Peace sign
Peace signs and symbols express the desire and demand for peace and international understanding . They are particularly widespread in the peace movement as a signal of a pacifist or anti-militarist self- image, but are also often found in the broader context of the New Social Movements . In the course of the anti-racist American civil rights movement of African-Americans in the 1950s and 1960s, for example, the CND symbol from Great Britain was an expression of the non-violent character to achieve the goals of this movement.
CND symbol
Probably the most significant peace sign was in 1958 by British artist Gerald Holtom for the British Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament ( English : Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament , shortly CND) for the world's first Easter march from London to nuclear weapons research center at Aldermaston designed. According to Holtom, the symbol represents a combination of two characters from the winker alphabet , namely N for nuclear (German: "nuklear") and D for disarmament (German: "disarmament"). According to another - by Gerald Holtom himself - the origin of the sign, it depicts a stylized human being with arms helplessly spread downward in the face of a world that is rigid with arms. The surrounding circle symbolizes the entire earth.
For this Easter march, the symbol was painted on lollipop signs (in Great Britain traffic signs for school guides ). The color scheme was partly black on white, partly white on green. A clay image was also made, with a note that this was one of the few things that was left after a nuclear war. From there, the logo went around the world, including being distributed by employees of Martin Luther King's civil rights movement. The American media first got to know the symbol through anti-nuclear weapon activist and peace activist Albert Bigelow , who sailed with his crew to a US nuclear test zone in the Pacific on a ketch carrying a peace flag displaying the CND symbol. Later the symbol was used for the resistance against the Vietnam War and by the 68 movement . In the Unicode character set , the CND peace symbol can be found as U + 262E ☮ PEACE SYMBOL.
Dove of peace
The dove of peace goes back to the Flood story in the Old Testament : After the Flood, Noah releases a dove that returns to the ark with an olive branch in its beak - a sign for Noah that there is land.
The lithograph La Colombe ( French "The Dove") by Pablo Picasso was chosen as a symbol for the World Peace Congress in 1949 , which led to its widespread use as a symbol of peace.
Olive branch
In ancient Greece and Rome, a wreath made of olive branches was the highest honor given to the citizen who was highly deserved for the fatherland, as well as the highest prize at the Olympic Games. The olive branch was the symbol of peace, and the vanquished who asked for peace carried olive branches in their hands.
PACE flag
The PACE rainbow flag was created in Italy. It was designed by the Italian pacifist Aldo Capitini in 1961 for the Perugia-Assisi peace march. It shows the reverse gradient of a rainbow. The lettering PACE (Italian "Peace") was added later. In 2002 she became known through the campaign Pace da tutti i balconi ("Peace from all balconies"). The use of this flag did not spread abroad until the spring of 2003.
In addition to the pace rainbow flag, there are other rainbow flags, such as the gay pride flag , which was designed by Gilbert Baker in 1979 .
Paper crane
Since the death of the atomic bomb victim Sadako Sasaki (1943-1955), against its caused by the radiation struggling with the folds of origami cranes leukemia disease are also origami - cranes symbol of the peace movement and resistance to nuclear weapons. Sasaki followed a Japanese proverb according to which a wish will be granted to anyone who folds a thousand paper cranes.
Rainbow
The rainbow as a sign of reconciliation is also linked to Noah's Ark . At the end of the flood, God is said to have installed the rainbow as a sign of the Noachidian covenant , which from now on is to apply to all people as a sign of reconciliation with God. In this context, the “first covenant of God” with man is also spoken of. The covenant is renewed in the New Testament of the Bible and is said to be the sending of his Son Jesus Christ to earth.
Swords to plowshares
A sculpture has stood in front of the UN building in New York (USA) since 1959. From 1980 it became a symbol of state-independent disarmament initiatives in the GDR, which parts of the West German peace movement also took over.
Olympic fire
According to an idea by Carl Diem , the Olympic flame is carried through the world before the Olympic Games to symbolize the beginning of the Games. Although this “gesture of peace” by National Socialist Germany was devoid of meaning by the Second World War that it unleashed three years later, the tradition was retained for the Olympic Games, which took place for the first time in 1948, in the post-war period - until today. In addition, the fire of the torch relay is a reminder of the peace that prevailed during the ancient Olympic Games , as the Greeks were not allowed to engage in warfare at that time.
Victory sign
The hand gesture with the index and middle finger spread is usually interpreted as a victory sign ( Victory English "victory"). However, it is also seen by many people as a peace sign or symbol. If both fingers are on each other, this points to the peace greeting attributed to Jesus ("Peace be with you - do not be afraid.").
However, the outside of the hand must absolutely point towards the person carrying out the work. If the palm of the hand points towards the performer, or with the back of the hand away from the performer, it has a seriously insulting meaning in Great Britain, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, comparable to the finger .
White flag
The parliamentary flag is a white flag that identifies the parliamentary as such and obliges the combatants to maintain their inviolability guaranteed by international law. It is one of the symbols of the international martial law and is laid down in Article 32 of the Hague Land Warfare Regulations.
The inviolability of those wielding the white flag and the prohibition of abuse result in the frequently used function as a sign of surrender or renunciation of resistance. So hanging out white flags or even just white tablecloths or sheets or other rectangular white fabrics from the windows of the houses of a city often means the surrender to enemy troops without a fight.
Broken rifle
The symbol “broken rifle” or “hands break rifle” has been known since the first decade of the 20th century. Since the 1920s, this symbol has stood in different graphic versions for the worldwide movement of conscientious objectors in the sense of anti-authoritarian anti-militarism and pacifism. It has been used as a logo by War Resisters' International (WRI) and many WRI member organizations since 1921 , including (since 1974) by the oldest and largest political-pacifist organization in the German-speaking region, the German Peace Society - United War Resisters (DFG- VK).
See also
Web links
- ORF report on the 50th anniversary of the peace symbol
- "O | ^ - Peace is that simple ” - article on the contemporary history portal one day
literature
- Karlheinz Lipp , Reinhold Lütgemeier-David, Holger Nehring (eds.): Peace and Peace Movements in Germany 1892-1992 : a reader . Klartext , Essen, 2010, ISBN 978-3-8375-0382-1 (= Peace and War , Volume 16).
Individual evidence
- ^ Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament: The CND logo.
- ↑ Death and the Male Article by Christiane Peitz on the cultural history of the CND symbol and various legends around it (in Der Tagesspiegel online from March 30, 2003)
- ^ BR2-Das Kalenderblatt: Christiane Neukirch: First appearance of the peace symbol from April 4, 2017
- ↑ Mike Evans, Paul Kingsbury (eds.): Woodstock. Collection Rolf Heyne GmbH & Co. KG, Munich 2012.
- ↑ Art Collection :: ARTIFACT. Retrieved August 14, 2019 .
- ↑ Eric Patridge, Tom Dalzell, Terry Victor. (2008) The Concise New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English , Routledge, p. 683. ISBN 0-203-96211-7