2005-06-09

Whitewash against whitewash

I am familiar enough with Belgrade's grafitti campaigns, usually from the far right, or that part of it unable to print posters, scrawling expressions of support for their favorite indictee (the spots where people changed «Šešelj srpski junak» to «Šešelj srpski šupak» and «Šešelj srpski junac» are personal favorites). Since I am arriving there tonight, I do not know how widespread the slogans pictured below (declaring «Scorpions Serbian heroes» and «Ten years since the liberation of Srebrenica») are.

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The photos (courtesy of the mighty B92) show the grafitti being painted over in white by members of the Democratic Youth. Thanks to AR for bringing them to my attention.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

I saw this... I'm so glad you blogged it. I think, judging from the spray writing, that this is one or two people.
Dalmatinska has been one of his favorite places to tag with this cyrillic graffiti, especially the Seselj stuff...

Anonymous said...

Oh yeah. It's one or two guys, maybe just one. The handwriting is distinctive.

He's a busy little bugger, though.


Doug M.

T K Vogel said...

They could sure use some whitewashers (of the kind shown in the pics) over in Banja Luka though.

Eric Gordy said...

I've thought of that. And then I wondered whether I would be able to recognise a person's handwriting in spray paint. This calls for a grant application.

Anonymous said...

I don't know, I can't tell the difference between my dad's and my aunt's writing. They both went to university in Banja Luka for Mechanical Engineering and had to practice writing over and over until no one could tell if it was typed or written by human hand. Even I remember being reprimanded in elementary school for my writing not being identical to the teacher's.

Unknown said...

There are quite a few articles about Serbian reaction to Srebrenica revisited, and about the panel on it at the Law Faculty in Belgrade (and the counter-panel), in last issue of Republika (http://www.republika.co.yu/). The magazine is quite interesting, BTW.

Unknown said...

A gossip, off-topic: in Zagreb, day before yesterday, the government proposed a law excluding protesters from the Markov trg in Zagreb, a square in front of the House of Parliament & Government House. The public revolted. Passing near Markov trg today, I noticed it is almost completely barricaded because of archeological research. One can't help but remember that Mrs Sanader, the spouse of Croatian prime minister, is an archeologist.

Eric Gordy said...

Wow, archaeological research! It does seem like a good way of dealing with the design of all of the cities of this period and region, though, in which major institutions are aligned around a square in a way that seems to shout "please protest here."

Katja R. said...

It is actually good public policy to have places which are sort of 'Please Protest Here' type of areas by common agreement. Any country which lacks such a space is in deep serious horrible trouble!
Markov Trg has been such a place since it's existance. It probably does have some interesting archeological remains but they are all under the pavement.

Katja R. said...

Damn, meant to say, the guy's graffiti was FAR more legiable than the stupid gang graffiti in the Gulag. Thanks for shareing that!