Bremen says symbol, used to call for silence in class, ‘in danger of being mistaken’ for Turkish extremist ‘wolf salute’

A city in northern Germany has become the first to issue an all-out ban on the use of a hand gesture used to encourage silence in the classroom because of its close resemblance to a far-right Turkish gesture.

The “silent fox” gesture – where the hand is posed to resemble an animal with upright ears (the little and forefinger) and a closed mouth (the middle fingers pressed against the thumb) – has long been seen as a useful teaching tool by educators in Germany and elsewhere. It signals to children that they should stop talking and listen to their teacher.

But authorities in the port city of Bremen say the symbol is “in danger of being mistaken” for the right-wing extremist “wolf salute”, from which it is indistinguishable.

  • Saik0@lemmy.saik0.comEnglish
    104·
    4 months ago

    I mean that was always the risk with banning speech. Lots of shit gets co-opted out of it’s original usage. Swastika being the prime example. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastika. Now those with other cultures that use the symbol in completely different ways gets shafted out of their culture/religion/whatever. Now it’s going to be metal heads… Which you don’t really want to fuck with. We’re generally a crazy bunch.

    Anyway this is just fuel for them to co-opt a bunch more shit and censor/ruin cultures that they don’t like. It’s just like the “okay” hand gesture… Next will be “thumbs up” for some insane reasoning/logic.

    • otp@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      9·
      4 months ago

      other cultures that use the symbol in completely different ways gets shafted out of their culture/religion/whatever. Now it’s going to be metal heads…

      Based on the description, the gesture described has nothing to do with metal heads…

      • Saik0@lemmy.saik0.comEnglish
        62·
        4 months ago

        Based on the description, the gesture described has nothing to do with metal heads…

        Well… one usage of it for sure does. BabyMetal has co-opted it into their shtick some decade ago. They retroactively added it to the band as they do put some of the Japanese lore into their stuff… With the kitsune (fox god) being the reference for the hand gesture itself. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sign_of_the_horns Just scroll down and you’ll see an image referencing “Yuimetal”, who’s from the original Babymetal lineup (original image https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Babymetal_at_2015_GQ_Men_of_the_Year_ceremony.jpg).

        Forget that it has other meaning elsewhere, this is just the one that I recognize immediately.

        Other’s that I’ve seen brought up…

        It does however resemble the “too sweet” sign used in wrestling by backstage friends in WWF known collectively as “the kliq”, later used by some of those friends in WCW’s NWO and in Japan’s NJPW by a group called Bullet Club.

        It’s the “silent fox” in germany. Used by the teacher in the Kindergarten when the kids are to loud.

        Taking the hand gesture away has everything to do with EVERY culture that uses it.

        • otp@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          51·
          4 months ago

          Then I think “Babymetal fans” would’ve been a better descriptor than “metal heads”, lol

          • Saik0@lemmy.saik0.comEnglish
            65·
            4 months ago

            Babymetal is metal… Don’t be one of those gatekeeper pricks that makes claims that certain bands aren’t metal. Hell they’ve toured with Judas Priest. Are you also going to say Rob Halford isn’t metal?

            • otp@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
              41·
              4 months ago

              Lmao… Are you being facetious?

              You said that banning the gesture would upset metal heads. But the gesture is not something that’s relevant to all metal heads as a group.

              My first guess was that, based on the description, someone mixed up the fox gesture with the “horns” gesture (that is commonly associated with heavy metal).