A recent story has thrust Hugh Sutherland School and Carstairs into the news. The story, which appeared on both Global News and in this paper, spoke about student posters at the school displaying Nazi propaganda.
Grade 11 social studies students created the posters as part of a unit on Second World War propaganda.
"The intention of the project was to examine the power of propaganda and was in no way meant to depict Nazism in a positive light,” said Chinook’s Edge School Division superintendent Kurt Sacher.
Nazi symbols such as the swastika have stood for hatred, bigotry, genocide, anti-Semitism and more ever since the war. For those of Jewish descent, the awful events perpetrated by Adolf Hitler in the name of the "Aryan master race” will never be forgotten.
The year 1945 may seem a long time ago but really we’re looking at a couple of generations. If you are in your 40s or 50s your grandparents were around then.
Nazis and Hitler are still brought up as the measuring stick for certain perceived evil events and evildoers: grammar nazi, Trump is the same as Hitler, and so on.
Although Trump is a long way from Hitler, he has brought white nationalism into a much broader spotlight. His remarks about Mexican immigrants being rapists and drug dealers and African countries being sh#tholes, as well as policies regarding immigration have many wondering how much more can he get away with.
If nothing else, Trump has people talking about what is racist and what is racism. Is the Confederate flag racist in and of itself? What about a statue of General Robert E. Lee?
Now that brings us back to the posters at Hugh Sutherland. My thoughts are that the lessons of the past, Hitler’s rise and fall, the genocide, all the awful stuff, should be studied and, hopefully, learned from. But I think it can all be done without designing and drawing posters or other media with swastikas on them and such.
Craig Lindsay is the reporter for the Mountain View Gazette.
