What is the origin of the peace symbol of 1958?

The symbols, enclose in their mysterious and iconic forms, great stories and deep feelings to discover.They talk about human movements, exaltations, struggles and beliefs.Without doubt, one of the most Tradition is this classic circle with a kind of inverted blade inside.Just seeing it makes us think of the 60s and hippies, we remember John Lennon and his «Imagine».We associate it with old shirts that went to a hundred demonstrations, which ran in front of the occasional police trying to disperse those protests for nuclear weapons, for wars always incomprehensible, but always present.

Surely you even have this symbol on some object, or on a piece of clothes, but have you ever wondered about their origin? Today in Lifestyle we want to remember it, because surely there is some nuance in the story that you find interesting.

The symbol of nuclear disarmament

Symbols of peace .Just saying this word is most likely to immediately come to mind the classic dove of peace with an olive twig in its beak.This image had its representation after the two world wars , after those two devastating moments for humanity where this symbol, has its origin in the Old Testament, when Noe releases a white dove in order to find land after firm after the flood.After a while, the animal returns with a Olive branch, a sign that the disaster was over and that God was again at peace with humanity.

At the end of the 50s, when the world had already recovered more or less of those two disasters, human irrationality was rising again in the form of world superpowers with yearnings of power. Confrontations in which they were forced to develop destructive weapons with which to give an image of strength and supremacy.And what better than nuclear weapons.The world therefore needed a new symbol of peace , a graphic gesture with which to exclaim the conscience and the shout of millions of people who only asked for the balance and tranquility of a life away from nuclear bombs.

It was therefore requested , a symbol that represents disarmament.And who was in charge of designing it? A British artist: Gerald Holtom, former student of the Royal College of Arts, who in 1958 presented to the world a very simple drawing with which to identify the movement CND (Campaign forn Nuclear Disarmament). To create it, it was based on an idea I had in mind, it should be a very simple icon.Very elementary and at the same time illustrative.I use the initials N and D of "Nuclear Disarmament" based on the language of flags created by the military.In turn, the positions of these flags also represented a man about to be executed with raised hands, as if crying for mercy.In fact, Holtom, I think in that peasant who appears in the picture of the "May 3 Fusilations" of Goya in front of a battalion.

A symbol that went around the world

It may seem curious, but for many, this symbol was not new. John Dalton, for example, a 19th-century British chemist and physicist already used it to represent phosphorus.And even more, there is who associates a somewhat sinister reverse to the peace symbol of Gerald Holton. And how can it be? you may ask.Indeed, it was in Neron times when in his madness and persecution, I use a "something similar" symbol to attack Christianity: an inverted cross. Conspiracy images that deviate us a bit from that original image and from such noble purposes.

The Gerald Holton symbol soon became an icon.It is said that popularization in the United States was He owed the famous activist Albert Bigelow, who painted him on his ship to raise a harsh protest against nuclear weapons.There is also talk of Bayard Rustin , friend of Martin Luther King, who also used it to defend the civil rights of blacks.Flags, badges, painted on walls and subway stations, key rings, rings, pendants, badges on university campuses...his progress was unstoppable, rising like a shout proclaiming peace, a peace in that context of the Cold War and wars like Vietnam, which served as an icon for all those young people and not so young they called hippies.

A symbol that does not claim copyright and that we can all do ours to ask for something as universal as the right to live in peace. The right to coexist in harmony, union and tranquility.

If you liked this article, don't miss the story about the origin of the gay flag either.

Image: Donna Cleveland, Matteo Piotto, zmfg!