Headlines

• The V with inverted palm Churchill with open palm announces victory; the same hand rotated 180° insults a London pub. A flick of the wrist separates two worlds.

  Hand gestures
  Complete Taboo
• The moutza (le geste paume-ouverte grec) Open hand thrust towards face, fingers spread: supreme excremental insult in Greece, Turkey, the Balkans. Peaceful gesture of arrest in the West - dangerous 180-degree bivalence.

  Hand gestures
  Complete Taboo
• The Roman/Fascist salute Outlawed in Germany, Austria and Italy; toxic wherever anti-fascism lives.

  Hand gestures
  Complete Taboo
• Bras d'honneur (Italian salute, umbrella gesture) Arm bent, left hand hitting biceps - a major insult equivalent to the middle finger, ubiquitous in France, Italy and Latin America.

  Hand gestures
  Complete Taboo
• Quenelle (Dieudonné gesture) Arm stretched down at an angle, hand palm-down - gesture popularized by Dieudonné, codified as an anti-Semitic insult in France since ~2013.

  Hand gestures
  Complete Taboo
• Hitler salute (Hitlergruß, Deutschgruß) Arm extended horizontally, palm down - Nazi salute codified as a hate crime in several European countries, possible historical confusion with military salute.

  Hand gestures
  Complete Taboo
• The exposed sole Showing the sole of the foot: Western comfort, Asian insult.

  Hand gestures
  Complete Taboo
• OK hijacked (white power symbol) ⚠️ CRITICAL: Standard OK gesture (thumb-index circle) hijacked since 2017 by white supremacist extremists as covert hate symbol. Context determines if OK = innocent approval or hidden hate signal. Public photography extremely risky.

  Hand gestures
  Complete Taboo
• The swastika (Hindu/Buddhist vs Nazi auspice) An auspicious Hindu/Buddhist symbol for 5000 years. Nazi hijacked it 1920-1945. The West can now only see it in trauma.

  Symbols, numbers, colors, animals
  Complete Taboo
• Taking your shoes off at the mosque Entering a mosque wearing shoes: ritual pollution and a serious offense in the eyes of the Muslim community.

  Clothing, feet, shoes
  Complete Taboo
• The OK ring (thumb-index circle) Nixon in Brazil in 1950? A myth. But the American diver's small thumb-and-index circle can really insult a Brazilian driver just as fast.

  Hand gestures
  Complete Offense
• Thumbs up The 'like' button has almost erased a regional taboo. Almost. Offline, and outside the connected generation, the thumbs-up can still offend in Iraq, rural Greece or Iran.

  Hand gestures
  Complete Offense

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