The Fixer by Joe Sacco

The Lies of Myth

A review of “The Fixer” by Joe Sacco

The work feels like an afterthought. It is more of a human interest story, one that relies primarily on character and the myths that emerge after historic episodes such as the Balkans wars of the early 1990s. It is not a novel that purports to explain this conflict, as with other works such as “Safe Area Gorazde” or “Palestine”, and doesn’t have share in the explanatory, journalistic style that we saw in these previous works. We relies, perhaps, too much on the charisma of the title character.

The title refers to a man named Nevin, who ostensibly hails from the state of Bosnia-Herzegovina and who fought against the Serbians despite the fact that his father was an ethnic Serbian. This is part of the mythology that is erected around this character, and is faithfully related by the author. We are never quite sure what to believe, and indeed, as the story proceeds, we are made privy to information which contradicts the claims made by this individual. And yet a compelling story trumps all, as is the case, during this election season of 2012, of the scurrilous attack ads that are crafted by political operatives and feature, as always, many distortions.

Neven served as a guide to the journalist, and we find frequently an inclination towards trust. This is, thus, an investigation of how the journalist can himself fall prey when he has little recourse to verification, and instead, decides to rely on what can only be a protective figure who offers a form of companionship that the journalist found immensely appealing.

It turns out that the character is a former soldier, and in the years after the Dayton accords that put an end to the Balkans conflict, he earns his post as an interpreter and guide as well as a go-between. His aid is much appreciated by Joe, even if it is immediately apparent that he is being used. This should have raised all manner of flags, and indeed it does, but the journalist chooses to ignore them, caught as he is in the web of the legend that is presented to him.

I wonder that Mr. Sacco chose to return again and again to the Balkans, and yet remained so manifestly helpless as to never be able to learn the language, even a few phrases, enough to  be able to understand the cost for the services being provided. He relies utterly on Nevin and on his subjects and informants, and is told how much to pay, how much to tip, etc. It must, indeed, be very bewildering to find oneself in such an environment, feeling totally helpless, and this explains in part the attraction of the companionship that is offered by this ex-soldier. He feels protected, he feels guided, and he exults in the aura of shared respectability because he sees that everyone seems to respect Nevin. It feels as if he is motivated by some deep insecurity, perhaps some form of psychological need that comes from the fact that the author is himself a foreigner, and furthermore, small and weak and lacking in charisma. (Mr. Sacco always insists on drawing himself in what seems to be a very unattractive way, with a fleshy and wide face and thick, protruding lips that resemble that of a fish out of water.)

He listens to the stories, to the mythology of the Bosnian military units that resisted the attacks of the nationalist Serbians (known derisively as “Chetniks”). There was something grand about them, although as his informant related to him, they almost always came from a background of petty theft and criminality, and some of them were known for their extreme violence and brutality. In these circumstances, in a cosmopolitan city such as Sarajevo, with a cowed population that lacked not only the means but the psychological willingness to accept their plight, it is not surprising that these figures seemed glamorous. Even if, at the same time, they were robbing the civilians of their food and shelter, and forcing them to dig trenches and thus courting a sure death, and raping and abusing women as they settled in to carve out their small kingdoms in this city under siege.

We thus hear of the two “Celas”, of Ismet Bajramovic and Ramiz Delalic, and of other warlords who are the protagonists of Nevin’s accounts of heroism, but also, have a shady side that of course can’t help but compromise Nevin as well. There was no high idealism in this military commanders, and if Nevin was their companion and brother in arms, are we not to question his own motives? Sacco seems to be aware of these contradictions, and as he finds out in his interviews with former government security ministers as well as journalists, almost everything that he has been told by Nevin seems to involve much fabrication. These were thugs, through and through, and yet, somehow, they were involved in the fight against the encircling Serb soldiers, and were the only line of defense in a period when the central Bosnian authority lacked the means to prepare their own soldiers. Sarajevo, quite manifestly, might have suffered what happened in the eastern regions of Bosnia-Herzegovina. It might also have been cleansed of all Bosniaks, and it might have been the sight of major massacres.

The warlords are guilty of their own massacres, as it becomes apparent. They may perhaps better be apprehended as a band of mercenaries serving under the command of their protective leaders, those who fed them and who acceded to some of their worst impulses. They had harems, they expelled Serbians and confiscated their homes and possessions, they robbed and looted, and yet, they were the only line of defense against the opposing forces that were arrayed against the city. They were glamorous Mafiosi with automatic rifles.

There is thus a whole list of heroic deeds that are related by Nevin, deeds that indeed seem to shape the stature of these figures. One such deed is the episode of how the soldiers managed to destroy several tanks that were being brought to bear against Sarajevo. A band of soldiers with rocket propelled grenades being able to stop tanks. Could it be any more implausible? And yet, Sacco wants to believe, and we want to believe also. We want stories of heroism and magnificent deeds, and we are hard-pressed to believe it when witnesses contradict these stories. Such, perhaps, were the exploits of all heroes magnified. Such, indeed, must have been what happened with El Cid, and with Almanzor, and with Roland, and with other epic figures. We want to believe in heroes, because this is fiction, and because it represents a reprieve from mundanity. And, all the while, we see how Nevin exploits the journalist, charging for his information and making him feel obligated.

In the epilogue, we see a warm reencounter between Sacco and Nevin. Of course, they have both aged. Nevin is not quite the heroic figure he was before, and the narrative weaves between different historical moments. The ex-soldier is now pudgy, and is furthermore ill, seeming to suffer from some sort of heart ailment that forces him to take medication on a regular basis. Might he have had a heart attack by now? Well, when you smoke as compulsively as he does (he is inhaling and exhaling smoke in almost every frame in which he is drawn), it is not surprising.

They fall back on their familiar patterns. Sacco needs Nevin, and Nevin needs him. The storyteller needs his audience, and the truth, as always, is hard to find. Maybe the reputation of those thugs who defended Sarajevo will be rehabilitated in the future, because the reputation was destroyed when the central government asserted control over these military figures. They were captured and neutralized, and many were killed. But any institution will need its own mythology, and the war is prime material, for it represents the moment for the foundation of the new state. It must be a grandiose occasion, unsullied by pettiness and larceny and murderous impulses. It must have its own George Washingtons, in other word, even if we must question to what extent the heroic perception of our own foundational figures is also a story.

So, the Celas are ripe to be reincorporated into the national mythology, more so since they have been killed and are not there to embarrass the authority figures. We will sweep aside the stories of their atrocities, for a nation needs heroes, in the same way that our Saccos need their Nevins, even if the last image we have is of a journalist who has become wistful as he considers how he himself has collaborated in the fabrication of a myth.

But it was a wonderful story. How is it that Nevin is still around?, wonders another of Sacco’s informants.  He had a reputation for being a brave fighter.

Myth has made him larger than life, and we yearn for myth and for heroes.


Eternal Observer -- ORomero (c) 2013
Copyrights ORomero 2013

Safe Area Gorazde by Joe Sacco

Cleansing the Soul of Loneliness:

A review of “Safe Area Gorazde” by Joe Sacco

 

In hindsight, it is never easy to justify the recourse to war. So much suffering, so much death and destruction, so much passion and anguish and manipulation all in the service of resolving conflicts and defending causes that hardly seem to justify the extraordinary and immoral acts that are committed.

Currently, we find ourselves in a blistering presidential campaign season where the emotions and bickering rise to the level of the exhausting and punishing temperatures we see here in southern California during mid October. More and more it seems as if we don’t have much variation, and the weather, as with the attacks and the negativity that accompany a hotly-contested political campaign, are restricted to one note. It is highly destructive, and it reduces everything else to brutally simplistic equation. If you are not with us, you are wrong.

It is particularly frustrating to reflect on the eleven years that have been spent in Afghanistan. It is the conflict that never seems to be resolved, that ebbs and flows, but that takes a continual toll. The objectives, as recognized back in the Bush era, seem to involve not only a policy of containment and elimination of the terrorist threat, but also nation-building. But any progress seems to be ephemeral, despite the distortions circulated by both political parties here in our country. Things don’t seem to be getting any better, and instead, we have the spectacle of an intervention that is destabilizing neighboring countries. Nowhere is this more worrisome than in Pakistan, where the central government seems to be unable and, perhaps, unwilling to control the extremist forces that control so many of the  border areas.

We can’t help but recognize that there are geopolitical goals at play. Pakistan, as always, is jockeying to gain leverage and support in its eternal conflict with India. The Taliban are influenced by extremist ideologies that seem to revolve around a rejection against Western values and a return to a glorified past that, one may assuredly recognize, also encapsulated its own imperialist ambitions and predation on other communities. And, of course, we have the newest incarnation of a spectre that seems to be eternally haunting the Middle East, one that takes the form of Iran’s nuclear ambitions and the strategies that are being devised to contain that threat.

Will we ever see an end to these conflicts? Has the nation-building impulse that was so championed by the Neo-Conservatives during the Bush administration ever be fully repudiated, and will we ever fully recognize that there is a military industrial complex that seems to be pursuing its own ends, and that fastens onto these conflicts and even invents them in order to bolster itself? How can we justify continuing to send American soldiers to Afghanistan to battle an insurgency that only seems to grow more and more powerful, when the conditions don’t seem to hold any promise of success? And in the meantime, we have the terrible example of Syria and of a movement of peaceful revolution that has been brutally repressed, one that may morph in terrible ways to accommodate extremist ideologies because the world was unable to come to a consensus as to the need to support this movement.

I was called to reflect on these matters after having read Joe Sacco’s work, Safe Area Gorazde, that documents the war that took place in Bosnia during the early to mid 90s. It details the stories of people who lived in what had been declared a “safe enclave” during a period in which nationalist ideologies were cultivated as a way to serve the political ambitions of a Serb politician who was captured and taken to the Hague but was never judged due to his sudden death, Slobodan Milosovic.

The people who inhabit this enclave are the Bosniacs, inhabitants of the state known as Bosnia-Herzegovina who are distinguished by being of Muslim heritage. It is never truly clear how religious they are, and one suspects that during the Communist era they lost much of the religious imperatives that had been operative previously, but they may nonetheless be classified as “cultural Muslims”, whether or not they are observant.

In 1992 there was an outbreak of hostility as the states of the former Yugoslavia were breaking up into independent republics. As we recall, the German wall had fallen two years earlier, leading to the reunification of the two German states, and the Soviet Union was also to break up into independent republics. It seemed as if the Cold War had been won, and I remember as a young man hearing about what this fact portended, with the possibility of a so-called “Peace Dividend” as resources were supposedly to be deflected from the Defense industry to serve other ends. It was a hopeful time, even though it meant that I lost my job in this same defense industry and undertook a career change. But that change was long overdue, and I shudder to think what five or ten more years in that career would have meant for my spiritual development. I would have atrophied, like a plant abandoned in a basement.

It is not difficult to recall the news of the conflict in the former Yugoslavia. First Slovenia broke away (I remember talking to an middle-aged immigrant from that republic at work, and who also seemed to me to demonstrate an old-world grace in our occasional conversations), then Croatia, and then we heard of the conflict in Bosnia-Herzegovina, a state that was ethnically diverse and in which the varying populations seemed to have integrated successfully. It seemed that the Serbian population in that regions was being urged to consolidate its territory, but also, in a way that was more worrisome, to expel people of other ethnicity.

The idea of expulsion was nothing new to me. We have had many examples of mass expulsions of populations, and most recently we can recall that it was used as a tactic by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin in the former Soviet Union. But there is no need to cast such a distant look for near examples of these policies. Native-Americans had also been subject to expulsion during our formative years, and we recall the plight of the Cherokees, who were forced to leave their historic homelands in the east to migrate to the central plains of what would become the expanded United States after the war with Mexico. And, as a Mexican-American, in the personal histories transmitted to us by family members as well as friends, we have conserved the memory of other historical movements of expulsion that have affected us as a community, such as those that occurred during the 1930s in the wake of the economic crisis that hit the country, or subsequent episodes such as the infamous "Operation Wetback" wherein hundreds of thousands of US citizens were expelled mainly because they were ethnically Mexican. This is an enduring motif in our history and is present even now in the rancorous debate that addresses the topic of undocumented immigration, and there is an enduring need to define an "alien" and threatening group that needs to be repressed, a need that gives rise to legislation such as SB1070 in Arizona.  It proclaims a threat to national integrity, and what seems to be a sensible need to affirm law and order by advocating intrusive and aggressive policing that, despite the ruling of the Supreme Court, constitutes a threat to civil liberties. It is grounded on the hope that it will result in the removal ("self deportation", in Mitt Romney's infelicitous phrase) of millions of "illegal"aliens, to use their vindictive and dehumanizing label.

So, I remember being horrified by the spectacle of what was happening in the former Yugoslavia. The Serb forces, who were apparently incited by the extremist ideology of President Milosovic and the recourse to a history of Serbian victimhood, were buoyed by arms that had been retained by their side with the breakup of Yugoslavia. The Bosniacs were now portrayed in a dehumanizing fashion, and they were seen as an inconvenient population that was to be disposed of in service to an ideology that served, once again, to appeal to a historical mission of correcting and avenging historical wrongs. It sounded much the same as had happened before, in Germany, for example, but it seemed all the more troubling because the crisis seemed so obviously manufactured. These groups had lived together for hundreds of years. They spoke roughly the same language, and they were integrated, with Serbs living next to Croats and Bosniacs. If you lived in close proximity with each other, and were friends, and attended the same schools and shared much of the same culture, how could it be possible to suddenly demonize each other? Was this, once again, due to the influence of politics, and the elaboration of ideologies that served as a platform for ambitious figures to gain power?

Joe Sacco is a journalist who specializes in a special form of graphic reporting. He not only is trained as a journalist, but also incorporates techniques used by graphic novelists, and these techniques are brought to play in his account of the war as it played out in the eastern city of Gorazde, on the eastern frontier of the former state of Bosnia-Herzegovina. In the face of atrocious attacks and a murderous onslaught of Serbian forces, Bosnian Muslims were in disarray, and were forced to abandon large areas of the region and concentrate in what were to be subsequently declared “safe areas” by the UN. However, as evident in the stories that were collected by Sacco, there was no safety in this area, especially during the early years of the war. It seemed, instead, to be a collection point for traumatized refugees who were subject to immense suffering.

We see stories that are related by several Bosniac narrators. Of course, the stories are filtered through individuals who seem to be much more cosmopolitan, as evident in the fact that they speak English and are able to communicate with Joe. One wonders if the stories would have changed if he had had a chance to interview a truer cross-section of Bosniacs, and to furthermore not rely on his small group of translators. But the stories are nonetheless frightening for what they reveal not only of tactics that were used against an unarmed civilian population, but for the fragility of human values of tolerance and understanding and affection for neighbors and friends, those social bonds that were swept away in the face of these extremist ideologies that were portrayed in terms of historical imperatives to redeem groups and nations.

We are taught to be proud of our nation, and to cherish our flag and our national institutions. We all have a degree of chauvism that is grounded not on rational consideration but on familiarity with what seems right and appropriate. Our way is the only way that we know, so we defend it vigorously, even if an outsider might be able to point to incongruities and to disadvantages that accrue to our system. And if we can ground on nationalism on a sense of tradition that represents a thread of continuity, then it seems all the more difficult to resist. We are an “in” group and the others are an “out” group, and the imperative of exclusion seems fundamental to our right to self-definition. In times of manufactured crisis, you are either “with” us or “against” us, and we are quick to employ martial metaphors to declare all manner of “wars” against movements and causes that seem to put limits on our rightful aspirations. And, in case it isn’t evident enough, it perhaps behooves me to declare how destructive and narcissistic this nationalism seems to me.

In this historical episode, we are finally privy to the stories that offered by the Bosniacs as they related the shock and terror they felt at being expelled from their villages, being rounded up and killed, having their possessions defiled or destroyed, and being shelled by enemy forces as occurred with the inhabitants of Gorazde, who were surrounded by Serb forces, many of them former neighbors, who shot at them and then taunted them by name. What could possibly justify this breaking of all social bonds, this recourse to a type of madness?

These were terrible years for the refugees, unable as they were to escape the enclave and unable to count on the protection of the UN and administrators that were portrayed as vacillating or ineffectual, willing to cede room for maneuvers to the Bosnian Serb forces in exchange for promises of restraint that, according to the witnesses interviewed by Sacco, were illusory. Promises were not kept, and instead, we have portraits in which the leaders of these forces, people such as Radko Mladic, are portrayed as arrogant and oblivious agents of violence, eager to shore up their authority in service to these destructive ideologies of purity and vindication.

And the fact that Sacco is a graphic illustrator helps to add another dimension to this form of reportage. He is an accomplished illustrator, and the drawings are rendered in pure and bold lines, ones that seem to simplify and accentuate the contrasts. There are no colors in this report, we have instead a landscape and a form of portrayal that seems more stark, and the episodes that are related, especially those that take place during periods of duress, assume a greater dramatic power. How can we not have a visceral reaction when we see the drawings that accompany the testimony of some of the nurses and doctors who relate, in nightmare testimonies, those periods in which they were flooded with wounded patients, almost all of them innocent civilians, many of them women and children, who have suffered grevious wounds when shelled or shot by Serbian paramilitaries? How can we not recoil in horror at the narratives of people such as the old refugee who sees fellow Bosniacs butchered on a bridge as if they were livestock, and thrown into the river? And how can we not feel compassion for the characters who are secluded at night, and who reflect on the dreariness of their circumstances, dreaming of being able to escape to Sarajevo?

The stories have a cumulative effect on the reader, and we feel horror but also a growing exhaustion in the face of so much suffering. And this culminates in the episode of the mass slaughter of over 7,000 Bosniac men, people who were trying to reach a safe area under the control of the Bosnian Muslim authorities but who were intercepted, thus giving rise to one of the signature atrocities of the late 20^th century, atrocities that seemed too common and also included episodes such as massacres in Rwanda where over a million people were killed and the brutal war in Chechnya, where an insurgent movement led to brutal repression and suffering inflicted on a civilian population. What can possibly justify any war? Why do human beings who otherwise would seem to be rational seem ready to give in to an atavistic impulse to brutalize others, not only on an individual basis (we all are familiar with episodes of bullying from our childhood, as well as all the ways in which people try to exert dominance over others) but on an infinitely more destructive collective basis, where this war led to the coining of a new phrase, that of “ethnic cleansing” that also resulted in what we could term “sociocide”, that breaking of all social bonds?

The narratives are terrible to read, and the images convey this suffering, but they also convey the vigour of many of the characters, people such as the graduate student Emir or the soldier Riki, he would spontaneously bursts out into song, revealing what we can term an irrepressible nature. The journalist himself recedes into the background, and he leaves the characters to tell their stories, without interjecting himself excessively. He does provide background material, however, and he does use it to help illustrate the historical causes and episodes that constitute the grammar for this whole experience. Thus the material relating to a previous episode of bloodshedding, the conflict between the various insurgent groups during World War Two, and the suggestion that, somehow, the seeds for this conflict had been planted long ago.

In the end, the final signing of a peace treaty that we know as the Dayton Peace Accords somehow seems unreal. The misery and cumulative nature of this suffering seems to take on a life of its own, and when combat finally comes to an end, it is hard to believe that it won’t be only a transitory stage before the next furious onslaught. Why should we give credence to rational accords when the whole war and the display of furious irrationality would seem to dictate that rationality itself is fragile? And how will these groups ever reconcile and move on, if we reflect that one atrocity begets a response, however delayed it may be? If the Serbs are still struggling with their history of Ottoman domination, how will the Bosniacs ever overcome the memory of the suffering they endured under the impetus of the Serbs?

It is still early, and it is still possible to believe in an enduring peace and a reconciliation even if one recognized that the memories will probably fester in the minds of the respective communities. One could hope for reconciliation and readjustment. One could hope that the peace will last in Rwanda and in South Africa and in Iraq and, hopefully, when the time comes, in Afghanistan and in Syria, to return once again to two countries which seem to be irreparably divided. But we also recall that grievances represent a currency that can be wielded by unscrupulous political actors, as we recognize in other episodes in which, for example, the Chinese seem to appeal to the history of suffering under Japanese occupation during the early part of the 20^th century to justify territorial claims, leading to mass demonstrations and beatings and bluster. Can it all be about a group of barren islands in the Pacific, or is it about other aims, the need to assert economic advantage over a rival, or to distract the population from the difficulties of political succession as China prepares to hand over power to a new premier, or the need to deflect internal frustration over growing inequality by trotting out old episodes to channel this anger in more acceptable ways?

I am suspicious of wars and the ways in which they are justified by ideologues. And yet, we seem to have an unacknowledged atavistic streak that leaves us susceptible to manipulation, a troubling acknowledge to the power of the metaphors of war. Nothing else suggests bonding and unity than the coming together for a cause, that level of intimacy that is at play as well in Sacco’s report on this conflict. It is troubling, and the reporter captures these contradictions towards the end when he relates the difficulty that his friend Amra has to adjusting to a post-war life, once she gets the chance to escape to Sarajevo.

“Amra was getting nervous, and she apologized. I took her home in a taxi. She’d been cleansed from Foca and had been living as a refugee in Gorazde, about which she’d once told me, ‘I hate this little fucking town.’ ‘I miss Gorazde. I miss my friends.’” (p. 226)

Maybe one of the most basic human needs is for intimacy, and maybe it is possible to find it in experiences of mutual travail and suffering, in the sense of victimhood that characterized the experience of the Bosniacs in Gorazde but also, in mirror fashion, provided the fuel for ideologues such as Slobodan Milosovic and his appeal to the Serbs.

War is, unfortunately, another social institution.

 

 

 

Eternal Observer -- ORomero (c) 2013
Copyrights ORomero 2013