The Unbearable Ease of Depoliticization

 In times when capitalism is so prevalent in western societies, it comes as no surprise that everyone is trying to make money by any means necessary. Corporations in desperate need for constant profit seek new trends they can set, and, eventually, cash in on. Soon enough, they start running out of their own ideas, so they naturally resort to “borrowing” ideas from others, particularly from other cultures and societies. They do it by taking the most interesting and “exotic” aspects of foreign cultures, and making them more palatable for western consumers. The PR teams have no problem with leaving out the historical context, or even changing the narrative to better fit the public demand. This was something that could not be overlooked by Sonja Lebos, who, in her article The Unbearable Ease of Depoliticization, talks about the exploitation of Yugoslavian anti-fascist socialist monuments. She mentions how numerous western corporations change the meaning of these artworks, simply by taking them out of their historic context, thus devaluating them, then marketing them to fit the needs of the product they are selling. She gives numerous examples throughout her text; one such example is Valley Eyewear using the Jasenovac flower as a backdrop for their product, completely ignoring the symbolism the monument carries. There is even a mention of an online company which directly profits from these monuments, by dubbing them yunicorns and talking about them as mysterious creatures from the fantastical land of Yugoslavia, then selling merchandise off of it. Sonja is correct when she noticed how this is not frowned upon, simply because it has to do with socialism, which is not part of western values, thus the monuments made in a socialist context are not only “forgotten” or “mysterious”, they are even deemed “ugly”. But it is not the corporate world that is allowing this, it is the ones who are supposed to be experts and are educated enough to understand art and the meaning behind it. Sonja talks about Jan Kempenaers’ book Spomenik, which has a series of photos of these monuments, but it fails to mention the political importance they carry. On the contrary, the monuments are simply viewed as “strange”, “futuristic”, “postmodernist”, and even “eerie”. Some authors even use the term spomeniks instead of monuments, as if they are a special category on their own. As a result, Sonja concluded, all this leads to the orientalising of socialism, eventually making it entertainment, a circus performance, making it strange and foreign. By devaluing the significance of these artworks, it becomes easier for the nations to forget their history, to let all the sacrifice made by the people who fought for freedom fall into oblivion. But this is what corporations want, right?