Saturday, September 10, 2005

Patently offensive

Symbols have power. And sometimes a symbol that is by itself not offensive can be made patently offensive if placed in the wrong context. And such is the case with the red crescent that is a major component of the Flight 93 Memorial in Pennsylvania.

This is the winning design, rotated approximately 155 degrees. Notice the clear red crescent. And this may be a coincidence (given most North American Muslims pray to the NE), but Mecca is approximately in the "North" position here. In otherwords, the crescent would be correctly aligned if you were looking towards Mecca with the memorial between you and Mecca. It is easier to notice with the memorial in proper North-South alignment.

It doesn't matter if this (the alignment) was intentional or not, what does matter is that the red crescent is a very important symbol to the people that caused the deaths of those on Flight 93. To make that symbol the central aspect of a memorial to those killed is to spit on the ground they died on.

Zombie has contact information for the individuals who can still change this. If you feel this is innapropriate as I do, I encourage you to use that contact info to register your disapproval.

Update
Image credits to Zombie as well.

Update 2
Perhaps this will get a redesign. Best to keep an eye on it, anyway.

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