Tunnel of salvation, tunnel of accumulation

Tunnel of salvation, tunnel of accumulation

Blog Article

During the 1990s war in Bosnia and Herzegovina a tunnel was dug under the runway of Sarajevo Airport to connect the besieged capital with another territory under control of government forces.The memorial complex Tunel spasa [Tunnel of Salvation], and the mainstream historiography it exemplifies, celebrates this WILD FLOWER as a feat of ingenuity that was crucial to the defence of the city and to the survival of its long-suffering inhabitants.It was a lifeline.In this text I draw attention to a less visible, complementary historiography of the Tunnel, found in unauthorised recollections by Sarajevans, and in some media reports and scholarly studies.

Addressing questions of control over the passage of goods and Sterilization Accessories people, here the focus is on the trade that the Tunnel enabled and, particularly, on the unequal distribution of its benefits in the form of profit and rent.For some, it turns out, the Tunnel of Salvation also functioned as a Tunnel of Accumulation.Mobilising connections within the political-military-economic establishment in besieged Sarajevo, selected entrepreneurs used military infrastructure and labour to bring goods into the city to be sold, in a virtual monopoly of supply, to a captive pool of consumers.Through the prism of accumulation, Tunnel trade allows insight into the role of retail in a predatory war economy which laid the foundations for lasting structures of inequality and domination.