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.
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.