Welcome back to the Randomizer! And to quite an important
issue to start us off tying into the main point of this article. Refugees.
It’s been one of the main talking points in the past couple
years. People, humans, leaving Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and various other
countries seeking to make better lives for themselves or escape the devastation
of war. Yet in the face of it, there have been countries who have tried to stop
them coming through entirely, Hungry and Denmark being prime examples. In Great
Britain there had been talks about reducing the flow, or ‘swarm’ as David
Cameron called them though I’m sure he was talking about his bee-keeping duties
then, of refugees attempting to get through from Calais, some even dying in
their bid. This is despite our helping saving lives in the Mediterranean in the
past.
Yet since the beginning of this month, all of this changed.
Cameron has said now 20,000 refugees will be accepted into Britain over the
next five years. Germany and Austria opened up its borders to let refugees in
their countries, and provide an opening for those who wish to get to Norway,
Sweden and Finland. France too will allow 24,000 refugees in over two years.
Why all this sudden change? This is where I come to the main point of the
article:
The Power of Photos.
On the 2nd September, a three year old Syrian
child, called Aylan Kurdi was washed up on the beach in Turkey, drowned in the
Aegean Sea on route to Greece. There, Nilufer Demir of Turkey’s Dogan News
Agency took a photograph that, for many people, summed up the impact of the
risks that they had undertaking to reach new homes, and touched something in
people that ask leaders to bring in the refugees. It’s certainly given me
something to talk about, not just about the refugees, but a subject that’s
really been on my mind for the past week.
Deaths during the refugee crisis have been nothing new to
talk about. We have heard how people in Calais have died coming to England in
the Channel Tunnel, hit by trucks or cars, and those who had drowned in the
Mediterranean. But everything seemed to be encapsulated by this one photo,
something that struck our sense of humanity, a drowned child, an innocent
victim fleeing his country from war, only to die in the attempt with his mother
and older brother, the father surviving and bearing the tears of family loss.
There are those who say that photography isn’t an art. Well
then I’ll say ‘Guernica’ by Pablo Picasso isn’t a proper war photo.
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I shall start with one of the most iconic photos in history,
more specifically the Vietnam War.
For nearly 20 years from 1955 to 1975, Vietnam was a virtual
battleground for the Cold War, split into two after WW2. North Vietnam was
supported by the Soviet Union (Russia), China and other communist supporters.
The South supported by USA, Philippines and other capitalist supporters. US
presence had increased in the early 60s to stop the communist ideal spreading,
but opposition had grown more steadily among students and the growing
counter-culture movement to end the war. That opposition broke through quickly
with the great number of photographs taken, showing the reality of how the
conflict was conducted in a brutal manner. One photo that does that just simply
is the (in)famous photograph of execution.
How do you feel looking at that photo? Disgust? Sad? Horror?
It’s one of many photos that sent shockwaves through the world, seeing this man
kill a Vietnamese innocent in cold blood literally frozen in time. Eddie Adams,
who took the photo, won the Pulitzer Prize for this photo, showing the world
what the conflict had become, and begin a trend with more provoking photos
captured by others to follow suit.
But there is one thing photos can do like many other parts
of media. They lie. No, this photograph wasn’t staged in any way, it’s the
truth. But it’s not a totally black-and-white picture (No pun intended). That
man being shot? He was, as South Vietnamese sources said, a Viet Minh (not Viet
Cong) death squad commander, who already killed a South Vietnamese General and
his family members that very morning, at the time of a ceasefire. The man with
the gun? He was Nguyen Ngoc Loan, another South Vietnamese general whom had
apparently witnessed more killings by the man, or had questioned him on the
spot briefly, before truthfully killing him on the spot. Adams said years later
that the photo told a half-truth, and he expressed remorse for publishing it in
the first place saying: “Two people died in that photograph…The General killed
the Viet Cong, I killed the general with my camera”. True words, since Loan was
disregarded for the rest of his life because of the photo, forced to retire
from being a pizza restaurant manager in America after he was found out.
So even with good intentions, this photo is one example of
how pictures can manipulate the bigger picture so to speak, a photo being one
part of life that can say much, yet interpretation can say more. War has that
power to change and affect lives so dramatically, it either damages us or
empowers us. In this case and more of other photos it’s both, because it
empowers the commander as a victim of war, and in turn empowers those who wish
to end the war by using the photo to their own, sometimes misguided, views.
Ironic how this photo brings students to protest, about someone who killed and
admitted before he was executed he was happy to do so.
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The second photo will show how, in some respects, issues
still reside in society today, particularly racism, and the USA. I wonder who
knows where I’m going.
Racial tensions remain an undercurrent in American society,
especially more recently with the number of killings, the most recent in
Charleston where nine people died in Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal
Church. Martin Luther King Jr, Malcolm X, Barack Obama and many others have
affected greatly how the view of black people has changed over the years, and
continue to influence how USA views itself, and by extension how the world views
USA. Racial tensions reached their zenith in the 60s, as King and X fought for
equality in their country against those who, for lack of a better word, wished
for black people to remain subservient to whites, some whom I wouldn’t be
surprised to hear would laugh at the saying on the Declaration of Independence,
‘All men are created equal’. At the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City, Mexico,
this photo was taken.
Taken by John Dominis, American track and field runners
Tommy Smith and John Carlos (centre and right) raised their fists, known as the
‘Black Power’ salute, as the Star-Spangled Banner played, in protest against
racism in USA. Australian Peter Norman supported their protest by wearing a
badge of the Olympic Project for Human Rights, as were Smith and Carlos too.
Smith has said in interviews that the fist represented equality and human
rights, not literally ‘Black Power’ as the political group Black Panthers had
done themselves.
Their actions weren’t without consequence of the time. They
were booed as they left the podium, and Avery Brundage, President of the
International Olympic Committee, deemed it to be a political statement, unfit
for the apolitical spirit of the games. After threatening to ban all the USA
track team from the games, the US Olympic committee complied to ban both Smith
and Carlos from the games. Norman himself was ostracised by Australia for his
part in the protest, and refused part and all other male sprinters in the
following Olympics.
But this photo is distinctive to me, because despite the
work done for equal rights in USA they is still a underlying tension of racism
that seems, more to USA then others, unescapable. To the best of my
understanding, there remains a discord in different comparisons, such as equal
pay, violence and social justice, to name a few. It’s fair to say that though
black Americans aren’t supposed to be treated as second-class citizens anymore,
it’s undeniably a point that needs to be really looked again because if racial
tensions have simply gone into a subtle discord, it’s still racism, and that
photo, to me as interpreter, still has powerful significance.
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My last photo of the day is perhaps not as famous as the
others, but still holds as much significance in today’s world.
During the Arab Spring over 4 years ago where many Arabs
protested against various governments in the Middle East, Egypt was one of the
biggest forces of change in living memory. Seeing the pictures for myself, I
was transfixed by the sight of people protesting in Tahir Square, demonstrating
for change in their country. Before the Arab Spring took effect, on New Year’s
Day a suicide bombing occurred in Alexandra, killing 23 Coptic Christians. It
was said that Muslims were to blame for the attack. Yet on the eve of the
Coptic Christmas (6th January), many Muslims came in numbers to
protect the Christians in case attacks happened again. A month later, during
the protests against the then-government, Nevine Zaki took this photo of
Christians protecting Muslims.
This was a photo that went viral on the internet, spreading
fast and showing how two religions can really come together in times of huge
change and growing violence. I was quite surprised to find that the Daily Mail
had an article about it, and it was actually not that bad. Shock horror!
There never is an easy photo that invokes our humanity so
plainly in sight, yet this one sums that up perfectly. Because it’s two
different yet similar religions coming together under one banner, to protect
each other from attacks, and show that fundamentalism of any religion is really
like one man’s beliefs against the majority, if that makes sense. It also shows
how in an Islamic country, many people of the main religion are willing to put
themselves across to protect their fellow countrymen. In this time where
Muslims are persecuted by some people, there is hope for protecting each other
against something that can twist and distort, and thus turns us against each
other. To quote Mohamed El-Sawy, an Muslim arts tycoon who distributed flyers
on that night: “We either live together, or we die together”.
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So how do these photos reflect ourselves? There’s so many
ways, it’s indescribable.
Photos like the ones I’ve shown can show what we really are
in the world, even if there are some that can also manipulate. They give us a
sense of how we see the world for what it really can be. It is brutal, symbolic
and full of love. But without careful choices also can be interpreted in the
wrong manner, like the execution was clearly twisted without understanding the
proper meaning. Photography is both a blessing and a curse, that’s its power,
used for the realism and manipulation of mankind.
As an art-form I would definitely say it is one, because it
has that power to either show the world truly in reality or manipulate the
truth even accidently, as opposed to a painting and perhaps interpretation at
that. It gives us a sense of understanding and influences/enforces our beliefs
to give us the power to fight for what we believe, or if it’s like a casual
photo make us laugh.
That’s one view of the Power of Photos. It gives us a sense
of who we are and what we see in this world, its ability to change ourselves,
and the capabilities are endless…
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| Wonder if Alice can see her birthday banner from up here?.....damn no signal....Happy Birthday Alice! |
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That’s it for this month, and I apologise for not making too many jokes in this article. When I got caught up looking into this events, I do take in the serious side of things a bit more. See you in October!
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