WEBVTT

1
00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.529
Avi Chomsky: And Warren, why don't you come up, and I'll just quickly introduce you to Joe as we're getting started.

2
00:00:04.530 --> 00:00:05.030
Joe Sacco: Okay.

3
00:00:05.030 --> 00:00:05.820
Avi Chomsky: Howdy.

4
00:00:05.820 --> 00:00:06.680
Joe Sacco: Hi!

5
00:00:07.010 --> 00:00:08.490
Avi Chomsky: This is being recorded.

6
00:00:08.600 --> 00:00:11.319
Avi Chomsky: I'm gonna take the participants away.

7
00:00:12.880 --> 00:00:15.740
Avi Chomsky: Not the meeting away, just the participants away.

8
00:00:17.830 --> 00:00:20.390
Avi Chomsky: This is Warren Backman?

9
00:00:20.390 --> 00:00:20.750
Joe Sacco: I wore.

10
00:00:20.750 --> 00:00:21.930
Avi Chomsky: Amanda. Hi, how are you?

11
00:00:21.930 --> 00:00:22.520
Joe Sacco: Hi, Amanda.

12
00:00:22.770 --> 00:00:23.490
Avi Chomsky: You know?

13
00:00:23.490 --> 00:00:24.779
Joe Sacco: Good to meet you guys.

14
00:00:24.980 --> 00:00:26.249
Avi Chomsky: Meet you also.

15
00:00:26.610 --> 00:00:27.439
Joe Sacco: I like your fashion.

16
00:00:28.100 --> 00:00:29.100
Joe Sacco: profession.

17
00:00:29.430 --> 00:00:30.150
Avi Chomsky: Thank you.

18
00:00:30.150 --> 00:00:31.130
Joe Sacco: Warren.

19
00:00:31.130 --> 00:00:34.760
Avi Chomsky: Classic academic.

20
00:00:35.250 --> 00:00:37.270
Avi Chomsky: Iconic.

21
00:00:37.770 --> 00:00:39.349
Joe Sacco: Thank you, thank you.

22
00:00:39.350 --> 00:00:42.820
Derek Barr: Avi, would you like to… Start?

23
00:00:43.040 --> 00:00:44.600
Avi Chomsky: Should I start, or are you going to?

24
00:00:44.600 --> 00:00:45.929
Derek Barr: I… I'll do it.

25
00:00:46.070 --> 00:00:46.720
Avi Chomsky: Yeah, you do it.

26
00:00:46.720 --> 00:00:47.670
Derek Barr: Okay, and…

27
00:00:47.670 --> 00:00:49.310
Avi Chomsky: Then that thing will disappear?

28
00:00:49.310 --> 00:00:55.299
Derek Barr: Correct. We'll go live in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

29
00:00:57.480 --> 00:00:58.540
Avi Chomsky: Thanks, Darren.

30
00:00:58.740 --> 00:01:00.930
Avi Chomsky: Thank you. Thank you, Derek.

31
00:01:01.130 --> 00:01:10.170
Avi Chomsky: Okay. All right, so I want to thank you all for coming here, and if there's anyone who's joined virtually, thank you for coming in a way that you were able.

32
00:01:10.310 --> 00:01:25.609
Avi Chomsky: So I'm Warren Backman, I'm a current Salem State, master's student, in history. Oh, sorry, and I'll be, one of the folks, emceeing this event, along with… do you want to come up, Nadash? Right.

33
00:01:25.670 --> 00:01:42.900
Avi Chomsky: Hi, I'm Amanda. I'm an alum from the History Department, 2003 graduate, and really excited to be here. Right, fantastic. And also, just briefly, I'm a really big fan of your recent publication on the riots in India.

34
00:01:42.900 --> 00:01:43.240
Joe Sacco: Okay.

35
00:01:43.240 --> 00:01:53.979
Avi Chomsky: I've worked for a bit, living in New Delhi and a Pakistani restaurant I would frequent has since been burned down in riots, so it was very impactful reading those.

36
00:01:54.090 --> 00:01:59.089
Avi Chomsky: that work from you. So thank you for writing that, kind of micro-history.

37
00:01:59.510 --> 00:02:17.960
Avi Chomsky: Sure. Alright, so now to begin more formally, with the introductions. Joe Sacco is a journalist, author, and comic artist whose work has highlighted large and small-scale inner and inter-communal violence, giving voice through his reporting and image through his art.

38
00:02:17.960 --> 00:02:31.579
Avi Chomsky: to those facing erasure, pogrom, and genocide. His work has highlighted the life of Bosniaks prior to and throughout the Bosnian War, with vignettes that demonstrate the trauma of not just life during genocide, but after.

39
00:02:31.640 --> 00:02:48.679
Avi Chomsky: Saku's work on India, which I just made reference to, has used large and small-scale… has used small-scale communal violence between Hindu and Muslims in Uttar Pradesh to approach a wider conversation of how violence became so widespread between communities who used to live side by side.

40
00:02:49.260 --> 00:03:05.400
Avi Chomsky: Whether focused on Dine Northern American Indigenous folks, Indians, Bosniaks, and Palestinians, Sacco's work has highlighted how colonial systems enforce particularity, developing a language whereby systemic violence becomes incredibly personal.

41
00:03:06.210 --> 00:03:07.270
Avi Chomsky: Thank you.

42
00:03:07.490 --> 00:03:17.869
Avi Chomsky: So, Jose Palestine was originally published in 2001, with the new edition being published in, 2024.

43
00:03:18.020 --> 00:03:19.300
Avi Chomsky: And…

44
00:03:20.050 --> 00:03:33.999
Avi Chomsky: It is more relevant than ever right now, which is a truly awful thing, and it's in many ways disturbingly prophetic when you read about these characters facing issues that have

45
00:03:34.160 --> 00:03:37.429
Avi Chomsky: Become very common to… to hear about today.

46
00:03:39.430 --> 00:03:57.290
Avi Chomsky: we see personal stories of Palestinian people living under occupation, and in this graphic novel, they reflect a broader historic reality. But the format, specifically, of the graphic novel, I think, is an incredibly accessible way, for people to

47
00:03:57.290 --> 00:04:06.159
Avi Chomsky: grasp that history, grasp these personal stories in a way that might, you know, a textbook or a monograph, they might not

48
00:04:07.090 --> 00:04:15.880
Avi Chomsky: they might not reach that. And, I think, like, it introduces scenarios that people who don't even have a lot of background makes them want to kind of ask questions and know more about it.

49
00:04:15.880 --> 00:04:39.009
Avi Chomsky: So my litmus test for the effectiveness of this graphic novel format, sorry, is my son, who goes to an alternative school in downtown Salem, where some kids have never read a book before. This is true, actually. And one of my sons, said, oh yeah, we have that book in our humanities classroom. Pierce teaches it. So, so it's, you know, reaching a broad audience who might

50
00:04:39.090 --> 00:04:43.010
Avi Chomsky: not have ever really heard about Palestine.

51
00:04:43.410 --> 00:04:53.099
Avi Chomsky: And I feel like one of the things it really does is, you know, the… kind of the small hope we have over the misery of the past two years is that, particularly among the youth.

52
00:04:53.100 --> 00:05:07.969
Avi Chomsky: awareness of Palestine and the history have led to collective action, and in this way, your work really, I think it combats the attempted erasure of the Palestinian people, and really contributes to the ongoing struggle for liberation and justice in Palestine.

53
00:05:08.640 --> 00:05:26.990
Avi Chomsky: And in a preface to Joe's 2001 Palestine, the fantastic scholar Edward Saeed said of the work, there's no obvious spin, no easily discernible line of doctrine in Joe Sacco's often ironic encounters with Palestinians under occupation.

54
00:05:26.990 --> 00:05:35.279
Avi Chomsky: No attempt to smooth out what is for the most part a meager, anxious existence of uncertainty, collective unhappiness, and deprivation.

55
00:05:35.280 --> 00:05:55.119
Avi Chomsky: And especially in the Gaza comics. A life of aimless wandering within the place's inhospitable confines, wandering and mostly waiting, waiting, waiting, with the exception of one or two novelists and poets. And again, that was written of 2001, over two decades before October 7th.

56
00:05:55.570 --> 00:06:02.140
Avi Chomsky: Sacco has since returned to the study of Palestine with his 2024 on Gaza.

57
00:06:02.360 --> 00:06:04.200
Avi Chomsky: where he concludes.

58
00:06:04.700 --> 00:06:12.930
Avi Chomsky: with the, quotation, which, Avi's got a… there's a copy of the book, on Gaza here that's being handed out in person.

59
00:06:13.630 --> 00:06:29.589
Avi Chomsky: Sorry, one second, because only a poet can conjure up an inferno fitting for those who incited and armed a genocide, and Gaza's dead must surely know that the only justice they can count on will remain in the province of fiction.

60
00:06:29.730 --> 00:06:43.020
Avi Chomsky: A brutally honest continuation of that which Edward Said described, a blunt depiction of deprivation and dispossession, wherein the only respite seems to lie within the realm of poetry and fiction.

61
00:06:43.310 --> 00:06:56.979
Avi Chomsky: And on that cheery note, we would like to begin the questions. And so I'm gonna bring up here Max Kingsbury, another student who's helped to organize this Against Erasure event.

62
00:06:58.650 --> 00:07:01.270
Joe Sacco: By the way, thank you for that kind introduction.

63
00:07:02.030 --> 00:07:03.389
Avi Chomsky: Thank you for being here.

64
00:07:03.390 --> 00:07:04.720
Joe Sacco: Victor. Hello?

65
00:07:04.910 --> 00:07:17.160
Joe Sacco: Hi, I'm Max Kingsbury. Hi, Joe. For those of you who don't know me, I am a student here at Salem State University. This is my senior year, and I am in a class called Intro to Museum Work.

66
00:07:17.160 --> 00:07:28.459
Avi Chomsky: And as a class, we worked together to create this, exhibit as a group, and we're very proud of it, we're very excited for you guys to see it, and I'm very excited to ask you some questions.

67
00:07:28.740 --> 00:07:30.140
Joe Sacco: Okay, I look forward to it.

68
00:07:30.140 --> 00:07:47.869
Avi Chomsky: Awesome. Once again, thank you so much for coming to speak with us. So, the first thing I want to ask you, just dive right in, was there a pivotal moment that led you to the creation of these graphic novels to communicate, kind of, these stories of war and violence? How did journalism and art kind of come together for you?

69
00:07:49.430 --> 00:07:57.359
Joe Sacco: Yeah, well, the, pivotal moment, was Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982.

70
00:07:57.560 --> 00:08:03.079
Joe Sacco: and the massacre of Palestinians in Sabra Shatila, refugee camp in Beirut.

71
00:08:03.300 --> 00:08:08.209
Joe Sacco: By allies of the Israelis, Christian phalangists.

72
00:08:08.530 --> 00:08:12.009
Joe Sacco: So a lot of Palestinians were killed, and

73
00:08:12.620 --> 00:08:14.579
Joe Sacco: I just sort of had this thought.

74
00:08:14.730 --> 00:08:17.240
Joe Sacco: Well, I thought the Palestinians were the terrorists.

75
00:08:18.030 --> 00:08:26.730
Joe Sacco: Because, to be honest, that's how I grew up. I grew up… thinking of Palestinians as terrorists, And…

76
00:08:26.840 --> 00:08:28.570
Joe Sacco: that event…

77
00:08:29.040 --> 00:08:35.819
Joe Sacco: opened my eyes that something else was going on, or that I didn't really understand what was going on.

78
00:08:36.309 --> 00:08:44.370
Joe Sacco: So, I had to sort of interrogate myself as to, why that was. And I just got out of,

79
00:08:44.470 --> 00:08:49.090
Joe Sacco: the University of Oregon, I had a degree in journalism, and I wanted to be a hard news writer.

80
00:08:50.070 --> 00:09:01.040
Joe Sacco: And I began to think about what I learned in journalism school, and what I learned was to be objective, that there were sides of the story, you had to get each side, blah blah blah.

81
00:09:01.200 --> 00:09:12.410
Joe Sacco: So the question I had in my mind is, so why did I… but why did I think Palestinians were terrorists when they're being killed here? And as I began to learn some of the history, I thought, well, why didn't I know this?

82
00:09:13.090 --> 00:09:14.520
Joe Sacco: And I realized…

83
00:09:14.960 --> 00:09:21.489
Joe Sacco: that every time I heard the word Palestinian in a news broadcast or read it in a newspaper.

84
00:09:21.640 --> 00:09:25.269
Joe Sacco: It was side-by-side with the word terrorism, or terrorist.

85
00:09:26.110 --> 00:09:39.209
Joe Sacco: So, why was that? I mean, reporters were reporting, let's say, facts, objective facts, about what had happened, Palestinians attacking a bus, or hijacking an airplane.

86
00:09:39.380 --> 00:09:48.820
Joe Sacco: But I never learned what else was going on, and I began to realize that you can present facts, but they can be curated to present

87
00:09:48.940 --> 00:09:53.480
Joe Sacco: A picture that is… Inadequate, at the very least.

88
00:09:53.580 --> 00:09:56.279
Joe Sacco: So I began to… I began to,

89
00:09:56.740 --> 00:10:02.710
Joe Sacco: think about that, and I began to slowly educate myself. And it took… it took some time, because when I was…

90
00:10:02.960 --> 00:10:08.019
Joe Sacco: Starting out on this kind of journey, there weren't many books.

91
00:10:08.160 --> 00:10:12.869
Joe Sacco: About the subject. One of the first ones I read was The Faithful Triangle.

92
00:10:13.560 --> 00:10:19.780
Joe Sacco: Noam Chomsky's book, and that was… that was the book that really, sort of, helped.

93
00:10:19.970 --> 00:10:24.619
Joe Sacco: Make me understand how the media Had been portraying this issue.

94
00:10:25.740 --> 00:10:33.830
Joe Sacco: So, I mean, to make a long story… I'm making a long story quite long. To make a long story shorter,

95
00:10:35.560 --> 00:10:44.559
Joe Sacco: at that point, I couldn't really get a job as a journalist. Whatever journalism jobs I had were really not what I imagined they should be.

96
00:10:44.660 --> 00:10:49.600
Avi Chomsky: And so I fell back on drawing and cartooning, which is something I'd been doing as a child.

97
00:10:49.950 --> 00:11:02.219
Joe Sacco: And I was living in Germany at the time, doing rock posters and album cover art and all that kind of stuff, and I thought I should go see what's going on in Palestine for myself.

98
00:11:02.990 --> 00:11:08.920
Joe Sacco: And I thought, I'll do a series of comics about my experiences. And as odd as that sounded.

99
00:11:09.090 --> 00:11:11.089
Joe Sacco: I just…

100
00:11:11.240 --> 00:11:24.129
Joe Sacco: went there and began looking around and talking to people, and then I realized, you know, this whole journalism… the journalism I'd studied sort of kicked in, so I was interviewing people and trying to find…

101
00:11:24.460 --> 00:11:31.009
Joe Sacco: different facets of, you know, the occupation, and putting it all together. And so it became…

102
00:11:31.660 --> 00:11:34.370
Joe Sacco: It became a journalistic comic.

103
00:11:34.880 --> 00:11:47.240
Joe Sacco: or a series of comics, but it wasn't like I had a big theory about how to meld comics and journalism. It just sort of happened quite organically, and I learned as I went along.

104
00:11:50.140 --> 00:11:51.670
Avi Chomsky: Thank you.

105
00:11:51.960 --> 00:12:06.869
Avi Chomsky: So, to kind of follow up on that, your comics, they're extremely accessible to a wide audience. It's a great way of meshing together, you know, more recent events to an audience that normally wouldn't really interact with that.

106
00:12:07.050 --> 00:12:18.010
Avi Chomsky: Was that your, initial intention when you were creating these comics through, this kind of journalistic lens, or what was your intention for the original audience?

107
00:12:19.060 --> 00:12:26.120
Joe Sacco: The original audience was, I wanted to write a comic and write and draw a comic that I wanted to read.

108
00:12:26.640 --> 00:12:33.140
Joe Sacco: And I saw there were very few comics that got into deep political work.

109
00:12:34.760 --> 00:12:45.800
Joe Sacco: And that was my impetus. It wasn't… I wasn't trying to sort of come up with a way of presenting difficult material to a wider audience. That really wasn't my thought.

110
00:12:45.930 --> 00:12:54.090
Joe Sacco: The truth is, if I was a filmmaker, I would have tried to make films about this issue. The issue itself mattered a lot to me. I just happened to be a cartoonist.

111
00:12:54.460 --> 00:12:58.780
Joe Sacco: So it was more a matter of,

112
00:12:59.490 --> 00:13:11.550
Joe Sacco: just writing through through the lens of a car… writing and drawing through the lens of a cartoonist. Not really thinking about the wider audience, except myself. I always kind of write for myself. I want to write something that…

113
00:13:11.930 --> 00:13:16.259
Joe Sacco: If I read it, I wouldn't feel like I was being talked down to.

114
00:13:16.660 --> 00:13:20.329
Joe Sacco: That it would be… and I use this word…

115
00:13:20.440 --> 00:13:28.750
Joe Sacco: cautiously, but it would be entertaining. And I mean that in the sense that I wanted people to be pulled along with the narrative. I wanted to write well.

116
00:13:29.240 --> 00:13:31.090
Joe Sacco: A lot of my,

117
00:13:32.260 --> 00:13:37.700
Joe Sacco: Sort of, examples were journalists of the new journalism era.

118
00:13:37.870 --> 00:13:42.570
Joe Sacco: People like Hunter S. Thompson, Michael Herr,

119
00:13:42.760 --> 00:13:50.669
Joe Sacco: people who knew how to write, and I kind of… that was sort of the model. I wanted to… I didn't want to just have a bunch of facts and overwhelm

120
00:13:51.300 --> 00:13:55.680
Joe Sacco: a reader with facts, I wanted to…

121
00:13:56.170 --> 00:13:59.480
Joe Sacco: Pull the reader along, and… and sort of…

122
00:13:59.630 --> 00:14:02.520
Joe Sacco: I wanted them to be introduced to the people that I had met.

123
00:14:03.230 --> 00:14:09.419
Joe Sacco: And to show the people, like, to go into their homes, to sort of bring the reader along into homes, not just have…

124
00:14:09.620 --> 00:14:21.149
Joe Sacco: on this day, this many olive trees were cut down. I mean, all that stuff's very important, but I also wanted to, connect as a human being with Palestinians and reflect that in the work.

125
00:14:23.290 --> 00:14:38.410
Avi Chomsky: Yeah, when you're kind of reflecting, human beings in that work, it can be hard kind of finding a balance between storytelling and journalistic integrity. Did you have difficulties with that when you were initially starting this, or did it kind of just flow easy?

126
00:14:40.560 --> 00:14:47.969
Joe Sacco: On some level, it flowed easy, because I was basing what I was doing on interviews I'd conducted.

127
00:14:48.450 --> 00:14:52.959
Joe Sacco: And on the journal entries I was doing every night while I was there.

128
00:14:53.570 --> 00:15:04.029
Joe Sacco: So… I was trying to keep to a certain journalistic standard, And… and… Trying to quote people accurately.

129
00:15:04.270 --> 00:15:10.250
Joe Sacco: But as I was doing it, I realized there was a sort of a tension between the journalism…

130
00:15:10.730 --> 00:15:15.109
Joe Sacco: The accuracy of, let's say, the quotes or the facts.

131
00:15:15.280 --> 00:15:18.130
Joe Sacco: And of course, the very subjective nature of drawing.

132
00:15:18.870 --> 00:15:24.260
Joe Sacco: You know, obviously, Another artist would not draw the same thing in the same way.

133
00:15:24.720 --> 00:15:32.849
Joe Sacco: a photographer wouldn't take a picture in the same way, so I realized that, in some ways, I'm composing stories, and I'm also… I'm also…

134
00:15:33.180 --> 00:15:41.020
Joe Sacco: Composing stories… Where I wasn't there, where people are reflecting on something that happened. Let's say being…

135
00:15:41.150 --> 00:15:46.589
Joe Sacco: being interrogated by Israeli authorities, being tortured by Israeli authorities.

136
00:15:46.830 --> 00:15:51.780
Joe Sacco: One of the strengths of doing the drawing was I could actually

137
00:15:52.050 --> 00:15:54.730
Joe Sacco: Put the reader in the room with that person.

138
00:15:54.850 --> 00:15:58.289
Joe Sacco: I could draw that. On the other hand.

139
00:15:58.520 --> 00:16:03.270
Joe Sacco: it's… I was… I was… they were describing what was going on, but of course.

140
00:16:03.480 --> 00:16:09.919
Joe Sacco: it's my depiction of what's going on. So that's what I meant by there's a tension between sort of the subjective nature of drawing.

141
00:16:10.040 --> 00:16:12.719
Joe Sacco: And the journalistic…

142
00:16:12.880 --> 00:16:18.900
Joe Sacco: attempt to get facts and quotes right. But, you know, I'm gonna live with that tension.

143
00:16:19.060 --> 00:16:22.470
Joe Sacco: Movie makers do it all the time, of course, and

144
00:16:22.880 --> 00:16:27.200
Joe Sacco: So… but it's one thing to always consider when you're doing this kind of work.

145
00:16:29.510 --> 00:16:46.770
Avi Chomsky: I want to move on to a couple of questions that are kind of about public perception. Palestine has been a… your book, Palestine, has been a very, influential book in raising awareness about the Israeli-Palestine conflict. How has the reception of this book evolved since it's come out?

146
00:16:50.140 --> 00:16:53.740
Joe Sacco: Well, I mean, when I started out, I thought it would be commercial suicide.

147
00:16:54.070 --> 00:16:54.880
Avi Chomsky: Because…

148
00:16:54.900 --> 00:16:59.510
Joe Sacco: I mean, a lot of this stuff was, you know…

149
00:16:59.610 --> 00:17:07.120
Joe Sacco: At that time, comics, they weren't graphic novels, they were floppy comics, and they were in comic book stores.

150
00:17:07.790 --> 00:17:24.520
Joe Sacco: And of course, my sales were incredibly low, because most people were coming into comic book stores to buy Superman and Batman stories. I mean, it must have been odd for the… forgive me for all the comics fans out there, for the typical comics nerd of the day, to see a comic called Palestine.

151
00:17:25.099 --> 00:17:30.749
Joe Sacco: So the sales were incredibly low, and there were 9 issues that came out every few months.

152
00:17:32.560 --> 00:17:44.779
Joe Sacco: And by the end of it, I think I was selling less than 2,000 copies in North America, and by all rights, my publisher should have canceled it. But they sort of believed in the project, I think politically they believed in the project, so…

153
00:17:44.980 --> 00:17:50.600
Joe Sacco: Eventually, bookstores started buying Comics when they were bound as books.

154
00:17:50.700 --> 00:17:53.879
Joe Sacco: And that's when it did well. It started to do well…

155
00:17:54.290 --> 00:17:59.870
Joe Sacco: really when my book on Bosnia did well. Then people began to sort of look at my previous work.

156
00:18:00.460 --> 00:18:06.170
Joe Sacco: And I'd say over time, the reception's been good. Universities have taught it.

157
00:18:06.540 --> 00:18:13.530
Joe Sacco: It's… it's… I think it's always been my… long-term, it's always been my best-selling book.

158
00:18:14.020 --> 00:18:22.650
Joe Sacco: And, of course, after October 7th, it… The sales went up again.

159
00:18:22.980 --> 00:18:30.599
Joe Sacco: Which, as was mentioned, it's sort of a sad commentary on how the book still has a relevance.

160
00:18:31.150 --> 00:18:39.140
Joe Sacco: I mean, I think the level of violence is really much, much, much greater. I mean, it's hard to have even… to imagine… I mean…

161
00:18:39.440 --> 00:18:40.870
Joe Sacco: The difference between

162
00:18:41.200 --> 00:18:47.489
Joe Sacco: what was happening in the First Intifada, and I was there sort of at the tail end of the First Intifada, people being shot.

163
00:18:47.630 --> 00:18:51.090
Joe Sacco: By live rounds, rubber bullets, being interrogated.

164
00:18:51.470 --> 00:18:54.789
Joe Sacco: You know, the… but the number of dead was in the…

165
00:18:55.260 --> 00:18:58.430
Joe Sacco: In the thousands, and low thousands.

166
00:18:59.590 --> 00:19:05.130
Joe Sacco: Now, you know, with the genocide, obviously the level of violence has ramped up to a…

167
00:19:05.510 --> 00:19:13.000
Joe Sacco: Kind of an unbelievable level But I think the… the main points… Of the book.

168
00:19:13.160 --> 00:19:19.439
Joe Sacco: are still relevant. The idea that, really, it's… a lot of it is really about land.

169
00:19:19.560 --> 00:19:31.819
Joe Sacco: And how land was expropriated then, it's expropriated now. Settlers were attacking then, they were attacking now. Olive trees were being bulldozed then, being bulldozed now, so… and there was violence, of course, all ramped up.

170
00:19:32.620 --> 00:19:39.000
Joe Sacco: But those things remain. In fact, I think what wasn't mentioned is that in between

171
00:19:39.200 --> 00:19:44.690
Joe Sacco: after I did the… the book Palestine, I returned to the… I returned…

172
00:19:44.860 --> 00:19:48.250
Joe Sacco: to the Middle East. I did a book called Footnotes in Gaza.

173
00:19:48.600 --> 00:19:53.460
Joe Sacco: which was sort of a historical book that took place during the Second Intifada.

174
00:19:53.770 --> 00:20:00.600
Joe Sacco: And it was a look at massacres that took place in the 1950s in Gaza, where Israeli soldiers came through

175
00:20:01.010 --> 00:20:08.729
Joe Sacco: and, shot Palestinian civilians, Palestinian men, literally lined them up and shot them.

176
00:20:10.010 --> 00:20:20.830
Joe Sacco: And so… What you're seeing today, is… was…

177
00:20:20.940 --> 00:20:26.829
Joe Sacco: Has been germinating and has already been made real in other events.

178
00:20:29.070 --> 00:20:35.279
Joe Sacco: Yeah, to me, it's sad. It's actually sad that the book still has a relevance. I thought, you know, when I was doing that book.

179
00:20:35.620 --> 00:20:53.369
Joe Sacco: It was around the same time. As I was doing it, Camp David… there were the Camp David Accords, and it seemed that maybe something had shifted, that maybe there was a road to Palestinian statehood, and even Palestinians I knew, they were ready to sort of say, okay, maybe this is a new chapter.

180
00:20:54.110 --> 00:21:01.630
Joe Sacco: But, that… it didn't turn out that way, obviously. So the book still has a salience.

181
00:21:04.150 --> 00:21:16.030
Avi Chomsky: I see. Have you encountered any strong reactions or criticisms from, those who have been directly involved in the conflict? And if so, how… what is your response to that?

182
00:21:16.440 --> 00:21:17.949
Joe Sacco: You mean those involved, you mean…

183
00:21:17.950 --> 00:21:25.789
Avi Chomsky: I'm sorry, yes, not Israelis, from… well, Israelis and Palestinians, people who've read the book who are involved in the conflict.

184
00:21:29.680 --> 00:21:34.729
Joe Sacco: Well, when you say involved in the conflict, I don't know if you mean, like, militarily involved.

185
00:21:34.780 --> 00:21:38.320
Avi Chomsky: In any way possible. People who live there, people.

186
00:21:38.320 --> 00:21:39.580
Joe Sacco: Anyone who lives there.

187
00:21:39.580 --> 00:21:40.480
Avi Chomsky: involved.

188
00:21:40.480 --> 00:21:45.399
Joe Sacco: everyone who lives there is involved in the conflict, Palestinian and Israeli, on some level.

189
00:21:45.850 --> 00:21:49.809
Joe Sacco: I've had… Israeli press has interviewed me.

190
00:21:49.980 --> 00:21:59.590
Joe Sacco: And I'd say half the time, the interviews are… I won't say hostile, but suspicious,

191
00:22:00.670 --> 00:22:02.680
Joe Sacco: Pushing at me in a certain way.

192
00:22:04.150 --> 00:22:13.150
Joe Sacco: Because I think their viewpoint is quite different than mine. But other times, even recently, I've talked to Israelis

193
00:22:13.450 --> 00:22:23.170
Joe Sacco: who… or I had an interview with an Israeli journalist who basically was all but saying to me, you know, we can't really say this, but if you say it.

194
00:22:23.570 --> 00:22:28.239
Joe Sacco: it's different. I'm reporting you saying it, but I can't really say this myself, so…

195
00:22:28.350 --> 00:22:30.529
Joe Sacco: There's that to consider, too.

196
00:22:30.680 --> 00:22:36.069
Joe Sacco: The books have been, when possible,

197
00:22:36.250 --> 00:22:39.240
Joe Sacco: distributed. I know, I know the book is sold.

198
00:22:39.550 --> 00:22:48.929
Joe Sacco: or in the… in East Jerusalem. I can't remember the name of the bookstore, there's a well-known bookstore in East Jerusalem that sells

199
00:22:49.080 --> 00:22:55.140
Joe Sacco: Books about… the Palestinian… the Palestinian situation, and it's sold there.

200
00:22:55.480 --> 00:23:01.699
Joe Sacco: I think the reception from the Palestinian side has been generally good. I think it's been…

201
00:23:02.130 --> 00:23:17.030
Joe Sacco: you know, now there's a lot of discourse about appropriation and why you're telling other people's stories, but I've never felt that from Palestinians. I think they see me as someone who, has tried to understand, and I think they've appreciated the work.

202
00:23:17.580 --> 00:23:20.120
Joe Sacco: Of course, I had been called an anti-Semite.

203
00:23:20.400 --> 00:23:25.139
Joe Sacco: By some, but that sort of just goes with the territory.

204
00:23:28.450 --> 00:23:37.540
Avi Chomsky: So you said that you wanted to move away from graphic novels. Are there any lessons from that work that you carry into your more recent projects?

205
00:23:37.760 --> 00:23:44.469
Joe Sacco: Well, it's not so much I want to move away from graphic novels, I still want to do those. I kind of want to move away from journalism.

206
00:23:44.470 --> 00:23:45.260
Avi Chomsky: I see.

207
00:23:45.260 --> 00:23:51.530
Joe Sacco: Because it's, over time, doing a series of books about…

208
00:23:52.670 --> 00:23:58.210
Joe Sacco: I didn't mean it to end this way, but it just… it ended up… I sort of ended up in this sort of eddy of…

209
00:23:58.330 --> 00:24:00.130
Joe Sacco: Reporting on violence.

210
00:24:00.800 --> 00:24:04.379
Joe Sacco: And, over time, that's just worn me out.

211
00:24:05.000 --> 00:24:11.069
Joe Sacco: I… I wanted… I want to do books about,

212
00:24:13.510 --> 00:24:16.529
Joe Sacco: I want to do books that maybe are a little more…

213
00:24:16.670 --> 00:24:23.470
Joe Sacco: I sort of developed a taste for doing sort of editorializing in that book that was mentioned, The War on Gaza.

214
00:24:23.960 --> 00:24:30.089
Joe Sacco: But I also want to do things that are a little more philosophical, that are perhaps talking about some of the exact same topics.

215
00:24:30.420 --> 00:24:32.640
Joe Sacco: But not through the lens of journalism.

216
00:24:33.090 --> 00:24:40.080
Joe Sacco: But… mainly essay. Comics essays, let's say. I don't know if I'm answering your question exactly.

217
00:24:40.860 --> 00:24:41.540
Avi Chomsky: Yeah.

218
00:24:41.540 --> 00:24:42.609
Joe Sacco: Okay.

219
00:24:42.610 --> 00:25:02.049
Avi Chomsky: You know, you talk about, kind of not expecting this to become, what it is now, you know, not expecting the comics to be as big as they are now. And I'm curious to know if you think that the role of graphic novels like this in educating people who would normally not see it, do you think that's…

220
00:25:02.240 --> 00:25:12.320
Avi Chomsky: Perhaps gonna become a bigger thing, as we kind of move forward in history, or do you think that this maybe was just, a one-off or a fluke?

221
00:25:13.020 --> 00:25:19.850
Joe Sacco: I don't think it's a one-off. I know there are a lot of other cartoonists that are working in the field of nonfiction, and even journalism.

222
00:25:20.060 --> 00:25:25.160
Joe Sacco: And I know that comics are now being introduced into curricula.

223
00:25:25.560 --> 00:25:32.510
Joe Sacco: Around the country, I've spoken to a lot of universities, for example,

224
00:25:35.090 --> 00:25:42.510
Joe Sacco: I guess I think that's a good thing. I'm glad people are introduced to these subjects, but I always hope that people don't stop there. I mean…

225
00:25:42.660 --> 00:25:45.869
Joe Sacco: what I hope… You're not gonna get…

226
00:25:46.030 --> 00:25:54.049
Joe Sacco: a complete representation of what's going on in the Palestinian territories, or any subject, really, from one book.

227
00:25:54.670 --> 00:26:00.329
Joe Sacco: There are many others to read, and I would always encourage people to read prose, also.

228
00:26:00.610 --> 00:26:07.019
Joe Sacco: to get another… Some other… some other perspective, or some other form of the depth.

229
00:26:07.230 --> 00:26:12.210
Joe Sacco: Of course, I'm trying to be as deep as possible, with my own work.

230
00:26:12.530 --> 00:26:23.590
Joe Sacco: But, of course, I've learned so much from nonfiction prose that I wouldn't say, oh, let's just read comics and that's gonna be enough. But I do think you're right. I think it's going forward.

231
00:26:23.920 --> 00:26:28.369
Joe Sacco: I hate to say it, but it seems like we're getting to that…

232
00:26:28.740 --> 00:26:33.669
Joe Sacco: As some people have said, post-literate stage, where people just don't read that much.

233
00:26:33.950 --> 00:26:35.649
Avi Chomsky: That, to me, is really…

234
00:26:35.650 --> 00:26:36.750
Joe Sacco: Unfortunate.

235
00:26:39.450 --> 00:26:46.880
Avi Chomsky: Well, that's all I have for questions for you, so we're actually going to turn it over to the crowd to ask a couple of questions, so thank you so much.

236
00:26:46.880 --> 00:26:47.520
Joe Sacco: Thank you, Max.

237
00:26:47.520 --> 00:26:49.789
Avi Chomsky: Thank you so much for, meeting with us.

238
00:26:49.790 --> 00:26:52.150
Joe Sacco: Oh, it's my pleasure. It's my pleasure.

239
00:26:54.810 --> 00:27:07.599
Avi Chomsky: All right, and thank you again for that. And so we're encouraging students to ask questions before we, take questions from non-students. What was that? Oh, sorry.

240
00:27:08.870 --> 00:27:22.560
Avi Chomsky: Build that up a little bit. And so, if you have a question, either you can come up here and ask it on screen, or I could try to reiterate it for you, whichever you prefer. So, does anyone have a question?

241
00:27:23.610 --> 00:27:25.000
Avi Chomsky: In the audience.

242
00:27:25.810 --> 00:27:28.359
Avi Chomsky: Let's talk about the people first. Okay.

243
00:27:29.340 --> 00:27:35.740
Avi Chomsky: Well, it seems like while folks are… are pondering their questions, Avi, has one.

244
00:27:39.160 --> 00:27:56.210
Avi Chomsky: I always have a question while everyone else is thinking, so please, be thinking of what you want to ask. But I just wanted to thank you very much, but also, I was so struck by the way you described your, coming to consciousness on this issue, because I felt like you were speaking for me!

245
00:27:56.300 --> 00:28:05.450
Avi Chomsky: the summer of 1982, the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, the Sabran Shatila massacre, and the questions you were asking yourself of

246
00:28:05.450 --> 00:28:19.030
Avi Chomsky: okay, where am I? Who am I? What can I do? And I was at Berkeley at the time, and we were just like, okay, we have to develop a course on Palestine. We… we have to have a citywide initiative, for,

247
00:28:19.220 --> 00:28:33.510
Avi Chomsky: for divesting from the settlements. And yeah, that feeling at that moment that a two-state solution was still really possible, and that focusing on the Israeli occupation was the thing to focus on because a two-state solution was possible.

248
00:28:33.530 --> 00:28:45.679
Avi Chomsky: But the other thing I was thinking about as you were speaking is, you know, you said, well, of course I've been accused of anti-Semitism, it goes with the territory, and I was thinking of that over the long period of time as well.

249
00:28:45.790 --> 00:28:53.889
Avi Chomsky: And something I've been asking myself constantly is where we are at the current moment, because it's both

250
00:28:54.250 --> 00:29:04.779
Avi Chomsky: in terms of how support for Palestinian rights is understood in the United States, and how it's manipulated, how it's been manipulated.

251
00:29:04.780 --> 00:29:23.019
Avi Chomsky: how anti-Semitism has been manipulated, because in some ways, I feel like it's just more of the same, but in some ways, I feel like we're in a kind of a evolving era with respect to that. So I just wondered what your take is on the current moment in terms of the U.S. and the question of Palestine in the U.S.

252
00:29:24.490 --> 00:29:34.360
Joe Sacco: Okay, thanks, Avi. I get the impression… That, especially the younger people,

253
00:29:35.220 --> 00:29:41.790
Joe Sacco: have a quite different take. The generations have sort of changed, and I think the young people…

254
00:29:43.360 --> 00:29:45.380
Joe Sacco: I think it's because of the phones.

255
00:29:46.040 --> 00:29:47.810
Joe Sacco: They were able to see

256
00:29:49.450 --> 00:29:53.819
Joe Sacco: You know, whatever you can say about phones, what it… it was sort of this,

257
00:29:54.090 --> 00:29:57.590
Joe Sacco: raw feed of what was going on in Gaza.

258
00:29:59.250 --> 00:30:04.330
Joe Sacco: And I think… People had a visceral reaction to that.

259
00:30:04.800 --> 00:30:12.549
Joe Sacco: And I think having that visceral reaction, just sort of saying, this can't be true, it can't be right, it's just so… it's so repulsive.

260
00:30:12.670 --> 00:30:19.119
Joe Sacco: I think there was a visceral reaction, and then maybe a desire to learn. So I think…

261
00:30:19.410 --> 00:30:28.890
Joe Sacco: younger people especially, but also I think it seems clear that the population in general in the United States has shifted their views

262
00:30:29.020 --> 00:30:32.240
Joe Sacco: on the issue, And I think…

263
00:30:32.910 --> 00:30:43.579
Joe Sacco: I'm not sure if there's any going back from that. I think what Israel has done now has really… they've painted themselves in a certain way, and that's going to be very difficult

264
00:30:44.530 --> 00:30:51.790
Joe Sacco: to change. And I think what we're also seeing is because the narrative has changed so… so much.

265
00:30:52.550 --> 00:30:59.190
Joe Sacco: The effort, then, is… to… Not to have a…

266
00:30:59.750 --> 00:31:05.069
Joe Sacco: Not to compete with the new narrative, But to shut down.

267
00:31:05.180 --> 00:31:09.799
Joe Sacco: the new narrative. I mean, that's what's obviously been going on in universities.

268
00:31:10.390 --> 00:31:14.720
Joe Sacco: It seems like the Academy in general has failed.

269
00:31:14.830 --> 00:31:16.909
Joe Sacco: Students in this regard.

270
00:31:17.180 --> 00:31:25.600
Joe Sacco: And you see now, with the takeover of certain news organizations and social media platforms.

271
00:31:26.260 --> 00:31:31.279
Joe Sacco: It's a realization that they can't really counter the narrative, so control…

272
00:31:31.490 --> 00:31:33.790
Avi Chomsky: Everything that delivers a narrative.

273
00:31:34.290 --> 00:31:37.800
Joe Sacco: And I think, ultimately, scare people.

274
00:31:37.920 --> 00:31:40.809
Joe Sacco: Using the force of the state.

275
00:31:40.950 --> 00:31:43.459
Joe Sacco: To shut people up and intimidate them.

276
00:31:43.630 --> 00:31:49.880
Joe Sacco: I mean, the Academy was doing that, to some extent, but… Just the fact that…

277
00:31:50.030 --> 00:31:58.619
Joe Sacco: People are being arrested, foreign students are being arrested for what… for, what they're saying about the issue.

278
00:31:59.980 --> 00:32:02.219
Joe Sacco: is… I think it's meant to intimidate

279
00:32:04.130 --> 00:32:15.789
Joe Sacco: American… American citizens also. We're… I think we're no longer… clear about what… what… Citizenship or residency.

280
00:32:16.020 --> 00:32:18.359
Joe Sacco: in the United States actually means.

281
00:32:19.000 --> 00:32:22.600
Joe Sacco: So… It's a scary moment.

282
00:32:23.260 --> 00:32:26.399
Joe Sacco: It's a scary moment.

283
00:32:28.750 --> 00:32:37.499
Avi Chomsky: All right, thank you. And, does anyone else have a question? All right, we have a couple. I will call… would you like to say it from there, or come up here?

284
00:32:38.260 --> 00:32:38.850
Avi Chomsky: I agree.

285
00:32:38.850 --> 00:32:42.660
Joe Sacco: It's nicer, you know, it's nicer if they come up, because it's Look at a blank screen.

286
00:32:46.900 --> 00:32:59.240
Avi Chomsky: Hi. Hi. My name is Andrew, I'm a student here. And you mentioned that there was, like, the strength of drawing was the ability to put the reader in the room, with the person that you were interviewing.

287
00:32:59.320 --> 00:33:13.930
Avi Chomsky: And I'm just wondering, like, on a technical craft level, did you do sketches, on-site, in real time, or did you do some of them at home, like, at home later from your notes? And do you feel like there was any sort of, like.

288
00:33:14.190 --> 00:33:23.479
Avi Chomsky: I guess, emotional difference for you while you were doing those kind of bigger sketches on-site versus away from the actual site of the interview?

289
00:33:24.010 --> 00:33:28.099
Joe Sacco: Oh, that's… that's an interesting question. It's Andrew.

290
00:33:28.100 --> 00:33:28.750
Avi Chomsky: Yes.

291
00:33:29.340 --> 00:33:32.360
Joe Sacco: You know, I'm not much of a sketcher.

292
00:33:32.580 --> 00:33:40.709
Joe Sacco: So, I would take photographs. I would ask if I could take a photograph, and then I would use that photograph as a reference.

293
00:33:43.700 --> 00:33:54.939
Joe Sacco: because I was trained as a… I was trained as a prose, as a print journalist, I always thought in terms of just interviewing, interviewing, and interviewing, and just taking notes, and just being kind of present.

294
00:33:55.340 --> 00:34:04.769
Joe Sacco: Other cartoonists I know who do work that's similar, they sketch as a way of starting conversations with people. But there's… everyone's different in that regard.

295
00:34:05.140 --> 00:34:08.420
Joe Sacco: But, yeah, not so many, not so many sketches.

296
00:34:08.739 --> 00:34:16.429
Joe Sacco: I've learned to sketch things that it might be, problematic to take a photograph of, like checkpoints.

297
00:34:17.139 --> 00:34:32.329
Joe Sacco: Where it's a military position, and you're not allowed to take a picture. If you're in a taxi with other people, these shared taxis they have there, I'm not gonna raise my camera and take a picture and maybe endanger everyone in the taxi.

298
00:34:32.639 --> 00:34:37.210
Joe Sacco: So, I would sketch, things like that.

299
00:34:40.170 --> 00:34:49.749
Joe Sacco: As far as the drawings, to be honest, the drawings are actually… it was harder… it was harder to work on these off-site, even…

300
00:34:49.870 --> 00:34:55.059
Joe Sacco: Years or months later than it was to be there hearing these stories and seeing these things.

301
00:34:55.780 --> 00:35:04.150
Joe Sacco: When you're interviewing someone, you're really… you're trying to get a story. You're trying to sort of…

302
00:35:04.440 --> 00:35:05.600
Joe Sacco: find out

303
00:35:05.810 --> 00:35:15.140
Joe Sacco: Something about their experiences, and often what people do, they get distracted, they drift into another story, and you're kind of hurting the person.

304
00:35:17.920 --> 00:35:22.760
Joe Sacco: along the lines that, you know, this is… well, I want to find out what happened to your olive trees.

305
00:35:22.900 --> 00:35:31.529
Joe Sacco: But if they're talking about something else, you might want to get to that later, but you need to sort of control the situation in a certain level. And so it becomes kind of a…

306
00:35:31.810 --> 00:35:42.430
Joe Sacco: a cool science, if you want to call it that. Journalism, practiced that way, sort of a cool science, and I'm okay with it. But when you're drawing, you suddenly have to inhabit

307
00:35:42.570 --> 00:35:46.349
Joe Sacco: the experience Of that person.

308
00:35:46.630 --> 00:35:58.060
Joe Sacco: you have to think about what they… what they really felt when that was going on, and you have to… you have to get more into the emotion. You're… it's… it's a warmer medium, in a way.

309
00:35:58.400 --> 00:36:03.969
Joe Sacco: And so it's more difficult. That's one of the reasons I mentioned I'd like to get out of it, because…

310
00:36:04.170 --> 00:36:06.979
Joe Sacco: After a while, it just burns you out, or burned me out.

311
00:36:08.650 --> 00:36:09.600
Avi Chomsky: Thank you very much.

312
00:36:09.600 --> 00:36:10.490
Joe Sacco: Sure, sure.

313
00:36:11.250 --> 00:36:14.620
Avi Chomsky: Wonderful. And, other questions, in the back?

314
00:36:14.950 --> 00:36:21.280
Avi Chomsky: Oh, we have a follow-up first, sorry, we'll get to you afterwards. This one's directly related.

315
00:36:21.670 --> 00:36:22.370
Joe Sacco: Okay.

316
00:36:26.010 --> 00:36:30.659
Avi Chomsky: Hey, Joe, I'm Margot Shea, I'm a faculty here in the History Department.

317
00:36:31.230 --> 00:36:39.489
Avi Chomsky: students put together the exhibit. I was, like, interested in this idea of burnout. There are some panels

318
00:36:39.490 --> 00:36:59.779
Avi Chomsky: in Palestine that I kind of see when I wake up in the middle of the night, and some of these characters are living with me. I think of a woman who, her husband died, one of her kids died, and then her other son was in prison. It was really hard for her to get to, and you, like, you created this scene

319
00:36:59.780 --> 00:37:06.500
Avi Chomsky: Where she's alone in a room, right? And it was so at odds with how Palestinian people live.

320
00:37:06.500 --> 00:37:25.029
Avi Chomsky: Right? Like, there's so much about your book is that people are in community, and these, like, these spaces of loneliness and absence and isolation was such a, so different from what we would have seen in the news, even while following the first and second Intifada.

321
00:37:25.030 --> 00:37:38.429
Avi Chomsky: And… and there are some times in your book where you, you know, you hook up with the Japanese photographer, and you make a friend, I can't remember if he was Scottish or Irish, but you kind of, like, make some buddies along the way, and so you're building these communities

322
00:37:38.580 --> 00:37:44.689
Avi Chomsky: And then there are times where it really feels like the work of what you just said, of inhabiting

323
00:37:44.980 --> 00:37:49.360
Avi Chomsky: These… inhabiting people's stories is exhausting.

324
00:37:49.470 --> 00:38:04.920
Avi Chomsky: And you're only there for 2 months, and you don't know if maybe you might have to leave sooner, right? Or whether or not you'll be able to come back. And it's like, it's such a woo-woo question, but it is an important question, like, how did you take care of yourself

325
00:38:04.940 --> 00:38:17.750
Avi Chomsky: Both in community and in solitude, in order for you to process everything that you were doing in a way that created something that was both so immediate

326
00:38:17.940 --> 00:38:20.529
Avi Chomsky: And so reflective.

327
00:38:20.660 --> 00:38:34.120
Avi Chomsky: Like, that to me, seems like the magic of what you do, and also it seems like you could just open up your vein and be like, here, this is my life force. So, I'm just curious about that, and also, like, extremely grateful

328
00:38:34.120 --> 00:38:45.179
Avi Chomsky: for the amount of yourself that you've put into your work, because it is so apparent, and it is so, like, it's not really talked about that much when I read interviews and stories about you.

329
00:38:45.430 --> 00:38:48.440
Joe Sacco: Oh, well, thank you. Thanks very much, Margo.

330
00:38:51.590 --> 00:38:58.460
Joe Sacco: Well… You know, comics, drawing… Is a very solitary…

331
00:38:58.610 --> 00:39:03.259
Joe Sacco: thing. I mean, I actually don't want people around me when I'm doing the drawing

332
00:39:03.460 --> 00:39:08.110
Joe Sacco: As hard as it has been, to… to…

333
00:39:08.410 --> 00:39:21.899
Joe Sacco: do the work. And I have to admit that at the very beginning, for, like, let's say the first 10 or 15 years I was doing this sort of thing, I was really okay. But over time, it just got… it just got more and more difficult.

334
00:39:22.220 --> 00:39:28.770
Joe Sacco: But… As hard as it's been, it's also been an enormous Privilege.

335
00:39:29.250 --> 00:39:33.229
Joe Sacco: To be honest, to… People have told you these stories.

336
00:39:33.360 --> 00:39:44.980
Joe Sacco: I mean, to me, that's why I was pulled toward journalism, because people would just tell you things. You could speak to a general, you know, some high politician, and you could be in a hut.

337
00:39:45.090 --> 00:39:51.680
Joe Sacco: in… you know, with Dalits. It's like, you're moving back and forth

338
00:39:51.790 --> 00:39:56.059
Joe Sacco: along this whole spectrum of humanity, and I can't think of a better…

339
00:39:56.240 --> 00:40:00.409
Joe Sacco: thing to be able to do, and I feel so lucky to have seen so much.

340
00:40:00.690 --> 00:40:05.290
Joe Sacco: And… So these people have given me their stories.

341
00:40:05.600 --> 00:40:13.609
Joe Sacco: And it's a privilege and a lot of responsibility. Maybe that's a big part of it, too. It's not just the drawing of violence, it's the responsibility.

342
00:40:14.960 --> 00:40:22.900
Joe Sacco: Because I want to get it right, I want them to recognize themselves, I don't mean the drawings of themselves, I mean they recognize their experience.

343
00:40:23.860 --> 00:40:28.440
Joe Sacco: And… That's… maybe that's difficult?

344
00:40:28.820 --> 00:40:33.080
Joe Sacco: Just as it's also… Yeah, an honor.

345
00:40:33.280 --> 00:40:45.240
Joe Sacco: Right now, I'm working on a book with Chris Hedges, the journalist Chris Hedges, who's a friend of mine. We're doing a book about Gaza. We were in Egypt interviewing Palestinians who got out of Gaza.

346
00:40:45.700 --> 00:40:47.819
Joe Sacco: And I'm working with,

347
00:40:48.250 --> 00:40:56.639
Joe Sacco: I'm only working on one story. We've interviewed a lot of people, but I decided to focus on just one story, and I'm in communication

348
00:40:56.820 --> 00:41:04.609
Joe Sacco: with this man in Egypt who tells this story about what happened to his family in this latest period.

349
00:41:05.450 --> 00:41:09.500
Joe Sacco: And… It's… it's…

350
00:41:09.620 --> 00:41:17.110
Joe Sacco: he's very helpful, he's very generous with his time and with his answers, but I'm asking him about… really…

351
00:41:17.590 --> 00:41:25.640
Joe Sacco: difficult things, I mean, because I'm going to draw some… you know, a writer can say a bomb fell and his brother was killed.

352
00:41:25.890 --> 00:41:34.630
Joe Sacco: But if I'm gonna draw that, and I have to sort of understand a little more about what happened, and to probe people in that way.

353
00:41:34.760 --> 00:41:38.079
Joe Sacco: is difficult, especially when he still has people in Gaza.

354
00:41:38.300 --> 00:41:41.709
Joe Sacco: And there's still a lot of pressure, you know, for him.

355
00:41:42.320 --> 00:41:43.470
Joe Sacco: So…

356
00:41:45.130 --> 00:41:54.379
Joe Sacco: I don't… you know, and I don't have, like, answers for this. I'm constantly trying to negotiate these things myself, every single day, and every day it's sort of a… it's a bit different.

357
00:41:55.580 --> 00:41:58.210
Joe Sacco: There's also vodka martinis on Friday, Saturday, and.

358
00:41:58.210 --> 00:42:00.210
Avi Chomsky: It's another…

359
00:42:00.210 --> 00:42:01.119
Joe Sacco: That's another part of it.

360
00:42:01.120 --> 00:42:01.700
Avi Chomsky: Yay.

361
00:42:01.700 --> 00:42:07.979
Joe Sacco: And I've got good friends, I mean, I've got good friends… you know, I try to… I try to… decompress.

362
00:42:08.620 --> 00:42:15.150
Joe Sacco: And I, you know, honestly, I try to laugh, I try to find ways of making my own life, relatively pleasant.

363
00:42:15.650 --> 00:42:20.050
Joe Sacco: Otherwise, I just don't want to sink, you know? I want to do some good work. I want to do some good work.

364
00:42:21.760 --> 00:42:28.969
Avi Chomsky: Well, that's probably the best advice you could give to all the students in the room on how to do this for the long haul. Thank you so much.

365
00:42:28.970 --> 00:42:29.870
Joe Sacco: Thank you.

366
00:42:32.100 --> 00:42:34.360
Avi Chomsky: We have another question person coming up now.

367
00:42:37.270 --> 00:42:41.000
Avi Chomsky: Hello, hi. My name's Zach.

368
00:42:41.300 --> 00:42:43.930
Avi Chomsky: I know this question might not be as,

369
00:42:44.200 --> 00:42:53.499
Avi Chomsky: heavy hitting, or… I don't know the word, but I guess just… we'll go with heavy hitting for now, as any of the other previous questions, but…

370
00:42:54.010 --> 00:42:57.690
Avi Chomsky: Is… is there anything in… is there anything in particular that's…

371
00:42:58.100 --> 00:43:01.189
Avi Chomsky: That, that inspired you to…

372
00:43:01.450 --> 00:43:05.839
Avi Chomsky: You know, start doing, like, illustrations and graphic novels and whatnot.

373
00:43:08.670 --> 00:43:13.910
Joe Sacco: you know, if… if I had got out of… I got out of university with a degree in journalism, and if…

374
00:43:14.430 --> 00:43:17.089
Joe Sacco: things had gone the way I had hoped.

375
00:43:17.730 --> 00:43:19.930
Joe Sacco: I wouldn't be doing this. I would be…

376
00:43:20.130 --> 00:43:27.500
Joe Sacco: probably working on a newspaper some way… somewhere with… I have to… hate to say it, with probably some of the same…

377
00:43:27.660 --> 00:43:33.990
Joe Sacco: Prejudice… prejudices and preconceived notions of any institutional newspaper.

378
00:43:34.210 --> 00:43:35.040
Avi Chomsky: Hmm.

379
00:43:35.040 --> 00:43:40.410
Joe Sacco: In some ways, it was really lucky for me that I didn't get a job

380
00:43:40.610 --> 00:43:47.010
Joe Sacco: right out of school in journalism. I worked in fact… I had to work in factories for a while.

381
00:43:47.380 --> 00:43:55.650
Joe Sacco: And, later on, when I did get a job in journalism, it was a very commercial enterprise. Anytime someone

382
00:43:55.960 --> 00:43:59.929
Joe Sacco: An ad salesman would sell an ad, he'd put a…

383
00:44:00.040 --> 00:44:07.240
Joe Sacco: Business card on my desk and say, this guy bought an ad in the newspaper, so maybe you want to write a story about his business.

384
00:44:07.550 --> 00:44:24.640
Joe Sacco: And that's not what I got into journalism. So, in some ways, I… I drifted away from it, and trying to… I tried to find my footing doing art. And I mentioned I was in Germany, I was in Berlin doing, like, you know, rock posters, album covers, just trying to draw.

385
00:44:25.060 --> 00:44:28.449
Joe Sacco: But… but I was also trying to do comics.

386
00:44:29.290 --> 00:44:36.439
Joe Sacco: So it wasn't like some epiphany made… led me to doing comics in this way. I've been drawing since I was a kid.

387
00:44:36.580 --> 00:44:42.840
Joe Sacco: It was something I fell back on because I was just not satisfied with… what I, you know.

388
00:44:43.130 --> 00:44:48.909
Joe Sacco: with the results of my university degree in journalism, it wasn't going the right way.

389
00:44:49.440 --> 00:44:53.950
Joe Sacco: So I just found another way, and I'm really lucky it turned out the way it did.

390
00:44:58.220 --> 00:44:59.049
Avi Chomsky: Great, thank you.

391
00:44:59.050 --> 00:44:59.740
Joe Sacco: Thanks, Zach.

392
00:45:00.260 --> 00:45:01.639
Avi Chomsky: You're very

393
00:45:02.090 --> 00:45:14.559
Avi Chomsky: All right, thank you. And, before we get to other questions, I have a quick follow-up question on some of the, on a number of the answers, that you provided. The conclusion

394
00:45:14.820 --> 00:45:25.130
Avi Chomsky: to… on Gaza, and the, preface that I referenced by Edward Said to Palestine, Carry with them…

395
00:45:25.540 --> 00:45:30.480
Avi Chomsky: This kind of… almost… Inescapable feeling of hopelessness.

396
00:45:30.780 --> 00:45:33.150
Avi Chomsky: Right? There's this conclusion that

397
00:45:33.490 --> 00:45:42.760
Avi Chomsky: the only justice that the dead of Gaza could imagine seeing still lies within fiction and poetry.

398
00:45:42.970 --> 00:45:52.850
Avi Chomsky: And as these narratives about Palestine are… as people understand them in America and the West, are shifting.

399
00:45:53.400 --> 00:45:56.509
Avi Chomsky: Slowly to being more…

400
00:45:57.030 --> 00:46:05.450
Avi Chomsky: sympathetic to Palestinians, encouraged by smartphones, and the fact that we are seeing it livestreamed every day.

401
00:46:05.650 --> 00:46:13.880
Avi Chomsky: As that popular opinion shifts, The genocide is still happening. Dispossession is still…

402
00:46:14.210 --> 00:46:24.380
Avi Chomsky: ongoing in the West Bank, as well as Gaza, how do you… maintain a…

403
00:46:24.760 --> 00:46:33.919
Avi Chomsky: a will to keep working for this, when it starts to feel almost like popular opinion here doesn't

404
00:46:34.550 --> 00:46:35.879
Avi Chomsky: isn't changing anything.

405
00:46:38.600 --> 00:46:49.489
Joe Sacco: Well, I… I basically do it because I have to do it. There's just something inside me that tells me this is the right thing to be doing, it's the right thing to be speaking up.

406
00:46:50.270 --> 00:46:51.520
Joe Sacco: what I…

407
00:46:51.890 --> 00:47:00.509
Joe Sacco: what I try not to consider, because I think it's kind of a fool's game in a way, is what impact I'm gonna have.

408
00:47:00.710 --> 00:47:09.510
Joe Sacco: In other words, I don't say, well, if I do this, it's gonna shift the equation. I mean, talking to your class, the fact that you've read my books, people there have read my books.

409
00:47:10.470 --> 00:47:26.849
Joe Sacco: I realize I am part of a, let's say, an educational process, but I also realize it's… I'm a very small part of that, and it's taken… it's a lot of other people doing the work, too, and maybe the narrative has shifted, and I think it has.

410
00:47:29.470 --> 00:47:37.100
Joe Sacco: It's hard not to sort of look at things very realistically, though, and see what really matters is what power's going to do.

411
00:47:37.980 --> 00:47:44.710
Joe Sacco: I mean, that's… I think one thing we… one thing you realize in the scheme of what's going on

412
00:47:45.040 --> 00:47:47.819
Joe Sacco: You know, we say we live in a democracy.

413
00:47:48.030 --> 00:47:54.959
Joe Sacco: And we say we have agency, or there's some level of agency in a democracy, well, what is our agency here?

414
00:47:56.030 --> 00:48:04.740
Joe Sacco: I mean, all you can do is get together with your friends and do what kids have been doing, students have been doing in, universities.

415
00:48:04.850 --> 00:48:14.799
Joe Sacco: you know, I'm doing what I'm doing, everyone's working towards something, perhaps, but it's all with… because that's what we can do, but you…

416
00:48:15.300 --> 00:48:28.329
Joe Sacco: this whole… Thing has made me… Question even more, the very framework of… Our institutions, our government, or…

417
00:48:28.660 --> 00:48:32.029
Joe Sacco: Or how we categorize ourselves as a democracy.

418
00:48:32.580 --> 00:48:35.870
Joe Sacco: So, it opens up other cans of worms.

419
00:48:36.540 --> 00:48:40.349
Joe Sacco: Like, if it's very clear that the people are against something.

420
00:48:40.670 --> 00:48:46.189
Joe Sacco: And you're gonna do it anyway, so well, who's actually pulling the strings? Why is that?

421
00:48:47.260 --> 00:48:50.959
Joe Sacco: And to me, it's not just a question of, let's say, no kings.

422
00:48:51.340 --> 00:48:55.000
Joe Sacco: I think we have to also really look at our representatives.

423
00:48:55.430 --> 00:49:01.410
Joe Sacco: You know, it… Or even the very nature of representative democracy and how it's played out.

424
00:49:01.700 --> 00:49:06.010
Joe Sacco: So, there are such big forces at play right now.

425
00:49:08.690 --> 00:49:14.930
Joe Sacco: I've decided for myself, I'm just gonna try to keep cracking away at it in the way I do.

426
00:49:15.680 --> 00:49:19.819
Joe Sacco: Maybe, at some point, something does change.

427
00:49:20.230 --> 00:49:22.500
Joe Sacco: And maybe it doesn't.

428
00:49:22.940 --> 00:49:29.449
Joe Sacco: But I'm just trying to do the right thing. I mean, it's just as simple as that. It's a moral impulse.

429
00:49:29.680 --> 00:49:42.720
Joe Sacco: And you… you have to follow the moral impulse, whether you're coming up against a brick wall, or you're with a million other people, too, and you're also coming up against a brick wall. You just… you just have to follow the moral impulse.

430
00:49:44.060 --> 00:49:46.729
Joe Sacco: That has its own value. That has its own value.

431
00:49:47.830 --> 00:49:48.620
Avi Chomsky: Indeed.

432
00:49:48.730 --> 00:49:50.869
Avi Chomsky: And other questions in the back.

433
00:49:56.820 --> 00:49:58.809
Avi Chomsky: I think she's introduces the skills.

434
00:50:00.000 --> 00:50:07.970
Avi Chomsky: Mr. Sacco, thank you for joining us here. My name is Colin Barreth. I'm actually a staff member here at the university.

435
00:50:08.350 --> 00:50:17.399
Avi Chomsky: You say you want to venture into, viewing things with a more philosophical lens. Well, I have a philosophical question for you, so let's test your resolve.

436
00:50:17.400 --> 00:50:19.040
Joe Sacco: -Oh, okay, cool.

437
00:50:19.040 --> 00:50:24.900
Avi Chomsky: No, I, you… I have a question about…

438
00:50:25.230 --> 00:50:31.970
Avi Chomsky: the nature and character of resistance. It kind of ties into the answer you started giving just before.

439
00:50:32.080 --> 00:50:39.489
Avi Chomsky: But… and I don't mean to characterize the inception of your work, it may not be that of resistance, but,

440
00:50:39.890 --> 00:50:55.340
Avi Chomsky: works like this, journalism, have the effect of kind of acting as a set of resistance towards, you know, power or things like that. But then, now, as you mentioned, we've changed the causes of the problem. You mentioned

441
00:50:55.340 --> 00:51:08.369
Avi Chomsky: We read less. You mentioned, we're controlling the spaces under which we… not just giving an anti-narrative or, you know, another narrative, just, actually controlling the spaces where the narratives take place.

442
00:51:08.370 --> 00:51:17.219
Avi Chomsky: You know, maybe more disassociation, more reclusivity. So, my question is,

443
00:51:17.750 --> 00:51:23.510
Avi Chomsky: there is an established element of journalism as a resistance, but I guess

444
00:51:23.680 --> 00:51:28.820
Avi Chomsky: When journalists are, being attacked,

445
00:51:28.820 --> 00:51:49.100
Avi Chomsky: physically, even, killed and things like that. What does the resistance to that look like, to the institution of truth-telling, to making sure that we're not moving too far away from, I think you talk about facts and how facts can be misused, but I guess the… the understanding of an objective truth.

446
00:51:49.100 --> 00:51:57.069
Avi Chomsky: What does resistance look like for journalists in that space, but I guess everybody else who benefits from having an objective truth?

447
00:52:00.860 --> 00:52:01.970
Joe Sacco: I mean,

448
00:52:05.470 --> 00:52:06.530
Joe Sacco: I think…

449
00:52:06.860 --> 00:52:15.589
Joe Sacco: when I got out of school, and when I began to sort of examine what was going on with the Palestinians, and how the media had portrayed it.

450
00:52:15.730 --> 00:52:19.930
Joe Sacco: I began to have a lot less focus on objective truth.

451
00:52:20.360 --> 00:52:28.850
Joe Sacco: I… I do think you can talk about objective truth, but not in the way that journalism schools talk about objective truth.

452
00:52:29.220 --> 00:52:31.260
Joe Sacco: Because journalism schools…

453
00:52:31.410 --> 00:52:38.310
Joe Sacco: Really, the emphasis is on getting, let's say, to make it simple, two sides of the story.

454
00:52:39.820 --> 00:52:42.069
Joe Sacco: The journalist is trying to get to…

455
00:52:42.830 --> 00:52:50.110
Joe Sacco: what actually happened. I mean, the word is sort of loaded, but to the… get as close to the truth…

456
00:52:50.380 --> 00:52:51.710
Joe Sacco: as possible.

457
00:52:52.460 --> 00:52:53.560
Joe Sacco: And…

458
00:52:55.590 --> 00:53:04.280
Joe Sacco: to me, that… that is, in some ways, that's a form of resistance against the dominant way stories are told, or journalism is practiced in the United States.

459
00:53:05.690 --> 00:53:09.090
Joe Sacco: It became very important for me to…

460
00:53:09.480 --> 00:53:17.130
Joe Sacco: really interrogate the word objective as I learned it, and I realized what I'm trying to get at, in some ways, is sort of an

461
00:53:17.600 --> 00:53:21.100
Joe Sacco: an honest perspective on something, so…

462
00:53:21.580 --> 00:53:26.100
Joe Sacco: in the… in my books, I try to show…

463
00:53:26.240 --> 00:53:30.770
Joe Sacco: my own foibles, I want to show how you can be manipulated.

464
00:53:30.920 --> 00:53:35.920
Joe Sacco: In certain situations, people can direct the story a certain way when they're talking to you.

465
00:53:37.950 --> 00:53:44.059
Joe Sacco: I want to show that sort of thing. I want to show the seams of journalism, interrogate my own role.

466
00:53:44.740 --> 00:53:52.469
Joe Sacco: in it. But, ultimately, Ultimately, I do feel like I…

467
00:53:53.400 --> 00:53:57.569
Joe Sacco: Resistance is part of my nature, and resistance is part of what I'm doing.

468
00:53:58.130 --> 00:54:01.500
Joe Sacco: But ultimately, I don't think of myself as an activist.

469
00:54:02.920 --> 00:54:09.409
Joe Sacco: Because… I'm trying to report something honestly, and sometimes…

470
00:54:09.680 --> 00:54:18.370
Joe Sacco: what I'm trying to do is show humans and all their complexity, And show that…

471
00:54:18.640 --> 00:54:21.210
Joe Sacco: People who are, let's say.

472
00:54:21.660 --> 00:54:28.390
Joe Sacco: victims, they're never victims with a capital V. There's… there's much else about them I'm trying to… I'm trying to get there. I'm trying to…

473
00:54:28.800 --> 00:54:31.709
Joe Sacco: interrogate that also.

474
00:54:36.330 --> 00:54:39.740
Joe Sacco: I'm trying to, show…

475
00:54:41.030 --> 00:54:45.950
Joe Sacco: victims… if someone's a victim, they're not necessarily an angel. I'm just trying to show that whole…

476
00:54:46.120 --> 00:54:49.599
Joe Sacco: That whole, aspect of it.

477
00:54:50.170 --> 00:54:51.280
Joe Sacco: So…

478
00:54:51.580 --> 00:54:57.349
Joe Sacco: I don't think I'm… I don't think I'm answering your question exactly, Colin. So maybe I have failed your philosophical,

479
00:54:58.960 --> 00:55:02.230
Joe Sacco: Be a bit more pointed, though. Tell me…

480
00:55:02.230 --> 00:55:06.439
Avi Chomsky: Sure. I… you know, I guess,

481
00:55:07.660 --> 00:55:26.499
Avi Chomsky: When there's an exercise of looking towards history to help figure out how you might act in the future, history may tell us that there is, a kind of resistance, regime that happens when there is, you know, governments or folks in power,

482
00:55:26.600 --> 00:55:31.470
Avi Chomsky: doing things they're not supposed to be doing. And I guess the, you know.

483
00:55:31.800 --> 00:55:56.249
Avi Chomsky: if you were to, you know, characterize that resistance, there's something that happened, right? Some sets of boycotts and sets of a collection of people and things like that. But here, we have, like you mentioned, phones that kind of has an effect on our behaviors and our attention, and, you know, I think we have moved away from, like I say, objective truth.

484
00:55:56.250 --> 00:56:01.220
Avi Chomsky: Only, I say objective truth in the sense that there's something that binds and connects us.

485
00:56:01.220 --> 00:56:04.949
Avi Chomsky: When there's an attack on not just

486
00:56:05.240 --> 00:56:09.240
Avi Chomsky: Journalism, but then there's a tack on the entire,

487
00:56:09.760 --> 00:56:19.480
Avi Chomsky: essence of resistance. What does that look like now, using our journalistic tools, or using any tools that we have?

488
00:56:19.500 --> 00:56:31.800
Avi Chomsky: and we could talk specific against some of the atrocities that we're seeing in Gaza, but I think whatever answer you have may be a framework for a larger set of resistance, you know what I mean?

489
00:56:33.180 --> 00:56:35.369
Joe Sacco: Well, maybe not entirely, but,

490
00:56:36.190 --> 00:56:41.610
Joe Sacco: the way I look at it is, what you do with journalism is you're trying to provide the raw material

491
00:56:42.150 --> 00:56:45.749
Joe Sacco: for people to use, and that's how I've always… I've always looked at it.

492
00:56:47.250 --> 00:56:56.079
Joe Sacco: You really… you really begin to realize it's super important, because it seems like we're constantly in a war of narratives.

493
00:56:56.800 --> 00:57:02.800
Joe Sacco: For example, the Trump administration is destroying

494
00:57:03.090 --> 00:57:06.699
Joe Sacco: small boats in the Caribbean.

495
00:57:06.910 --> 00:57:09.790
Joe Sacco: And they're claiming that these people are narco-terrorists.

496
00:57:10.270 --> 00:57:18.480
Joe Sacco: And… Journalists, what they should be doing is finding out who these people are, but also

497
00:57:18.720 --> 00:57:22.150
Joe Sacco: Questioning the idea of extrajudicially

498
00:57:22.810 --> 00:57:28.930
Joe Sacco: Killing people, even if they're accused of something, or if they've done something that's breaking the law.

499
00:57:29.470 --> 00:57:38.160
Joe Sacco: So… There's a lot that you can do within these, these narratives that are…

500
00:57:38.560 --> 00:57:46.859
Joe Sacco: foisted upon us. And to me, it's… I've almost come to the conclusion that it's all about narratives. It's all about how you spin something.

501
00:57:47.310 --> 00:57:54.270
Joe Sacco: So, narrative stories, at least, at the very least, presenting something in a certain way.

502
00:57:54.600 --> 00:58:00.389
Joe Sacco: Or presenting another viewpoint is, is super important.

503
00:58:00.990 --> 00:58:07.790
Joe Sacco: you know. I mean, we're… we constantly hear things like, well…

504
00:58:09.560 --> 00:58:12.969
Joe Sacco: everyone in Gaza is a human shield.

505
00:58:13.510 --> 00:58:15.780
Joe Sacco: And it's not… it's not a matter of just…

506
00:58:16.050 --> 00:58:21.559
Joe Sacco: Reporting that, and just saying, well, the president says they're human shields, and that's where you end it.

507
00:58:21.740 --> 00:58:27.870
Joe Sacco: It's incumbent upon you to sort of talk about what does that term mean, exactly.

508
00:58:28.820 --> 00:58:33.400
Joe Sacco: You know, who is… and who is using humans as shields?

509
00:58:33.750 --> 00:58:39.930
Joe Sacco: So it's… it's… there's… the narratives always just have to be interrogated.

510
00:58:42.460 --> 00:58:56.100
Joe Sacco: Now, does that get to an objective truth? It's clawing at something that isn't falsehood. It's trying to get away from, at the very least, trying to show a falsehood for being a falsehood. Getting toward the truth is another thing altogether, in a way.

511
00:58:58.750 --> 00:59:00.090
Avi Chomsky: Thank you, that actually does answer one.

512
00:59:00.090 --> 00:59:01.080
Joe Sacco: Okay, fine.

513
00:59:01.080 --> 00:59:01.770
Avi Chomsky: That's very good.

514
00:59:01.770 --> 00:59:03.070
Joe Sacco: Sorry I was so roundabout about that.

515
00:59:03.070 --> 00:59:04.140
Avi Chomsky: Not at all.

516
00:59:06.100 --> 00:59:09.220
Avi Chomsky: We have, one in the back. Here.

517
00:59:15.400 --> 00:59:17.259
Avi Chomsky: And remember to introduce yourself.

518
00:59:19.420 --> 00:59:34.409
Avi Chomsky: Hi, Joe. I'm another Andrew. I teach history at Salem State. I'm currently an administrator. Thank you for your talk, your perspective, your book, and your courage. As you know, we're here today

519
00:59:34.410 --> 00:59:43.990
Avi Chomsky: as part of an honoring of Indigenous Peoples Month, and I was wondering if you could talk about that a little bit within the context

520
00:59:44.090 --> 00:59:48.799
Avi Chomsky: of the work that you've done, in Gaza and Palestine.

521
00:59:49.120 --> 00:59:54.779
Avi Chomsky: More specifically, this originally was Native American History Month.

522
00:59:54.790 --> 01:00:12.449
Avi Chomsky: it has changed to Indigenous Peoples Month in order to recognize global connections, and so I'm curious as to whether or not you see connections between the Native American experience and that of

523
01:00:12.510 --> 01:00:14.010
Avi Chomsky: Palestinians.

524
01:00:14.190 --> 01:00:29.630
Avi Chomsky: I would also be interested to know if you see Palestinians as people who are indigenous to the region, and in turn, are Jews in Israel indigenous to the region

525
01:00:29.770 --> 01:00:32.149
Avi Chomsky: And if not, what are they?

526
01:00:32.820 --> 01:00:33.710
Joe Sacco: Oh, God.

527
01:00:36.230 --> 01:00:39.300
Joe Sacco: I mean…

528
01:00:39.300 --> 01:00:41.430
Avi Chomsky: Yeah, that's funny.

529
01:00:41.760 --> 01:00:47.130
Joe Sacco: There was always a… Jewish population in… in Palestine.

530
01:00:47.320 --> 01:00:55.540
Joe Sacco: there's always been the Jewish population in Palestine. I mean, many people left, many people…

531
01:00:55.730 --> 01:01:02.310
Joe Sacco: it was reduced quite a lot, but if you go to… if you go to Hebron, a place like Hebron.

532
01:01:02.460 --> 01:01:09.160
Joe Sacco: there was a Jewish community there until, late 20s, early 30s, when there was a massacre of Jews there.

533
01:01:09.260 --> 01:01:17.819
Joe Sacco: But they were, like, hundreds of Jews who lived there, Sephardic Jews who'd come over in the 1400s.

534
01:01:17.950 --> 01:01:23.140
Joe Sacco: So it's not as if… Jews… weren't Indigenous themselves.

535
01:01:23.630 --> 01:01:26.960
Joe Sacco: I mean, the question could be…

536
01:01:27.820 --> 01:01:35.399
Joe Sacco: are… I mean, the question is, I guess, are people who… Didn't live there for…

537
01:01:36.260 --> 01:01:45.680
Joe Sacco: centuries Indigenous. I mean, that's a complicated one. I think you can definitely say that Jewish people have a connection to that land. I mean.

538
01:01:45.870 --> 01:01:48.469
Joe Sacco: Clearly, they have a connection to that land.

539
01:01:52.670 --> 01:01:57.840
Joe Sacco: But you also look at it through the lens of settler colonialism.

540
01:01:58.380 --> 01:02:00.420
Joe Sacco: I mean, I think you, you have to.

541
01:02:00.670 --> 01:02:03.550
Joe Sacco: You have to… you… you have to look at it

542
01:02:04.280 --> 01:02:08.479
Joe Sacco: Into what actually happened in the 1940s.

543
01:02:08.770 --> 01:02:17.900
Joe Sacco: And you see that… a people's returned, I'll use that term, returned, But in doing that.

544
01:02:18.200 --> 01:02:23.290
Joe Sacco: Others who were indigenous, were displaced.

545
01:02:24.560 --> 01:02:26.509
Joe Sacco: And kicked off their land.

546
01:02:26.960 --> 01:02:33.130
Joe Sacco: So, to me, it's always… Indigenous experiences are always about land.

547
01:02:33.510 --> 01:02:37.430
Joe Sacco: Or… Pretty much, that's the towering thing.

548
01:02:37.730 --> 01:02:44.259
Joe Sacco: And I also did a book about, the Dene people in Northwest Territories of Canada.

549
01:02:45.590 --> 01:02:47.520
Joe Sacco: And it's also about land.

550
01:02:48.200 --> 01:02:49.910
Joe Sacco: It's also about…

551
01:02:50.470 --> 01:03:02.929
Joe Sacco: who controls it? And Indigenous people in that part of the world were of no importance to the Canadian government at all until gold and oil was discovered there.

552
01:03:03.190 --> 01:03:11.380
Joe Sacco: Then they had to formalize who these people actually were, and make clear that they didn't own the land, and that was done by treaty.

553
01:03:12.010 --> 01:03:14.670
Joe Sacco: But as Indigenous people there told me.

554
01:03:14.790 --> 01:03:24.180
Joe Sacco: Sure, we signed these treaties, and the treaties… I mean, if you're a white person, you get it. It's like, oh, yield, give up, surrender, all claim to the land.

555
01:03:24.420 --> 01:03:30.059
Joe Sacco: But, as Indigenous people told me, we thought it was a friendship treaty, and it was…

556
01:03:30.170 --> 01:03:35.260
Joe Sacco: not our land to begin with. We were… we never owned land, we were owned by the land.

557
01:03:36.290 --> 01:03:39.890
Joe Sacco: I mean, that's sort of a deep… that's a very deep connection.

558
01:03:40.260 --> 01:03:52.489
Joe Sacco: But ultimately, it's about… it's about land. Now, in Palestine, the land, it's not so much about resources, I don't think there's much… well, now there's natural gas off Gaza, so maybe that's part of it.

559
01:03:52.600 --> 01:04:00.150
Joe Sacco: But… It's literally about settling land, farming land, Building on land.

560
01:04:01.930 --> 01:04:14.069
Joe Sacco: Now… It seemed that… Whatever there was that was unfair about that situation, where where… Palestinians were kicked off

561
01:04:14.600 --> 01:04:16.120
Joe Sacco: Kicked out of their land.

562
01:04:16.280 --> 01:04:17.200
Joe Sacco: that…

563
01:04:18.020 --> 01:04:26.440
Joe Sacco: there were mechanisms, at some point, it seemed, it was possible, as Avi said, to have a two-state solution.

564
01:04:27.930 --> 01:04:35.710
Joe Sacco: that at some point, the political class of the Palestinians, not all, but the political class would… would,

565
01:04:36.620 --> 01:04:43.239
Joe Sacco: Basically, agree that they would have 22% of what was originally Palestine.

566
01:04:43.850 --> 01:04:46.349
Joe Sacco: But that doesn't seem possible now.

567
01:04:47.780 --> 01:04:51.379
Joe Sacco: You know, that doesn't seem possible now, unfortunately.

568
01:04:52.480 --> 01:04:55.560
Joe Sacco: So I'm not… I don't know if I'm getting at all your questions.

569
01:04:56.460 --> 01:04:59.660
Joe Sacco: But I'm at least skirting around them, somehow.

570
01:05:01.410 --> 01:05:11.919
Avi Chomsky: Is it okay if I ask a follow-up, or should it feed my time? Is it, because we have a hard out in 9 minutes, and there were some other questions… Yeah, absolutely. Thank you, though. Thank you, Andrew.

571
01:05:12.240 --> 01:05:15.580
Avi Chomsky: I did see some other, hands up in the back. Yes, please.

572
01:05:26.870 --> 01:05:37.130
Avi Chomsky: Hello. Thank you for coming. I'm Annette. I'm a faculty member in history. So, I'm gonna make this a question, not a comment, but I want to say

573
01:05:37.430 --> 01:05:49.770
Avi Chomsky: what… so my world is prose, right? I research and write history, and I'm really lost in prose all the time, but in looking at your work, what really struck me and kind of lingers in my mind are the faces.

574
01:05:49.940 --> 01:05:52.100
Avi Chomsky: And so I… you know, I…

575
01:05:52.250 --> 01:05:57.700
Avi Chomsky: there's other things when I think hard, I remember other parts of the images, but I wondered if you could talk about

576
01:05:57.830 --> 01:06:14.010
Avi Chomsky: the faces, and if you also see them as kind of central to your art, and as I reflect on, you know, these faces and how they… they stay with me, I… I think, just to editorialize a bit, that it's kind of… you're giving face to people that oftentimes don't have individual faces.

577
01:06:14.090 --> 01:06:20.260
Avi Chomsky: As we talk about them in the news. So, if you could just carry us into your art a little bit and talk about that.

578
01:06:20.960 --> 01:06:24.829
Joe Sacco: Sure, Annette. Yeah, the faces are central.

579
01:06:25.240 --> 01:06:29.400
Joe Sacco: And you're right, it helps individualize

580
01:06:30.330 --> 01:06:33.670
Joe Sacco: the people. I'm always struck when I read

581
01:06:35.200 --> 01:06:39.649
Joe Sacco: Let's say, historical accounts that have a lot of figures in them, and some recur.

582
01:06:40.180 --> 01:06:48.400
Joe Sacco: Often, I get lost, and I say, oh, it doesn't really matter, this was someone who showed up, obviously, someone who was in earlier on, but I can't really remember what was going on.

583
01:06:49.240 --> 01:06:53.209
Joe Sacco: If I saw a face, I'd probably have an easier time

584
01:06:53.420 --> 01:06:58.790
Joe Sacco: Of keeping the whole arc of their story straight within the larger narrative.

585
01:06:59.320 --> 01:07:05.489
Joe Sacco: I think that's one of… one of the powers of using the faces. It's like you…

586
01:07:06.830 --> 01:07:10.159
Joe Sacco: It helps you keep the story straight in your own head.

587
01:07:10.650 --> 01:07:18.759
Joe Sacco: The faces are interesting, too, because I never… or I try, I really try not to show…

588
01:07:19.320 --> 01:07:20.490
Joe Sacco: too much.

589
01:07:20.830 --> 01:07:27.450
Joe Sacco: expression in the faces if the people weren't being expressive, because I've had many experiences where people…

590
01:07:27.860 --> 01:07:29.579
Joe Sacco: Are telling a story

591
01:07:30.020 --> 01:07:35.260
Joe Sacco: And, like, I remember being in Bosnia and talking to someone, and he had the most horrific story.

592
01:07:37.600 --> 01:07:45.689
Joe Sacco: And he was telling me the story, but it was almost like a deadpan, and with one eye on a soccer game that was going on on a television set.

593
01:07:46.500 --> 01:07:47.780
Joe Sacco: above his head.

594
01:07:48.420 --> 01:07:57.409
Joe Sacco: So… I've always tried also not to overdo the expression on faces, because people often have very flat

595
01:07:58.100 --> 01:08:02.909
Joe Sacco: flat expressions when they're telling you stories, so I… sometimes I try to reflect that.

596
01:08:03.350 --> 01:08:06.380
Joe Sacco: And not… not be overdramatic.

597
01:08:06.500 --> 01:08:09.610
Joe Sacco: In it. So I do take care with that.

598
01:08:10.290 --> 01:08:13.750
Avi Chomsky: Alright, thank you. Maybe that's why your faces feel so real.

599
01:08:13.910 --> 01:08:15.410
Joe Sacco: Oh, good, I'm glad to hear it.

600
01:08:16.870 --> 01:08:20.510
Avi Chomsky: All right, thank you, and do you think we should do the, now it's…

601
01:08:21.740 --> 01:08:25.949
Avi Chomsky: Do we have another question in the audience? A quick one.

602
01:08:27.040 --> 01:08:41.599
Avi Chomsky: Otherwise, we should close so that we get down. Right. And I, our other MC will, help with the conclusion. I have to head out, sadly. I do plan on emailing you a follow-up question, though, if that's okay. Thank you so much for coming.

603
01:08:41.600 --> 01:08:42.410
Joe Sacco: Sure, Warren.

604
01:08:45.800 --> 01:09:06.830
Avi Chomsky: I think that was an excellent conclusion. I feel redundant right now, but thank you, everybody, for coming. Thank you, Joe, so much. I think in some ways, what you've talked about has, like, inspired as many questions, judging from all the people who, you know, may be asking you follow-up questions, you know, as many of you answered, and it's just, it's an incredible work, and I think we all appreciate what we're doing.

605
01:09:07.050 --> 01:09:09.550
Joe Sacco: Oh, thank you. It was really a pleasure talking to you.

606
01:09:10.410 --> 01:09:16.510
Avi Chomsky: I just wanted to show you the room. I can do this without unplugging anything, so that you can see all the.

607
01:09:16.510 --> 01:09:16.870
Joe Sacco: Hello, everyone.

608
01:09:17.369 --> 01:09:20.589
Joe Sacco: Nice to see your shining faces.

609
01:09:23.240 --> 01:09:24.880
Avi Chomsky: Good idea, Avi.

610
01:09:25.510 --> 01:09:34.390
Avi Chomsky: Thank you so much, and everyone who's here, please join us downstairs for the exhibit opening and grab some food on your way out, and thank you so much, Joe, and .

611
01:09:34.390 --> 01:09:37.610
Joe Sacco: It was a real pleasure. Nice to meet you virtually.

612
01:09:41.460 --> 01:09:42.020
Joe Sacco: Thank you.

613
01:09:42.029 --> 01:09:42.829
Derek Barr: Take care.

614
01:09:43.140 --> 01:09:44.200
Joe Sacco: Alright, thank you.