No sporting event, pet adoption day, bake sale, or balloon ascension would be complete without an anti-Serb exhibit.
And so it is that in the heart of London during the Olympics, we have a photographic display delivering the 1,654,789,425,378th recycling of “What The Serbs Did.” By some douche named Tom Stoddart.
And these artist types purport to be “original.” Check it out (with thanks to the Serbian language site Vaseljenska.com and Draga for letting people know):
(OK, now that IS original. We’ve somehow gone from the widely disseminated figure of 800,000 camera-ready refugees that the KLA and the bombings forced to leave (Tom was told by his government that the Serbs forced them to leave, and he believed it) — to 1.5 million. And gee, yet another case of an Albanian family separated on the road by Serb forces, who lived to tell about it. Amazing how often that happened, isn’t it. In contrast, few Serbs or Albanians survived encounters with the KLA.)
Whatever.
I wonder if that’s the refugee kid in Macedonia who was thrown into the mud by a news crew because he otherwise wasn’t crying about anything.
(Fleeing Serb atrocities on Serb-organized buses, no less. Which their Muslim warlords hosed them away from the last time the UN tried to evacuate them. Fleeing Serb atrocities that wouldn’t even be invented until weeks after the refugees fled.)
By whom?
Proud and defiant is she, in the face of the war that her side began. “You will never defeat us,” Tom ascribes to her approvingly. He’s happy about the Islamic “Green Corridor” which the Bosnian war laid the foundation for. And since we’re on the Olympics, isn’t it interesting that when Sarajevo was being hailed as a “modern, cosmopolitan Western-style city” as it hosted the 1984 Olympics — showing off its state-of-the art arena “Zetra” — no one bothered to ask what Zetra meant? It’s short for Zelena Transversala. Green Corridor.
On a page announcing the exhibit appears the following paragraph:
Photographer Tom Stoddart stands at his Perspectives photographic exhibition at More London on July 25, 2012 in London, England. Seventy-eight of Stoddart’s signature black and white pictures form a free, open-air display at More London Riverside, between City Hall and HMS Belfast. During his distinguished career Stoddart has travelled to more than 50 countries and documented such historic events as the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Siege of Sarajevo and the election of Nelson Mandela as South Africa’s first black president.
So everything that’s supposed to capture our imaginations, he’s swept away by. All the pop-historical markers that we’re supposed to celebrate or be infuriated by, he’s there — to deliver a visual representation from the same perspective already served up. He reviles, and honors, everything he’s meant to. Just another swine at the feeding frenzy.
Artists’ talents were always and only intended to be of service to existing narratives. So, as people of mere talent, they’re not to question the official story behind what they’re depicting; they’re just to be the artistic leg of the allowed narrative. It’s voluntary servitude and it’s been with us in the free world a long time.
The rest of that paragraph reads:
The exhibition is in participation with The International Committee of The Red Cross for whom Stoddart has worked on their Healthcare in Danger campaign initiative that aims to address the widespread and severe impact of illegal and sometimes violent acts that obstruct the delivery of health care, damage or destroy facilities and vehicles, and injure or kill health-care workers and patients, in armed conflicts and other emergencies.
Of course, only in the war zones he’s supposed to know about. Which is why you won’t hear from Tom about the Kosovo Albanian government cutting off water supply to the hospital in one of the last Serbian parts of otherwise terror-run Kosovo, nor any of the times that the same Kosovo Albanian government blocked or held up medicine to the Serb parts of Kosovo, including oxygen for infants. (Or when Elizabeth Dole behaved the same way toward Serbs while president of Red Cross.) Why would Tom know about these things? When the media cued us, “War’s over — nothing to see here,” Tom moved on like everyone else.
Tom Stoddart perspectives? We’re still waiting for “your” perspective, hack.
Any shots of Serbs or other infidels after being decapitated by Muslims? Didn’t think so, Brave One.
The only thing more disgusting than public diarrhea is expelling someone else’s diarrhea.
Look, he even does that typical dignified/solitary/journalisty/photographery stance with the crossed arms.
A 2008 UK Guardian interview by Leo Benedictus, titled “Tom Stoddart’s Best Shot” read:
I shot this picture in 1992, when the siege of Sarajevo was just beginning. It was one of the rare opportunities when the Serbian forces were allowing children to be bussed out by their parents to escape the shelling…
(Gee, yet another “rare” case of Serbs giving safe passage to Muslims, allowing kids to escape the havoc their parents wreak?)
I saw the woman – who was very striking, with blue eyes – fighting back her tears…There was also tension in the air; the Serbian forces were not averse to lobbing grenades into crowds. [Unlike the Muslims do?] I shot a few frames up close and the picture was used around the world.
Atta boy, Tommy! He does everything as he’s supposed to, a well-behaved boy. He’ll never risk being labeled Enemy of the State or anything. If I were Goebbels, I would totally hire this guy. It doesn’t seem like you’d get any trouble from him.
Two and half years ago, I got an email from a woman living in Perth in Australia saying: “I know who that woman is; she’s my neighbour.” So I went to Perth and tracked her down. Her name is Gordana Burazor, and Andre, the little boy, is now a teenager, and about 6ft 2in tall. Through all that time, I had always thought she just put the child on the bus, but in fact she managed to bribe her way on board as well.
…
She first saw the picture a few weeks after it was taken, and then periodically over the years, but never wanted to contact me. She said she hates it because she was trying to be completely dignified. And the one moment she did what she was trying to avoid – crying – was captured in this frame.
Does she look like she’s crying? I thought that was a wart.
The interview closes with a “Curriculum vitae” segment at the bottom of the article:
…High point: “Having a ringside seat for historic moments. I was on the Berlin Wall the night it came down, and later spent six weeks with Nelson Mandela.”
Low point: “Just after I took this picture, when I was badly injured in Bosnia. An explosion knocked me over a wall. I was off work for a year.” [Good. Nothing like instant karma.]
Pet hate: “Pompous photographers and subjects. It’s not brain surgery we do.”
Indeed. You can be a complete idiot.
So here we are again: The Serbs and the Jews. No moment of silence for 11 Israeli athletes slaughtered at the Olympics itself. And anti-Serb artistry next door. And that’s why the Brits deserve being eaten by Muslims.
Finally, no Olympics would be complete without a Croatian athlete or coach wistfully recalling the good old days when the sport was Serb-killing. This year it was the Croatian Men’s Handball team head coach Slavko Goluza, who said that their win over Serbia reminded him of “the movie” Storm, a depiction of the celebrated deadly Serb-cleansing military operation by Croatia in 1995, ridding the country of Serbs, much of the dead never receiving a proper burial. “Nothing will spoil this day for us. We showed that we are better than Serbia on neutral ground. I can’t help but feel that this victory reminds me of the film ‘Storm.’”
He was clever enough to refer to the “movie” Storm rather than the actual killing and cleansing it was celebrating, putting it on a film in case of any backlash.
But what backlash? There was no mention in media of what he said except in regional news, because you can say anything you want about Serbs. Even though it was Croatians who blew up the Statue of Liberty. (How about a movie on that, director Jack Baric? Instead of one blaming the UN for any unpleasantness that happened in the course of your war-criminal-hero Gotovina’s brigades hacking 80-year-old fellow Slavs into pieces? (’But, Your Honor, you know a Croat can’t control himself when there’s a Serb in his path — and we’ve never been asked to before, so what’s the problem?’) So, even though there was a double meaning to the coach’s words and he tried to pass it off as a film reference, he was saying the victory was like Operation Storm in that the Serbs were crushed. And he alludes to a movie that defends a man responsible for so much blood, General Ante Gotovina. (Though, admittedly, even if Gotovina had tried to restrain them, he wouldn’t have been successful. Croats eat Serbs. Can you keep a cheetah from eating a gazelle?)
Only an actress cared enough to comment — if it really is Angelina Jolie who tweets at “JolieProjects,” which isn’t certain, given that there are fewer than 5,000 followers (and given that only a Croatian and a Romanian site reported the tweet). On the premise that it is she, or someone who speaks for her (and many of the tweets sound air-headed enough to be hers), then her condemnation of the coach means that Jolie by now has enough superficial familiarity with the region that she can catch nationalism when she hears it:
Jolie reacted to the statement on Twitter writing “I am shocked by the comments Croatian handball coach made after the game vs. Serbia. Some people miss entirely the point of the Olympic Games. Nationalism is not to be confused with Patriotism.”
It’s amazing what someone can pick up about the others while exacting her pound of Serbian flesh. And she’s more honest about it than politicians and media, who are loath to call out a non-Serb on nationalism, nor even recognize Serb-baiting as such, conditioned as they are to the “normality” of attacking Serbs, physically or verbally.
Admonishing on patriotism vs. nationalism means that whoever wrote the tweet is at least somewhat clued in to what little criticism has made it out about Croats. (”But, Your Honor, our favorite rocker’s concentration camp rhapsodies are an expression of Croatian patriotism, not nationalism or fascism. Why are you trying to take away our identity?”)
And it certainly makes sense Jolie would have some sensitivity on Serb behalf, given that she worked with Serb actors and crew. One also can’t forget that, unlike the rest of the world, she didn’t ignore the trampled then overlooked then vilified Serb victims of the wars, visiting with Bosnian-Serb refugee women, though it felt more like buying a free conscience to do even more damage to the Serb image by way of her anti-Serb film.
The coach’s comment harkens back to what Croatian tennis star Goran Ivanisevic said in 1993, The New York Times quoting him without batting an eyelash:
Then he discovered that, when he won, he was asked questions about the war. In answering them, he felt better – attacking the Serbs, defending Croatia. He was doing something. “My racket is my gun,” he said, over and over.
…
In Paris, his warmup suit read, “Stop Aggression Against Croatia.” Before his country was recognized in January 1992 by the European Community, he convinced the ATP Tour to list him not as a Yugoslav, but as a Croat. He returned home each time to find more fans, more kids playing tennis.
In January 1992, the tournament at Adelaide, Australia, received death threats against Ivanisevic. Policemen escorted him into the stadium… “I wasn’t worried,” he says. “The two policemen, I go to the practicing range with them. They show me how to shoot, just for fun. They let me shoot machine gun. It was tough to control, but, oh, nice feeling. All the bullets coming out. I was thinking it nice to have some Serbs standing in front of me.”
One letter-writer cogently responded, “…Maybe this makes it more understandable why Serbs do not wish to live in an independent Croatian state. If an educated, young Croatian athlete, described by you as an ambassador for the Croatian cause, makes statements like this, we can only guess what he privately says or thinks about the Serbian people. Worse, what are the plans and thoughts of his less educated and more aggressive countrymen? With such appalling remarks, Ivanisevic is certainly not helping the cause of his people.”
On the contrary. If international Croatian terrorism in the 70s and 80s — in pursuit of the same nationalist cause and killing a New York cop — didn’t hurt, what could Ivanisevic’s words do? Indeed, the terrorism was ultimately rewarded by the world joining Croatia against non-terrorist Yugoslavia. (”Aggression,” anyone?) The West has been backing radicals ever since backing radicals in all three sides of the Yugoslav civil wars. (For a particularly intriguing entry on Croatian terror, see the “March 17, 1980″ header on this page. It turns out that the Oregon-born wife of the Croatian cop-killer was hired by the Croatian Embassy in Washington after her release in 1989, and her Wiki page lists her as a “writer” and “activist.” While she was influencing American reporters on how to view the Bosnian conflict (unfavorably to Serbs, of course), the president of the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association wrote, “For the Croatian Government to literally condone murder and terrorism is appalling. Our Government should sever diplomatic relations.” You’d think. But as we’ve seen, there’s no level of insult or act of war that won’t be tolerated by Washington if committed by an enemy of the Serbs.)
You can complain about coach Goluza to complaints@enquiries.london2012.com.
