same brush.

However, a colleague of mine wears an excellent reconstruction of a Piazza Amerina mosaic tunic which happens to have swastikas on it. I'm not American & we don't have a constitution to invoke, but it's authentic, I'm not the boss of him & it stays.

I've told him straight what I think of it & he's told me straight why he wears it. He's a nice bloke and that makes all the difference to me. If he was a fascist, I would quit the group rather than stand by and let him play sick games with my hobby. If he was a dick about it, I would be a dick about it, he'd keep it & we'd just spend more of our lives arguing. As it is, I am stuck with occasionally trying to convince people neither of us are neo-nazis. He has to occasionally explain that just because we re-enact an ostensibly Christian army, not all of us are.

It's called live & let live. I just don't want anyone to wear a swastika lightly. It carries freight.

Oh, he wears phalli too, do I see a pattern emerging?