Safe Area Gorazde
It is worth the risk
Critical Summary Assignment “Safe Area Gorazde”
Joe Sacco visits Gorazde, a mainly Bosnian enclave in eastern Bosnia in the midst of war. As a journalist he narrates the living struggles of people in Gorazde and shows how they have inner strength through, humor, and simple ordinary happiness to be able to protect Bosnia from ethnic cleansing. People in Gorazde have a strong sense of ethnic identity that allows them to keep in mind what they would lose if they let their own country fall into hands of the Chetniks. In “Safe Area Gorazde” Joe Sacco examines ethnic identity and hope through the tales, struggles, and dreams of the people of Gorazde. In Vignettes such as “Neighbors” and “Brotherhood and Unity” Sacco shows how the people of Gorazde had hope through tough times, including suffering and risk of death.
Even though the people of Gorazde face many physical threats that make them struggle through times Sacco, through Edin and other Bosnian civilians, shows how Bosnians desperately try to defend Gorazde from the enemy that outnumbers them. At one point Edin says, “We were silent we didn’t shoot too much. We didn’t have enough ammunition. You can imagine how awful it was for us. They were enjoying themselves. They had everything. Power. Tanks” (Sacco 172).They manage to defend their village at a heavy cost of 700 dead and numerous injured, most of them civilians including women and children. Sacco reflects about Edin’s family and compares it to many families that have suffered even worse atrocities, “By Gorzade standards Edin’s immediate family had been lucky no one had been killed. But her mother almost burst into tears when he reminded of the close calls: Edin wounded two times, her younger son Elvid wounded four times, her husband wounded once” (Sacco,77). This shows that the people of Gorazde not only risk their own lives and receive constant threats, but also they also lose everything they have at the hands of Serbs:“One morning Edin’s mom rushed in from outside where she’d been washing clothe in ice-cold water spring water. THE CHETNIKS ARE GUILTY FOR EVERYTHING! Her hands were purple and swollen the skin around the nails flamed It’d been a long time since shed used a washing machine or any other house appliance. Hers had been destroyed along with the house in a fire set by Serb neighbors at the wars beginning”(Sacco, 76).
The suffering that the people of Gorazde experience goes beyond physical suffering it becomes a psychological shock for each Bosnian living in the shadows of hope and despair. Edin express his horror feelings towards the experiences being lived at war,“ I can never forget that in my life…the screaming, the shouting, the children crying…