Rebels Save Mountain From Their Own Nation's Army

A wartime poster from Yugoslavia.
I like the design of the entire poster.
I like the emphasis of images over words.
I like the unique style of the truck's disintegration.
I love that the town of Tuzla ("salt") here is symbolized by a tiny but stubborn goat.

Daoud Sarhandi explains what the poster commemorates:

"On May 15, 1992, JNA soldiers attempted to leave their garrison near the center of Tuzla with their weapons.  Their plan was to encircle the town before shelling it into submission, as they had done throughout Bosnia.  Unlike in many other towns, however, Tuzla had prepared for likely Serb aggression and there were snipers placed on high buildings along the JNA’s route.  The JNA opened fire before they left town, but the snipers managed to pick off drivers in the leading trucks, blocking the convoy’s forward movement.  Before long the entire convoy was in flames.  This was the JNA’s first defeat in Bosnia, and it undoubtedly saved Tuzla from being ethnically cleansed and occupied by the Serbs."

Though I completely support the heroism of the Bosniaks, before we reflexively toe the NPR party line here,  one way to consider the weirdness of all this is to imagine America using artillery to remove an ethnic group and then imagine that a local ragtag militia, led by a Timothy McVeigh (Patriot?  Murderous nut?  Returning war-hero turned mental?) wins.   Can we even imagine it?  Could Mayor Bloomberg bring the US Army to shell downtown Harlem to clear the way for another Magic Johnson Shopping Center on 125th Street?  And if he did but the Black Panthers miraculously fended off the official US Army, guys in blue jeans defeating guys in Kevlar vests, how would we feel?  What if there were a version of M.O.V.E. in Philadelphia that weren’t nuts?  It’s a really really weird idea.   This poster then might just as well say, Harlem, 2009 or something.  If it did, whom would you support?  I’m getting a little (okay, way) far out here. Back to reality.

Americans should study the post-Tito breakup of Yugoslavia and its CRAZY 1990s aftermath.  We could wrestle with all kinds of really meaningful questions that could be then extended to 2007 and US foreign policy.  What were the contradictions in choosing who we supported?  Why did the Christians, Commies, and Bosniaks do what they did?
What does “patriotism” mean, who was patriotic?  Is anyone who joins any army on any side patriotic?  Again, was Timothy McVeigh a patriot ? (I’m just trying to be provocative there.)   Who are “the Muslims”?   All of these questions were stood on their head and turned inside out in any history of the late 20th Century Yugoslavia.   
Learning this we could move beyond WWII as the only thing anyone seems to use as an example.  It would sure elevate discussions of foreign policy if Joe Six Pack / The New York Post could make a point without bringing up Der Fuhrer, a completely overworked, hyperbolic example of … of nothing.  The Third Reich is not a nuanced illustration of ANYTHING.  Nazis are a tired, cliché example misapplied and misleading, a lazy argument, our anti-Nazi righteousness a dangerous comfort.

The poster image and caption were taken  from a 200 page catalog of wartime Yugo posters, "Evil Doesn't Live Here" (ISBN 1-56898-268-2, Princeton Architectural Press)

Comments

[Denise]

Extremists of all kinds dislike the humanization of their enemies.
Fundamentalist Christians and Extremist Muslims alike would rather portray others as less than human because all is lost if their children see the other as nice people. ( as in the Running of The Jews in Borat). They might be tempted to stray from the One True God, or in God at all.
( heaven forbid)
Freedom to believe as one wishes is one of the main truths in this country. Or it was. This is where I fear I come off as a hippie. Live and let live, man. Save the environment too. Far out!