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.

  • 30p87@feddit.de
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    4 months ago

    The beautiful thing about german bans/restrictions is intent, meaning symbols, gestures etc. are OK or not OK depending on the context and how you meant it, so eg. this sign out of context or in context of something political will be seen as offensive and illegal, a teacher doing that in a classroom is of course ok. That means that most symbols/gestures can’t just be claimed by Nazis, so that actual humans can’t use them anymore without fear of being seen as a Nazi. Bremen apparently … didn’t understand that.