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.

  • enkers@sh.itjust.works
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    2 months ago

    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.

    • Annoyed_🦀 🏅@monyet.cc
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      2 months ago

      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.

      • SomeGuy69@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        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.

  • saltesc@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    So, they’re just gonna let some far-right idiots ruin a much deeper and longstanding culture?

    Well, done.

  • mat ♀@jlai.lu
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    2 months ago

    Imagine losing all symbols to far right because as soon as they start using it you do not fight…

  • deadbeef79000@lemmy.nz
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    2 months ago

    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”.