A small street in a small town in southern Ontario is making big news. It’s all because of the street name.
Loosely translated from Sanskrit, swastika means “to make good, or to be good” and is an important good luck religious symbol in both Hinduism and Jainism. It is often used in India and elsewhere to mark the opening pages of account books and around doors and thresholds as a symbol for good luck or peace.
It was also extremely popular in western society in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, up until the emergence of the Nazi party and their now much hated variation known as the ‘hakenkreuz”.
The street in the town of Puslinch Ontario, about 80 kilometres west of Toronto or about 30 kilometres northeast of Hamilton, was an example of the popularity of the symbol when in was named about 100 years ago.
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Recently Jewish groups and others have been lobbying to have the name removed and the street renamed.
A secret ballot was recently about two months ago in which 20 residents of the street voted for a name change , but 25 voted to keep the name.
The situation came to the local city council where various people stated their reasons for and against a name change. These included the idea that swastika represented a truly hateful regime and can’t be reclaimed, along with the idea that the name was and is connected with an ancient religious symbol of peace and goodness and should not be eliminated because of the terrible Nazi variation.
At a meeting Wednesday night, the local town council voted 4 to 1 that they would not overrule the democratic vote taken by the residents of the privately owned street, and the name would remain.
Strangely you won’t find the street on Google maps which instead displays it as “Cedar Trail”.
Meanwhile, in northern Ontario, about halfway between Sudbury and Timmins, lies the small town of Swastika, with a street named Swastika Avenue. No changes seem to planned there.
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