Expressions drowned in themes

Joker's bright white mask and shrieking red smile, yellow vests worn by protesters in Europe, democratic congresswomen adorned in white to the State of the Union address in Washington, protesters in Hong Kong using black are all examples where colour is used to signal a message. Can be a threat or call for peaceful collaboration. Governments go to the extent of banning them for anarchy. But what is difficult is recognizing a symbol used intentionally to ignite riots. For example, France was Europe's first government in 2010, to prohibit the full Islamic veil in public spaces. France also had judicial battles in public spaces over religious icons, such as in 2016 when judges forced to remove a sculpture of the Virgin Mary from a public space. These are instances that question the secular vision France follow. But again, the word ‘secular’ has a different meaning in France from that of India.

When such icons are sacred for one community, some rioters go to the extent of misusing them to instigate chaos in society. Thus, the line between the symbols that evoke love and hate or fear and power is narrow. For instance, the master mind and tyrant behind the Nazis, Adolf Hitler, had one philosophy which rationalized the killing of all those victimized folks: the development of a perfect (Aryan) race. One of the Nazi-Germans' most iconic cultural icons is the Swastika carried on a badge on the Nazi uniform. Meanwhile, it essentially means goodness in Hinduism and is seen as a symbol of good fortune and wealth. Hence the symbol Swastika confuses between goodness and genocide, due to paradoxes occurred in history.

The term symbol derives from the Greek word symbolon, which means a form of marking bond, token, logo etc. In general, associates, attendees, hosts of a certain team or party or group may recognize one another with the aid of symbol pieces. Meanwhile, religious icons are used to express ideas dealing with mankind's connection to the divine or sacred (e.g., the cross in Christianity) as well as to his public and societal nature (e.g., the dharmachakra, or wheel of the law, in Buddhism). Religious icons are a way of uniting practitioners of a shared heritage of religion and of signalling to others the religious culture they represent. The value of visual language and the pictorial depiction of religious thoughts and concepts has been reiterated, broadened and intensified through the local cultures and faiths. In turn, the symbol is the mediator, identity, and true (or intelligible) image of the paragon of virtue in certain traditional and simplified ways.

Historically, when political propaganda were not enough to carve separate nations out of the existing ones, religious icons were intentionally used in their propaganda. By entangling religion with politics, a group of people would be felt belongingness to the religion they follow. Thus, a new nation based on a religion becomes a possibility, even though it is done out of vested-interests. Self-interests remain veiled due to the feeling of oneness brought in by symbols of religion.

A bunch of different wars happening at the same time but for the same reason, God. Religious influences are embedded in all aspects of human experience. The ultimate gesture they expect from others is respect. Respect for the faith and the icons they follow. Sometimes the respect grows into greed for superiority over other religions. India is no different. For political expediency and not out of any instinctive religious affection, leaders of any faith can politicize religious icons because there is gradual embedding of political discourse within culture and religion in some nations. This gained them traction and organizational strength as a religiously separate group. Hence, trying to distinguish real (non-extreme) religious actors from economic or political opportunists is often not simple. Majority of the world's religious practitioners peacefully co-exist. This is the reason why religious violence occurs in one locality while the practitioners of the same religion coexist in a multi-religious environment in some other place.

Once a symbol associated to a religion or culture is embedded in a follower’s mind, it starts to create symbolic and social boundaries. In reality, symbols empower and encourage religious philosophies to redefine what it means to be an integral member of a fundamental community. During multicultural riots, the religious icons relied on in building up conflict are the same in which a society makes view of the environment and its position within. Religions also struggle to distinguish who defines, forms and legitimizes the symbols or guidelines perceived by the members of a religious group. This is because all the major religions have more than a thousand years of history. And the religion-associated language and culture are subject to evolution. And so, it's hard to determine how diverse icons have been linked with religions.

As a part of inflicting pain in rival religions, key symbols like mosque, church or temple is selected to commit violent acts against them. Such iconoclasm include mass expulsion of icons connected to a particular group. While populist leaders (of religion) are effective agents to fan ethnic conflict, they will focus on icons that are already ingrained in the consciousness of a group to encourage desired negative responses. It is mostly through the integration of historically rooted religious symbols that the motives of rioters are legitimized.

Though the Indian constitution has the clause that no discrimination should be made on the basis of colour, ironically riots can be enthralled and spirit of vengeance can be injected into people’s mind through the hoisting of a particular colour flag or wearing bands of a specific colour or walking with some pattern of clothes on or even shouting a slogan to keep people reminded of their blind vision to thrash the other community. On the other side the same kind of unity born out of hashtags and symbols unite people, but for a good reason, to protest against inequality and corruption. So the psychology of uniting people using icons and symbols can also bring fruitful results, if not misused.

NB : I would like to post a link that came up recently on how some symbols can keep on sending hostile messages to a group of people even after decades and how supporters of those symbols take disagreeable pride on it.

https://youtu.be/J5b_-TZwQ0I