Peace symbol
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- "Peace sign" redirects here. For the hand gesture, see V sign.
Generic peace symbols
The dove and the olive branch
A white dove is generally a sign for peace. This comes from the biblical motif: a dove was released by Noah after the Great Flood in order to find land. The dove came back carrying an olive branch in its beak, telling Noah that the Great Flood had receded and there was land once again for Man. (Genesis 8:11). This symbolized that God was ending his "war" with mankind. The appearance of the rainbow (Genesis 9:12-17) at the end of the Flood story also represents peace, whereby God directs His "bow" toward Himself, an ancient symbol of a cessation of hostilities. The motif can also represent "hope for peace" and even a peace offering from one man to another, as in the phrase "extend an olive branch". Often, the dove is represented as still in flight to remind the viewer of its role as messenger.
In Christianity, the Dove is also a symbol of the Holy Spirit, as in KJV "And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him:"
The CND or Peace symbol
This symbol (☮) was adopted as its badge by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in Britain, and originally, its use was confined to supporters of that organisation. It was later generalised to become an icon of the 1960s anti-war movement, and was also adopted by the counterculture of the time. It was designed and completed February 21 1958 by Gerald Holtom, a commercial designer and artist in Britain. He had been commissioned by the CND to design a symbol for use at an Easter march to Canterbury Cathedral in protest against the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment at Aldermaston in England.
The symbol itself is a combination of the semaphoric signals for the letters "N" and "D," standing for Nuclear Disarmament. In semaphore the letter "N" is formed by a person holding two flags in an upside-down "V," and the letter "D" is formed by holding one flag pointed straight up and the other pointed straight down. These two signals imposed over each other form the shape of the peace symbol. In the original design the lines widened at the edge of the circle.
A conscientious objector who had worked on a farm in Norfolk during the Second World War, Holtom later wrote to Hugh Brock, editor of Peace News, explaining the genesis of his idea in greater depth: "I was in despair. Deep despair. I drew myself: the representative of an individual in despair, with hands palm outstretched outwards and downwards in the manner of Goya’s peasant before the firing squad. I formalised the drawing into a line and put a circle round it." He also mentioned that he had intended its obvious resemblance to the anarchy symbol.
The peace symbol flag first became known in the United States in 1958 when Albert Bigelow, a pacifist protester, sailed his small boat outfitted with the CND banner into the vicinity of a nuclear test. The peace symbol button was imported into the United States in 1960 by Philip Altbach, a freshman at the University of Chicago, who traveled to England to meet with British peace groups as a delegate from the Student Peace Union (SPU). Altbach purchased a bag of the "chickentrack" buttons while he was in England, and brought them back to Chicago, where he convinced SPU to reprint the button and adopt it as its symbol. Over the next four years, SPU reproduced and sold thousands of the buttons on college campuses.
In Unicode, the peace symbol is U+262E, and can thus be generated in HTML by typing ☮ or ☮. However, many browsers will not have a font that can display it.
Antagonism
The fact that the symbol resembles a bird's foot in a circle gave rise to alternative interpretations, ranging from plain mockery of "crow's foot" and "The Footprint of the American Chicken" (suggesting that peace activists were cowards) to a number of occult meanings.Conspiracy theorists believe that the symbol is one symbol among many that has a different meaning to the inscrutable elite than it has to the general public. Some believe it is an ancient symbol designating hatred toward Christians, from Emperor Nero, who crucified the Apostle Peter upside-down, hence it is a symbol of an inverted cross. The Nero's cross has also been recognized as a "mockery" of christianity, as it is thought to represent a broken, upside down cross, within a circle representing "Nero's vision". It is thought that Nero believed that the destruction of Christianity and all Christians would bring peace. It has even been rumored that the proliferation of the sign was on-part due to a Soviet conspiracy to encourage the sign which had a hidden anti-christian design (an objective part of the Soviet goals).
It has also been called a relative of the Nazi swastika – or the rune algiz inverted, said to mean "hidden danger". It resembles the rune calc.
An inverted peace symbol could also be seen as stylized image of the female pubic region.
The Peace Rainbow Flag
In recent years, especially in connection with the 2003 Invasion of Iraq, there has been a surge in popularity of the Peace flag, a series of seven rainbow colors with the word PACE (Peace in Italian) written in bold letters in its middle. The more recent usage originated in Italy. Though, in the United States of America, the rainbow flag is most often connected with gay pride. The usage of the rainbow can either be tracked back to pacific coexistence of different people, or to the rainbow that God showed Noah at the end of the flood, as a symbol of peace between god and mankind. The flag in its current shape appeared as early as September 24 1961, in an Italian peace march. It had previously featured a dove drawn by Pablo Picasso. [link]
The flag was flown from balconies in all Italian cities by citizens against the war. Its usage spread to other countries too, and the Italian Pace was substituted with the corresponding translation in the local languages.
According to Amnesty International, producer Franco Belsito had produced only about 1,000 flags for 18 years, and suddenly had to cope with a demand in the range of millions. [link]
Also See:Rainbow flag
Other peace symbols
The V-sign is a hand gesture often used as a peace symbol. In addition, some unique items have come to symbolize peace. For example, the Japanese Peace Bell was a gift from the UN Association of Japan to the United Nations, presented to them in 1954. The bell remains at UN headquarters and is struck yearly, in remembrance for peace.
External links
- [Peace symbols Part I] - peace signs and images (author: Arash Vahdati)
- [Peace symbols Part II] - peace signs and images (author: Karan Reshad)
- [What is the origin of the peace symbol?] (from The Straight Dope)
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