Reflections starting from the swastika

Abstract

The text examines the amendment introduced by Law 8,882/94 to art. 20 of Law 7,716/89, which punishes those who manufacture, commercialize, or disseminate symbols using the swastika for purposes of disseminating Nazism. It asks whether the legislator may prohibit the manufacture of a mere symbol, when the Constitution guarantees freedom of thought, and whether using a symbol constitutes the practice of racism. It makes a digression into the field of symbols, analyzing their nature, dream and psychiatric symbolism, the importance of the circle and the cross, and the ancestry of the swastika, which, far from being exclusively Nazi, is a millennial symbol spread across various cultures, meaning blessing and good luck. It concludes that the artificial and arbitrary use of the swastika by Nazism does not erase its original symbolic character.