A Light Where it’s Darkest- Finding Hope in Oppression

I am beginning to understand oppression and struggle from various perspectives whereas before I only saw it from one angle. Often times I think this angle limited me to seeing oppression only as something I was meant to belittle and feel guilt towards. Though through examining these works of literature we have looked at in class, I now see the empowerment and determination that comes from people who endure such terribly unfair conditions. One of the new perspectives that the graphic narrative Safe Area Gorazde offered me to consider was how extremely effective certain coping strategies can be during times of strife.

One day in class we were talking about how it’s in our nature as humans to have some desire for material objects. In Safe Area Gorazde author and journalist Joe Sacco reports on the aftermath of the Bosnian War. One thing that especially intrigued me was that despite the horrible conditions people in Bosnia were still forced to live under in these war torn towns they still begged Sacco, who had access to both Gorazde and America to bring them some sense of normality from the Western world. They were bored and they craved distraction from the constant hardships they were faced with. This was their escape, Sacco represented freedom to them and they lived vicariously through his access to mobility via the blue road. This is one example of a coping mechanism that offered the people of Gorazde hope for a brighter future.

This distractive coping mechanism seen in Safe Area Gorazde reminded me of a video I first saw a while back called Recycling Waste to Create Music. This video features a community, which now goes by the name The Landfillharmonic. It is a group of children from one of the poorest slums in Latin America, Cateura, who are faced with such extreme poverty that they are forced to live and survive off of the city’s garbage landfill. Instead of letting their conditions subjugate and demean them to be worthless and forgotten, they turned the situation around to make it positive. They used the leftover garbage and scraps, making it into musical instruments (mostly violins), and together as a community created an orchestra with the slogan “The world sends us garbage. We send back music.” This amazes me that how, regardless of destitution, these people are still able to find a way to enjoy their lives and find the resilience to stand up to the oppression they are faced with. I see this transformation of junk into music as a powerful metaphor to rise above and take what little you may have and always manage to find the silver lining.

Whether it is needing a new pair of Levi’s from America, or creating instruments out of literal garbage, every human being needs a sense of normality in their life. How I see oppression now is as something that inspires new life beyond just the violence, war and hate. It suggests the possibility of uniting a community as one and finding beauty together in order to collectively remember the past but also individually move forward with time.