Joe Sacco · Reservoir Books · 2020
Joe Sacco had dealt with conflicts based on national identities and state borders in his graphic journalism comics. (Gorazde, Footnotes from Gaza…), But this work pivots on the friction between a people who do not understand the artificial lines that dissect Mother Earth and a white man determined to segment her in order to exploit her for his own benefit.. The Dene are a native tribe settled in the current Northeast Territories of Canada that until recently lived self-sufficiently., of fishing, of hunting and his dogs. Until it was discovered that large reserves of oil and gold, coveted by the capitalist machinery, slumbered beneath their feet, and the dilemma arose: whether to work the land or protect it.? A Tribute to Earth It is woven together with the interviews that Sacco had with many people about their history as a people and their fit in today's Canada.. They explained to him, For example, how the Canadian government tried to take their land in a usurious way and gradually erase their culture by taking the children to study in boarding schools far from their families, their language and their way of life. With his usual black and motley style, Sacco (as usual, something protagonist of his vignettes) describes the difficult transition that the Dene have made from independence in the bush to a monetary economy in which they do not quite fit and which has skyrocketed the rates of alcoholism and suicide.. The fading of a way of life anchored in the land and in the community explained in a great graphic report by the great master of the genre, Joe Sacco. AU
