Feeling cross

I am probably insufficiently sensitive to the matter, but I find it mildly annoying that the “Red Cross” is considered so controversial — as a symbol — in various parts of the world. Blah, blah, blah, cross, blah, blah, blah, symbol of Western hegemony, blah, blah, blah, insult to local religious traditions, etc. Even granted that noting it’s derived from the flag of Switzerland doesn’t help (since presumably the Swiss didn’t choose that symbol to denote their fondness for math), the oversensitivity to it strikes me as childish.

(Would I feel the same about it if it were all the Red Crescent? Hard to say. I admit I may be symbolically myopic here.)

This irk gets greater when I hear that the Israeli organization, Magen David Adom, was not having its symbol (a red Star of David) recognized by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) because (a) then eveyrone will want its own symbol, and (b) various Arab nations opposed it (despite having had the Red Crescent and Red Lion and Sun of Iran being recognized — way to go with the petty gestures for a charitible aid organization, guys!).

So that all said, minor applause to the ICRC for adopting last December a (hopefully) religion-neutral symbol as an allowed protection: the so-called Red Crystal, which can be used as a protected symbol for those countries and organizations who would rather not use something religion-associated.

Here’s more on Red Cross symbology, and on the Red Crystal. All of this was discovered by me through a BoingBoing article dinging the Canadian Red Cross for going after video games that use little red crosses for “healing” power-ups. Gimme a break, folks.