The Shield of Achilles: A short post on Celtic/Solar/Odin crosses

Sunday, December 09, 2007

A short post on Celtic/Solar/Odin crosses

If you are a regular reader of Little Green Footballs (like me), then you may have followed this controversy. If not, you may be a little lost, but bear with me.

Recently, LGF, an anti-Islamic terror blog (and one of the most popular web sites in America, if not the world), has had a running dispute with Gates of Vienna, Brussels Journal, and several other conservative sites over the issue of whether the "Vlaams Belang", a Belgian political party that is critical of Islamic immigration, should be considered a white supremacist group or not. This issue has come up recently because the recent electoral crisis in Belgium, which has still failed to form a governing coalition even after five months of negotiations following the last election.

I really disliked this dispute, because normally these web sites are all on the same side of 99% of the time. It's like watching two good friends fighting with one another, and I frankly don't want to choose between them. If there is any bright side here, it demonstrates that many people who are calling for a slowdown to Islamic immigration in Europe are not all racists, and vigorously do not want to be associated with supremacist groups in any way. I haven't taken any sides regarding the Vlaams Belang (yet), except that I believe one of their popular symbols, the Celtic cross, is being misrepresented. Part of the controversy revolves around the cross (also known as a "solar cross", "Odin's cross", "Caddo cross", and other names) and whether it is necessarily a symbol for white supremacism.

I would vote no, since one hangs in our local Church, the Catholic Church of St. Birgid, in Wiesbaden-Bierstadt, Germany. In fact, until this controversy, I didn't even really notice it until mass today. Since the congregation includes people of many different races, is heavily involved in missionary/charity work in Africa, and has treated myself and my own mixed-race family (my wife is Asian) with nothing but friendship and consideration, I can confidently state that it isn't a front for white supremacism. In fact, the Church itself has been a target of intolerance; just last month a group of unknown persons broke into the chapel and severely vandalized it, causing many thousands of euros worth of damage.

So why do they use this particular cross? It was probably more of a style issue than anything else. As described in the Wiesbaden tourism website:

The altar cross, an adaptation of the Irish High Cross, comprises two equally long crossbeams through the sun wheel. Christ is portrayed as the risen Christ on the cross, surrounded by the symbols of the Four Evangelists

In the end, it's better to focus on what people say and do, rather than that symbols they carry, since these can be misrepresented a dozen different ways, even by those who only mean well.