UNIVERSITY OF NOVA GORICA GRADUATE SCHOOL ...

Party: Komunista Partija Jugoslavije - Savez komunista Jugoslavije 380
If we take a stroll down the wall the very first post from 14 September 2008 contains 12 photos
depicting Josip Broz at various occasions and with different people. The post elicited 71
comments over the period of two years. Needles to say, the comments/thoughts made public by
users are extremely emotional:
Elmedin Cuk COME BACK 14 November 2009 at 15:57
Snjezana Isakovic OOOOOOOOo WHAT BEAUTY FOR SOUL AND EYES 10 March
2009 at 21:52
Admir-Amira Dedic druze tito ljubicice bjela tebe jebe jugoslavija cjela 24 April 2010 at
05:32
Danica Rankovic Those were happy times...Among others my youth is in this period... 26
June 2010 at 20:27 381
Looking at these comments one can see two radically different approaches towards the profile/the
past/the person commemorated/profiled: utter appreciation and utter contempt. Such affective
responses are to be expected with a historically controversial personality burdened with nearly half
a century long rule and an active role in both WWII and post-war periods. Particularly with
regards to the social, cultural and political parameters of Yugoslavia‘s demise on the one hand,
and to the post-socialist self-inflicted eradication/rewriting of the socialist past.
Again, as in the SFR Jugoslavija profile this is the case of on-the-fly practice of remembering: it is
not an elaborate historically accurate record, rather it is an externalisation of memory both
personal and collective. What is at stake here is a participation (take-in part) in a collective
practice of remembering, i.e. each ‗lone statement‘ contributes to textual co-creation of a string of
thoughts/feelings. Such statements often stand on their own, making no reference to previous
posts. Unlike the censorship/curatorship policing enforced in the SFR Jugoslavija profile, here
there be room for all sorts of opposing, contesting and even offensive comments. On the one hand,
this makes the profile as a digital memorial site a ‗democratic‘ forum of expression of ideas. Yet
on the other hand such un-policed (or at least very permissive admin policy) gives room to futile
kerfuffle in the manner of ―He is my hero‖ and ―No, he was a war criminal.‖ This essentially leads
to a dead-end in any debate and may do little for facilitating a commonly shared vision of the past.
The dead-end in a debate or commemoration practice in this profile not only takes the form of hate
speech and offensive language that serves no reason but externalising one‘s particular
ideologically burdened views. The other ‗extreme‘ is often found in the already mentioned
380 Josip Broz Tito, ―Info,‖ http://www.facebook.com/pages/Josip-Broz-Tito/39180551998?sk=info#!/pages/Josip-
Broz-Tito/39180551998?sk=info, accessed 3 August 2011.
381 Josip Broz Tito, accessed 3 August 2011.
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