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.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
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.
The salute was recently the focus of a diplomatic and sporting row, when the Turkish national football player Merih Demiral used it to celebrate scoring a goal in Turkey’s round of 16 match against Austria at the Euros earlier this month.
While the symbol not banned in Germany as it is in neighbouring Austria and France, its use was condemned by interior minister Nancy Faeser, who said “to use the football championships as a platform for racism” was “completely unacceptable.”
Patricia Brandt, a spokesperson for Bremen’s education authority, said the topic of the silent fox gesture and whether to ban it had long been under discussion but the city felt it now had no choice.
The wolf salute is the symbol and identifying logo of the Grey Wolves, which is classified as a rightwing extremist group and has an estimated 20,000 members in Germany and many more outside the country.
The group, which has a long history of terrorism dating back to the 1970s, has been blamed for bomb attacks in Paris and Bangkok, and the attempt on the life of Pope John Paul II in 1981.
The original article contains 622 words, the summary contains 235 words. Saved 62%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Here the sign is similar, but without the raised “ears”, so all four fingers touching the thumb.
Though it’s far less “official” as such, it’s far more common to use the sign language “quiet” or “silent”.
Pssht!
Baby Metal fans in shambles.
What about the baby metal fox god?
How will they summon the fox devil?
Just use the silent unicorn
This is also just a cutesy hand sign for “fox” in Japan, with zero alt-right symbolism. Foxes are a significant part of the mythology there, and there are all sorts of tales about leaving food for fox spirits to bring good fortune. There’s even a prominent vTuber who’s regularly depicted making the sign.
I wish these alt-right fuckwads would stop trying to wreck shit for the rest of the world.
I feels like, the far right will not stop ruining thing to begin with, and with everything banned due to associated with far right movement, they will continue to evolve and adopt their gesture and symbol to further ruining everything just to trigger everyone else. That’s how they empowering themselves, and people took their bait, hook, line, and sinker.
It’s time to considering another way to tackle extremism than to ban symbol and hand sign.
It’s time to considering another way to tackle extremism than to ban symbol and hand sign.
There’s no other way and it’s important to ban extremism. The importance to not give room to Nazi like ideologies is bigger than people no longer doing fox hand gestures in public. Sucks but so it is with a lot of laws, a lot of people aren’t the problem it’s the few that are.
Also, so far we’ve been very successful banning these symbols. The US, not so much and look how well this works out.
If the issue of misuse appears more prominent in Asia, I’m sure they’ll act the same way and ban it.
There’s no other way
All you do is disenfranchise the same people those extremist fucks are looking to disenfranchise to begin with. So if you’re stating there’s no other way… Then you’re helping the extremists.
You don’t do this right away and not for everything the extremists touch. But There’s a good reason why swastika and Nazi salut are illegal. The silent fox gesture isn’t that new.
So far I’ve only read “we can’t forbid it”, so what? Make an offer then how to solve it. I’m all ear.
Certainly not letting them spread their propaganda is goal here. The extremist aren’t helped here by forbidden the hand sign because everyone who is no longer using it was using it in good intention before, knows why not to use it any longer. It’s that simple.
There’s a good reason why swastika and Nazi salut are illegal.
No there isn’t. You made the symbol illegal in Germany. What did that do? Did it kill of all the Nazis? It’s funny because I keep hearing about this push for neo-nazis out there. Making it illegal does nothing against the hateful groups and does everything to hurt the bystanding groups that are also affected. In this case a good chunk of history of many cultures.
So far I’ve only read “we can’t forbid it”
You can do whatever you want. It’s your country so to speak. Since I don’t live there right now I can’t vote (I did live in Germany for some time). But don’t claim to be so supportive of minority groups when you’re suppressing them under the name of “stopping nazi’s”… even though you’re not even stopping the neo-nazi groups either.
Certainly not letting them spread their propaganda is goal here.
See above points about the neo-nazi groups…
knows why not to use it any longer. It’s that simple.
At the expense of culture/religious beliefs. That’s the problem. You’re forcing society to remove these things at the expense of other minorities.
Make an offer then how to solve it. I’m all ear.
Write better laws that actually targets the act of spreading Nazi propaganda rather than some random symbol that have myriads of meanings outside of “nazi”.
You throw so much stuff into this. I don’t feel like writing an essay. Especially since you already brushed over the important parts and then bring up minorities. I literally don’t care about minorities when it’s about a swastika. Indian managed to add four dots or inverted it. And there are so tiny fractions of minorities of them here, that it doesn’t matter. The very same with the fox gesture. At very most you see it at a baby metal concert and that’s about it.
Look what is going on when you allow symbols.
https://reddit.com/comments/1e3hdou
The police isn’t even stopping them.
Yes we still have neo Nazis showing up, but exactly because of people like you. Who gave them room. Who allowed them to group up. Who didn’t deny them spreading their hate. I have very very little sympathy if the removal of those rights does touch a tiny minority. It’s not a tolerance paradox that you fabricate.
write better laws
What a joke of a reply. That’s exactly what they do, forbid ideology symbols. So people don’t watch TV or go on the streets and see these extremist group symbols and they themselves feel recognized and welcome. You’re out of your mind if you believe this has no effect. Stop protecting Nazis and other fascism by throwing unimportant culture into it. You do know what Nazis want? They screw your history and culture. If this little bit of, losing a hand gestures, is too much to show a big fuck you to those extremist, then you’re just a hidden supporter.
What other law, than making this perticular symbol illegal, is there to do? All the other things are already not allowed. You have yet to be precise. Because you don’t have a solution!
You throw so much stuff into this
I mean… I quoted your post and responded to each point I wanted to respond to. You don’t have to respond to literally everything I say.
You have yet to be precise. Because you don’t have a solution!
Because gasp I’m not a politician. It’s not my job to make laws.
See Doesn’t need to be a book’s worth of response. The rest isn’t worth addressing with you because you seem to consistently miss my point.
So, they’re just gonna let some far-right idiots ruin a much deeper and longstanding culture?
Well, done.
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.
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…
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.
Then I think “Babymetal fans” would’ve been a better descriptor than “metal heads”, lol
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?
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).
Yeah. I’m even salty that a beautiful rainbow is no longer just a happy childhood thing but has been turned into sex and gender shit.
Invent your own damn signs and leave these alone!
Terrible take. Rainbow =/= gay
Though odds are if you “liked” the rainbow after 3rd or 4th grade, you’re probably kinda gay.
I mean it’s not the first time they’ve done so.
Imagine losing all symbols to far right because as soon as they start using it you do not fight…
How do you fight it? Go around using it at every opportunity and have people think you’re a far right sympathiser? They’ll believe that before they believe you’re simply passionate about symbols.
In this particular case it could be to just keep it as its silence meaning. And more generally it could be associating it with more positive symbols like the lgbtq flag, or a socialist rose in France (this is a poor example because the fren socialist party always betray but it is the spirit). If each time they start to use a symbol we stop using it, they the only possibility left for the symbol is to be for the far right. But if you keep using it for the original meaning, it should be good. It happens with the triskell (beton symbol). It was used by a SS section from britain but now it is still used to represent Bretagne (like the gwen Ha-Du)
Metal fans are outraged.
I recommend replacing it with the silent middle finger.
“I told them it means
peace between worldstime to be quiet.” -Rick
Zot zot zot!
The sign means “Llama” in the sign language I’m currently learning… Guess we don’t talk about those far-right llamas.
Oh no the quiet coyote :(
