“Imagine GIKIL as a large industrial beehive. And the workers as industrial bees. Coal mines as flower meadows and coal as black nectar. And coke as black honey,” the authors of the comic begin the story about the environmental pollution and corruption of the coke and industrial fertilizer factory in Lukavac, a small town near Tuzla in the east of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH).
“Crni med” (”Black honey”) is a graphic novel created by Sasa Dzino, Marko Gacnik and Damir Arsenijevic.
The story or, as the authors write, the construction of the beehive begins in Yugoslavia in April 1949 under the name Koksara (coking plant) Lukavac.
The graphic novel describes the origin of coking plant, what conditions the workers had during the Yugoslavian era, and the development and growth of the number of workers.
After decades of growth, in the 1990s, coking plant experienced a blow, with the collapse of Yugoslavia and the war in BiH.
The post-war coking plant falls into the hands of Indian businessmen through privatization and sale, and then the story of crime and increasing pollution begins.
Drawings of the characters and life of the Indian Mittal dynasty are shown, one of whose members is Pramod Mittal, a billionaire who was the majority owner of Global Ispat coke industry (GIKIL) in Lukavac.
Marko Gacnik, the author of the illustrations, said that their goal is to raise awareness and show the public the environmental problems that came with the privatization of factories, which, according to Gacnik, are today on the verge of causing an ecological disaster.
“It was interesting, but on the other hand, some of the real consequences left by environmental toxins can be really a bit painful, thinking about it and how to portray it. It all depends on your sensibility. I’m mostly very satisfied with what we’ve done and I hope that this cooperation will lead to at least some general awareness, at least a little bit, to raise it to a wider public”, said Gacnik.
After “Black honey”, the authors are also planning a comic related to Banja Luka’s Incel, a paper products and cellulosefactory. Previously, through a graphic novel, they problematized the life of the workers of the HAK industrial zone in Tuzla and the consequences of negligence in management, Slobodna Evropa reports.
E.Dz.
