“If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs, it’s just possible you haven’t grasped the situation.” — Jean Kerr

English: Scanned image of the swastika logo from a book – a 1911 edition of (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
(Funny lady and a great playwright.! Kipling’s “If” is a little unreasonably demanding. He’s talking about an ideal that almost no one could live up to. But, who am I to argue with the Nobel laureate? The swastika, that you see here, is a left-facing swastika. The Nazi one is/was right-facing. Both, though, are a good luck symbol that goes all the way back to Sanskrit, and have been used by Buddhists, Hindus, Jains, Greeks and Celts, etc.. Kipling was born in India, was sent to England at age five, then went back home at age sixteen. Hitler started using the right-facing swastika in 1933, which was three years before Kipling died. There is no proof of Kipling being an anti-Semite, although he and many Brits of the time have been slurred by the accusation. He, like innumerable others, used it for its pure symbolism. Today, Western civilization stigmatizes its usage, but it is still a good luck symbol in Eastern civilizations. I was very careful to post only the left-facing one, folks. Zemanta wouldn’t give me any photos when I put in Jean Kerr. Lots on Miranda Kerr though. Be well and do good, friends.) — YUR
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