CNN enrages Belarus with ‘ugliest monument’ nod to revered WWII memorial

[Larry1]

CNN enrages Belarus with ‘ugliest monument’ nod to revered WWII memorial

A CNN list compiling the 'world’s ugliest monuments' has been decried as 'sacrilege' in Belarus for including the country’s most important World War II monument. CNN apologized for the offense caused by the list, which it ascribed to a “contributor.”

The administration of the UNESCO-recognized Brest Fortress site has demanded that the broadcaster issue an apology for including the monument, which is often referred to simply as “Courage.”

“What they [CNN] did was vile and blasphemous. [Fine], so you cannot relate to the monument. Indeed it is not just some work of art, but more than anything, a monument to those who died. Creating a negative list of such monuments is, in my opinion, out of bounds,” Gregory Bysyuk, director of the memorial complex, told Interfax news agency.

... Some, including Nikolay Cherghinets, chairman of the Union of Writers of Belarus and head of the Public Council on Morality, was far less reserved in his criticism of the broadcaster.

“Cases of political adventurism are taken with particular pain in our country. Those who give such a ranking to the monument don’t know what it means to be met with the face of real fascism. In Belarus during the time of the Great Patriotic War (Eastern Front), every third man died. Our relationship to the Brest Fortress is special,” he said.

Cherghinets believes the article was not only insulting to former Soviet states, but to all progressive peoples whose children fought and died to stem the tide of fascism.

"We believe that CNN’s statement is a mockery to the memory of all those who fought for victory in the Great Patriotic War,” he said.

http://rt.com/news/cnn-belarus-ugliest-monument-891/

I think this is part and parcel of the snarkiness that has increasingly pervaded journalism here in the US.

By way of background that will help to understand the Brest fortress and monument, the fortress and the city of Brest were on the Western border of the Soviet Union, just across the river from Nazi-held territory. On the first day of their invasion of the Soviet Union the Nazis had to take the fortress.  Their battle plan allowed 12 hours to take it.  The defenders of the fortress held out for a week, even though they were vastly outnumbered, insufficiently supplied, taken by surprise, and bombed.

A movie about the event was made several years ago.  I haven't located a copy yet but I'd like to see it. I understand it is very good.

The Soviet territory that is now Belarus suffered horrific casualties during the war, more per capita than anyplace else.

Here is a photo of the principal sculpture.

What are your thoughts about all this?

[jone]

He looks like I do when someone took the last cookie out of the cookie jar.

[Daveman]

I dunno. Perhaps snarkiness...  My first thought is that whole scenario is dumb, both story and response. While certainly their are far more important, newsworthy, and even interesting stories to report than "ugliest monuments", the "blasphemous" response over an arbitrary ranking in an arbitrary list of "ugliest monuments" is just about as stupid as stupid gets. Either that or the Belorussian government wanted to get themselves a little self serving air time considering the mess they had/have there.  The fact that CNN backed away grovelling is asinine.  A simple response such as "We meant no disrespect to those who died, but the fact remains, that's a fugly monument, and, furthermore, you're a tyrannical government who has murdered how many of your own people? Where, exactly, is their ugly monument?" 

This is what happens when corporations control media -- the new reality series "Someone's Offended -- Buttlickers Go Wild!!"  If the news outlets had a tenth of the spinal fortitude they had in the past, they wouldn't be the agenda proselytizers they are today. They'd be journalists.

It's a monument and it ain't all that pretty.  At the end of the day it's just a big rock chiseled into the shape of a head. It's still a rock. So what?  I doubt the soldiers who fought and died there give a rat's behind about the monument -- whether its appearance, someone commenting about its appearance, or what people think about it. They're dead.  Blasphemous? for real? Blasphemous... what an idiotic response.  And even more idiotic for CNN to go PCtard over it..

No fallen heroes, memories of them, or monuments were slandered in the making of this post.

[Hammer2722]

It looks pretty ugly to me! 

[Ranetka]

Its a monument to a thirsty, wounded , dying soldier. It's not saving private rian,  why should he look pretty ?

[SANDRO43]

A movie about the event was made several years ago.  I haven't located a copy yet but I'd like to see it.

Here :

[Larry1]

Thanks Sandro.  Again.

[SANDRO43]

It looks pretty ugly to me!

Most Soviet monuments on WWII fighting heroes show them with rather grim facial expressions - rather understandable, considering what they faced . Never seen a monument to the fallen in war with grinning faces, anyway . War memorials have an implicit rhetoric that often lends itself to jokes:

The above is in Milan, one of the many dedicated to WWI casualties - some now long-gone Milanese wit called it "I tri ciucc" (the 3 drunks), a sobriquet that stuck .

[viking]

Sandro, do you have a link I can forward? for the movie?

[SANDRO43]

Perhaps the most moving I ever visited - as a kid with my parents - is the Sacrario militare di Redipuglia, a WWI memorial cemetery in NE Italy - stark in its imposing simplicity:

The inscription PRESENTE means: "Present (to our country's call to arms)". It must have been even more moving before, as it was initially built over actual WWI trenches in the area, still with surviving war paraphernalia strewn about:

[SANDRO43]

Sandro, do you have a link I can forward? for the movie?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=0CefR_OEgeY

[2tallbill]

Sandro, do you have a link I can forward? for the movie?

if you right click on the video and "select copy video URL"
then you can paste it by right clicking again and click "paste"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=0CefR_OEgeY

Udachi !

Bill

[2tallbill]

What are your thoughts about all this?

It shows CNN is stupid. What are the odds of choosing a country
and pointing out things that are ugly in your opinion without having
any clue to what they are and NOT offending anyone? If they want
to find ugly stuff they could simply go see the various art projects
that our government forces us tax payers to pay for.

They would have a reason to comment on something like that. Going to
a country where you don't understand the language, culture or history
and calling something ugly especially if you don't know what it looked
like before erosion or damage might have been done is kind of stupid
if you ask me.

It's CNN, they are a pretty much a band of nitwits, I guess another
shining example doesn't change my opinion much.