The Unbearable Ease of Depoliticization

 

Different cultures are everywhere around us, and we interpret these cultures in different ways. However, things are not always to be taken so lightly.

 Term depoliticization and to depoliticize mean to remove the political character of something or to take it out of the realm of politics, according to Merriam-Webster. This process is largely at hand in modern day media and marketing, whereby things which have a cultural value and political or historical significance are relegated to a merely aesthetic level which is expedient and lucrative but unethical and disregards essential meaning. All of this is a big part of how marketing functions in capitalist systems. 

Such is the case with the monuments of former socialist Yugoslavia, which represent the sacrifice and struggles of people who died in the war. These structures were exploited for commercial purposes, with their unusual aesthetics serving as a selling point for numerous products. There were several attempts to commercialize these monuments. First an Australian eyewear company called Valley Eyewear decided to use the Jasenovac monument on its product page, completely disregarding the monument`s context, historical and political significance. There is also a case where a web-store called Yunicorns used the story of these monuments and rebranded their significance and background as something belonging to an imaginary realm or a country which doesn`t exist anymore. Secret Mapping Experiment is a collective which found it convenient to project various patterns onto the monuments and by doing so revivify them and make them easier on the eye, completely hiding the truth and what it stands for, and ultimately appealing to the global consumers. 

A recurring motive which we can observe here is a general disregard for historical significance and its rebranding and reinvention as something peculiar and desirable for the foreign market. This rebranding is perfect for maximizing profit because the companies don’t have to come up with their own unique design but rather, they decontextualize preexisting structures and extract their profitable essence. Key is to adapt certain country’s culture into a desirable product for the global market.  It is a legitimate profit-making formula. Furthermore; it is extremely easy to replicate because everything can be taken out of context and rebranded in this manner. This way products are created and they circulate within a system called commodity exchange.