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Unmasking Corruption
Posted: June 25, 2010
Below, writer/artist Ben Dickson details the moving response to his contribution to Ctl.Alt.Shift Unmasks Corruption, the comics anthology launched at the 2009 Comica Festival.
It’s easy to forget that you can make a difference.
About a year ago, Paul Gravett, director of Comica, the London International Comics Festival, asked me to contribute to a new graphic novel anthology he was editing on behalf of Ctrl Alt Shift, on the theme of corruption. I chose to do a dramatic retelling of the murder of a Colombian university student named Jhonny Silva Aranguren, who in 2005 had been killed at the hands of the notoriously brutal Colombian riot squad, ESMAD. Jhonny had been studying in Valle University in the city of Cali, where on Sept 22nd a peaceful protest was violently broken up. Despite having not taken part in the protest, Jhonny was arbitrarily singled out and shot in the neck.
The day this happened, an international delegation of foreign students were at Valle University, who had come to record testimonies of human rights violations. Amongst their number was my friend Nathan Eisenstadt, with whom I and a few others subsequently set up Espacio Bristol Colombia - a small organisation that works to combat and raise awareness of human rights violations. After reading his diary, I decided to do the story from his point of view. Paul enlisted the exceptional talents of Warren Pleece to illustrate the story, and the rest is history.
But it always nagged at the back of my mind. This wasn’t a fictional story I was telling. I was talking about real people, and an incident the effects of which are still being felt in Cali today. Did I really have the right to tell this story? I never met Jhonny. I hadn’t been there, I wasn’t involved. I had Nate’s permission and support, but I worried about what others who were there would think.
The strip was well received, and Espacio felt a Spanish translation would be a good idea so the story could go back to Colombia, and help raise further awareness. I also decided that I should give a copy of the book to Jhonny’s family, Wilman Silva and Eneried Aranguren. So that my intentions were clear I wrote them a short letter explaining who I was, where I was from and why I wrote the story - and that I hoped they would find comfort in it.
In April Espacio member (and member of the original international delegation) Claire Hall took the book, the letter and the Spanish version of the strip out with her to Colombia. The intention had been to meet them privately and give them the book, but fortune brought them together when both Claire and Jhonny’s parents were invited to talk at a public hearing on human rights at Valle University.
From what Claire told me later, it was clearly hard for Wilman and Eneried to stand and talk to an audience about the pain of losing their son, and the impunity with which the Colombian state had murdered him. They were standing almost on the very spot where Jhonny was shot. Enereid Araguren broke down during their talk, and was unable to continue, but later when she had recovered, Claire approached them and told them she had something to show them.
When she read my letter out to them, their eyes lit up. They were amazed, delighted and overwhelmed by what Warren and I had done. They went through the strip page by page, pointing to Jhonny’s first appearance, saying “there he is!” and “that’s where he was shot!” (This may seem ghoulish to some, but you have to remember they have been living with the legacy of this event for a long time). In short, my concerns were unfounded. They loved it.
Wilman and Eneried decided to go back on stage, holding the book in their hands. Claire came up with them and read out my letter to the audience, and Wilman and Eneried talked about support. The support they had received from the Cali community, from solidarity organisations, but they also talked about the comic strip. They talked about how much it meant to them, that the idea of people in another continent - who had never met Jhonny, had never been to Colombia and didn’t even speak Spanish - telling this story to each-other made them feel less alone. In their eyes it weakened the impunity with which the state had murdered their son. It made them feel stronger.
I had no idea any of this was going to happen. I genuinely didn’t know how they would feel about what I had done. I worried about offending them. To say my fears were unjustified was an understatement.
There are many stories in the Unmasks Corruption book - mine is just one. Yet already it has had an impact. In however small a way, it made a difference. It told Jhonny’s parents and those at Valle University that they were not alone. Corruption, oppression and suffering are things that thrive in silence, and people who suffer often feel alone. To demonstrate to them that you are aware of their plight and that you care is a gesture that can make a big difference.
Granted, it’s a small step on a very long road. But the outcry over Jhonny’s murder, of which the comic is now a part, will - I hope - make it harder for ESMAD to pull the trigger next time.
It’s important to remember that we can make a difference.
Benjamin Dickson, June 2010
