Safe Area Gorazde and Caleb

Joe Sacco's graphic novel Safe Area Gorazde depicts his personal journey in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Sacco presents both the history of the conflict on a general level and the personal horror stories of people who endured the war. Sacco jumps back in forth between the “present” cease-fire of 1995, and the past starting from 1992. Sacco arrives in Gorazde to a surprising amount of welcome, “We'd barely stepped out of our vehicle when the red carpets started rolling out,” (Sacco 5) He quickly becomes friendly with a local teacher named Edin who becomes a sort of “tour guide” to the city of Gorazde. Sacco constantly meets new people and interviews them about the war. Gorazde, just beginning to receive supplies, found itself relatively isolated from the rest of Bosnia and constantly under Serb bombardment. This isolation shows a failure on the part of the U.N. to protect Bosnian cities from Serb attacks. U.N. forces, ever after the cease-fire, are depicted by Sacco as being completely overwhelmed by Serbs forces (and in some way at the mercy of Serbs forces). The book also shows the unification and separation that the war brought. While the Serbs and Bosniaks clashed, Bosniaks came together to help each other out. After the opening of the blue road, Sacco and some of his friends begin to live in Bosnia's capital Sarajevo. The city had returned to how it used to be (to a certain extent), and it seemed clear that all people wanted to do was move on with their lives and try and forget about the bleak future they saw ahead of them.

Caleb's presentation shed light on Bosnia's situation 12 years after Sacco's depiction. Caleb presided in Sarajevo on a hefty salary which allowed him to have certain creature comforts while there. Caleb worked for the OSCE, which made efforts to stabilize the nation. He describes the attitude towards foreigners of Bosnians (Serbs, Bosniaks, and Croats) as cautious and resentful. He describes how people still feel angry that the U.N. and NATO did so little to help them out. He then described the form of government where the president switches every year. Even 12 years after the cease-fire at Doyle, tensions still run high with outward racism being commonly seen. Though the Serbs, Bosniaks, and Croats can now be considered a little more united (they have integrated to a certain extent), the Bosnian school system is still segregated by ethnicity. Caleb said that about 70% of the country was in favor of integration (on every level), this means that the 30% minority of nationalists still hold a huge amount of power in Bosnia. He admits if things don't change, the conflict may erupt again in the near future.