Can you accidentally do a Nazi salute?

[Magda Hassan]

Who, What, Why: Can you accidentally do a Nazi salute?

A 20-year-old Greek footballer has been banned for life from playing for his national team after a controversial goal celebration in which he appeared to give a Nazi salute. The player says he hadn't understood the meaning of the gesture - but is it possible, in 2013, for a European to be so poorly informed?
On Saturday, Giorgos Katidis gestured with his right arm extended and hand straightened, to celebrate scoring the winning goal for his team AEK Athens in a Super League game at the Olympic Stadium in Athens.
After the match, the former captain of the Greek under-19 team turned to Twitter to explain his actions.
"I am not a fascist and I would not have done it if I had known what it means," he wrote.
His team's German coach also said his player was ignorant of what the salute signified.
"He is a young kid who does not have any political ideas. He most likely saw such a salute on the internet or somewhere else and did it, without knowing what it means," he said.
Italian player Paolo di Canio received a one-match ban in 2005
"I am 100% sure that Giorgos did not know what he did."
Nevertheless, the country's football federation said the midfielder's gesture insulted all victims of the Nazis and banned him from playing for the Greek national team for life.
He was heavily criticised by political parties on Twitter and Facebook and later issued a statement apologising. Katidis reiterated that he did not know what he was doing, but said that was no excuse.
But is it really possible for young people in Europe today not to know the meaning of such gestures?
In Greece, the leader of the Golden Dawn far-right nationalist party has been shown making Nazi salutes at party rallies.
Last year it won a number of seats in parliament, on a wave of public anger against austerity and immigration, and disillusionment with mainstream politicians.
Members who use the arm-outstretched, flat palm, gesture, argue they are employing the "Roman salute".
"There is a lot of work being done among Golden Dawn to recruit among the hooligan sections of the football clubs," says Athens-based journalist Christos Michaelides.

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"There are those young people who are just fascinated by the party and its symbolism - the black clothes, the hair, tattooing themselves.
"They see Golden Dawn as a friendly party, which says that it can clean up Greek politics. They also like it because it is against foreigners."
But some of those who are drawn to the party's symbolism have no idea what it all means - even the salute, says Michaelides.
He says that while World War II is studied by school children, some just don't seem to take it in.
But Matthew Goodwin, associate professor of politics at the University of Nottingham, and a specialist in political extremism, thinks that it is inconceivable that young Europeans could be entirely ignorant of the associations of neo-Nazi symbolism.
Golden Dawn supporters take to the streets of Athens
Many parties on the fringes of European politics employ elements of neo-Nazi symbolism, he says, although they present it as something else to stay on the right side of the law.
In particular, those groups have managed to infiltrate sport in countries such as Germany, Austria, Italy and the UK.

"Europe still displays a fascination with Nazi Germany - its paraphernalia and culture is still very heavily present"

Matthew Goodwin Professor of politics, University of Nottingham

"Football culture is symbolically rich and neo-Nazi-type gestures and symbols have become immersed in certain of those cultures... It's obvious what they represent."
In 2005, the then Lazio striker Paolo Di Canio received a one-game ban for a raised-arm salute.
Contesting the ban, he described himself as a "fascist" but "not a racist".
"I made the Roman salute because it's a salute from a comrade to his comrades and was meant for my people," he said.
But Di Canio is a generation older than Katidis.
Goodwin acknowledges that a generation is emerging that has grown up with little personal connection with the war or the Holocaust. Their grandparents will have been children in the 1930s, if they were alive at all. But, he argues, they do retain a basic understanding of the meaning of Sieg Heil gestures.
"Europe still displays a fascination with Nazi Germany - its paraphernalia and culture is still very heavily present. There is the popular culture, the films - the symbolism is still represented," he says.
In Greece, in particular, it is "incredibly doubtful" that people don't have notion of what the symbolism or gestures mean, says Goodwin - partly because of all the fuss over Golden Dawn.
"It's not a marginal issue," he says.
"Naivete and ignorance is difficult to digest in modern Greece."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21829682

[Jan Klimkowski]

The upside is that in denying his salute was fascist, this tool establishes that the newest generation of neo-Nazis, this bastard Hitler Youth, are liars and cowards.

Just like the original Hitler-Jugend......

[Jim Hackett II]

Are no educational systems teaching the past???
Fascism and Communism were both taught and denigrated in school. (public)
WT hell?
Moderation from both extremes was the theme.
Totalitarianism was vile
of either end of the political spectrum.

Liberty and Free Speech and such were the safe guards of our freedom
(and huge DOD house) for the big stick. 1950s...

Jim

[Magda Hassan]

Labour MP David Miliband has resigned from the board of Sunderland FC because of new manager Paolo Di Canio's "past political statements".
Mr Di Canio has previously claimed to be "a fascist, not a racist".
The former UK foreign secretary was serving as the club's vice-chairman and as a non-executive director.
Mr Miliband wished the club "all success in the future. It is a great institution that does a huge amount for the North East".
Mr Di Canio was pictured in 2005 making a raised-arm salute to a group of supporters of Italian club Lazio, where he was playing.
He was given a one-match ban and fined £7,000 for the incident, and was also banned for a match following a similar incident earlier in 2005.
In 2011, when Mr Di Canio was appointed as Swindon Town's manager, the GMB union withdrew its sponsorship of the club, citing his political views.
Mr Di Canio scored 48 goals in 118 appearances for West Ham after joining the London club for £1.7m from Sheffield Wednesday in 1999. He began his career at Lazio, and also played for Juventus, Napoli, AC Milan, Celtic and Charlton before later returning to Lazio.
Playing for Sheffield Wednesday in 1998, he pushed referee Paul Alcock to the ground after being sent off and was banned for 11 matches.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21991812

[Peter Lemkin]

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[Magda Hassan]

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:pointlaugh::rofl: :pointlaugh:

[Adele Edisen]

Hasn't anyone bothered to look up the dictionary definitions of Fascism and Communism?

And, while I'm at this: Capitalism, Monarchy, Socialism, Democracy, Totalitarianism

Pick out which are political systems and which are primarily economic systems.

Then, please memorize these definitions so you won't get confused in the future.

Adele

[Adele Edisen]

Refer ro Peter Lemkin's post #5.

Dr. Strangelove presumably had a conditional reflex or a neuromuscular tic.

Yes, such a movement is possible when putting that arm and hand in that position to acknowledge someone in front of you at a distance, as if to say, "Hi." It would be done only once, and not neccessarily repeated, or maintained.

There are some 700.000 different hand gestures that are possible, I've been told. I don't know how many arm positions are possible, but when waving one's arm aloft or pointing at an object overhead, it will be, if only for a microsecond or so, in that familiar Fascist salute position. A modern camera could register such a position.

It all depends upon the circumstances and the individual making such a gesture. A photograph may prove nothing sinister, or everything sinister..

Adele

[Magda Hassan]

I think in the case of Di Canio and Giorgos Katidis all of this was caught on video and in front of a football crowd and was seen for what it was and not an accidental gesture in motion. There is lots of hoopla and celebratory jumping and waving in football from all teams but all of the European countries playing know a fascist salute when they see one having been up close and personal to the real thing and its jackboot. Di Canio is an admitted fascist. I have no idea why Sunderland FC would consider employing him in the first place.

[David Guyatt]

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:pointlaugh::rofl: :pointlaugh:

Peter Seller's was brilliant in the film. A real classic. :pointlaugh: