Beyond Antinationalism

Jansen talks about jugonostalgija as a subversive practice that relied on the apolitical character of life before Yugoslavia's collapse. As a desire for"normalcy", for urban identity that goes beyond ethno-nationalist belonging, and, finally, for depoliticization of everyday life, jugonostalgija exposes its limits as a (temporary, contextual) strategy of resistance. Its potential was most subversive in Croatia, it could be argued, where Tudjman's regime relied on mass amnesia and destruction of the Yugoslav past to secure its legitimacy. But my question is to what extent does the insistence on the apolitical character of life in Yugoslavia--conceived here as "normalcy"--repudiate the subject as "always already" political? To use a cliche, "you may not care about politics, but politics cares about you." (See Jansen's informants who felt that relative prosperity and security stunted them from any public political involvement, until it was too late.) In this sense, we are always implicated in and condemned to politics. There is no way that we can not communicate politically, since silence and refusal to speak is also a form of political communication, a potential answer to politics. 

When we read Zograf's graphic "novel" we'll see other strategies of resistance, involving mass revolt against the Milosevic regime. This time, jugonostalgija took a backseat, but perhaps it prepared the ground for public, mass resistance against the authoritarian regime.

Here's an article about forms of political resistance that developed after Jensen's fieldwork in Serbia. It sheds some light on the current events in Egypt as well.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/02/16/revolution_u?page=full