Today I learnt… this is not a hate symbol

Sharing this in case you were also unaware like I was, up until a few days ago.

Over the weekend, I was visiting my small local strip mall with my kids and saw this symbol on a parked car’s hood. At first, I was pretty thrown off, thinking immediately it’s a swastika. You could say I was pretty triggered by this as almost all of my grandfather’s family was murdered by the Nazi’s. Let me add I live in a very liberal (read not that woke) and generally very welcoming community in Canada. I’ve only ever seen one “stop the genocide” or FP poster in this area since Oct 7th, if that says something.

The car did not have any other symbols or decorations. The symbol looks like it was hand-painted, but also almost stretched off, like someone made that symbol with glue and then stuck something on top.

Canada has reasonably strict hate crime laws so I thought I’d call it into the non-emergency line. Within half an hour, an officer called me back to address my concerns. He said based on the name of the driver (license plate hidden in image) – he’s 99% sure this is Hindu swastik – meant to symbolise good luck and unfortunately misappropriated by Hitler (my memory of this in history lessons started to come back to me). The officer said he was glad I called it in as there have been reports of some nazi swastika’s posted recently.

Feeling a bit silly that I called it in, but also glad to have that peace of mind. Sharing to save anyone their time and headspace.