Tbf the fact that it failed kinda proves his point, and the fact that the ok symbol is “now a nazi dogwhistle” (or, like, that whole “swastika” thing) disproves your second point.
Can’t tell if you’re saying the hindus/other cultures had used the swastika for years and so that’s why the nazis were able to steal it (which would seem to be applicable to the pride flag as well, also an established symbol,) or that the nazis were able to adopt the OK symbol because it wasn’t well established as a symbol for one group, but rather a general signal for “Ok” since like wwii.
In any case, I doubt it, if that were the reason why wouldn’t they have been successful in taking the swastika but not the pride flag, both established symbols? Much more likely that it didn’t work “because we didn’t let it” which kinda seems to be his entire point imo.
Early Western travellers to Asia were inspired by its positive and ancient associations and started using it back home. By the beginning of the 20th Century there was a huge fad for the swastika as a benign good luck symbol.
“Coca-Cola used it. Carlsberg used it on their beer bottles. The Boy Scouts adopted it and the Girls’ Club of America called their magazine Swastika. They would even send out swastika badges to their young readers as a prize for selling copies of the magazine,”
It was used by American military units during World War One and it could be seen on RAF planes as late as 1939. Most of these benign uses came to a halt in the 1930s as the Nazis rose to power in Germany.
The irony is that the swastika is more European in origin than most people realise. Archaeological finds have long demonstrated that the swastika is a very old symbol, but ancient examples are by no means limited to India. It was used by the Ancient Greeks, Celts, and Anglo-Saxons and some of the oldest examples have been found in Eastern Europe, from the Baltic to the Balkans .
Single swastikas began to appear in the Neolithic Vinca culture across south-eastern Europe around 7,000 years ago. But it’s in the Bronze Age that they became more widespread across the whole of Europe. In the Museum’s collection there are clay pots with single swastikas encircling their upper half which date back to around 4,000 years ago. When the Nazis occupied Kiev in World War Two they were so convinced that these pots were evidence of their own Aryan ancestors that they took them back to Germany. (They were returned after the war.)
The Ancient Greeks also used single swastika motifs to decorate their pots and vases. One fragment in the collection from around 7th Century BCE shows a swastika with limbs like unfurling tendrils painted under the belly of a goat.
The swastika remained a popular embroidery motif in Eastern Europe and Russia right up to World War Two. A Russian author called Pavel Kutenkov has identified nearly 200 variations across the region.
Tbf the fact that it failed kinda proves his point, and the fact that the ok symbol is “now a nazi dogwhistle” (or, like, that whole “swastika” thing) disproves your second point.
There was already a large, active movement that had adopted the symbol. None such movement existed for the “OK” hand gesture.
Can’t tell if you’re saying the hindus/other cultures had used the swastika for years and so that’s why the nazis were able to steal it (which would seem to be applicable to the pride flag as well, also an established symbol,) or that the nazis were able to adopt the OK symbol because it wasn’t well established as a symbol for one group, but rather a general signal for “Ok” since like wwii.
In any case, I doubt it, if that were the reason why wouldn’t they have been successful in taking the swastika but not the pride flag, both established symbols? Much more likely that it didn’t work “because we didn’t let it” which kinda seems to be his entire point imo.
The swastika was not widely used in the western world.
https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-29644591