WK2 Text and critical method

 

 

THE UNBEARABLE EASE OF DEPOLITICIZATION

 

Anger, disbelief, indignation, even sadness are just some of the feelings I've experienced while reading Sonja Lebos’ article. The perfect example of how easy it is to destroy the meaning that stands behind any culture, religion or a piece of art. Even though it’s not surprsing it is still difficult to accept the amount of recognition Kempenaers got for deliberately stripping these monuments of their cultural significance.

In his book, Kempenaers refers to the monuments not by their names but by numbers, in doing so he makes it hard if not impossible for his readers to truly understand the meaning behind the structure and turns focus only on the esthetic part of it. Depoliticization at its finest.

Also it’s worth to mention an American site and on-line shop called “Yunicorns”, on its home page it says: “Yunicorns is a story about giant concrete shapes built once upon a time in the non-existing country of Yugoslavia.”. This approach to the cultural heritage of former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia is the ultimate example of how depoliticization is used to make profit.

Some of the most frequently used expressions to describe these monuments, according to Sc.D. Sanja Horvatinčić, show us the western ignorance toward anything that has to do with socialism. Expressions such as “Surreal”, “Space-age”, “Halo-esque”, all used to catch the eye of the reader thereby leaving the cultural part out of the story.

In light of all of these facts we can conclude that writers of these books and articles are more interested in selling the story for profit than in trying to represent what these pieces of history remind us of, therefore showing no sign of any moral and ethic principles.