Recently I read in a New York Times article that photojournalists are not being allowed to photograph - and certainly not allowed to print anything they do manage to get - anything the U.S. government deems too... shall we say, too real. The story was about a photographer not allowed anymore to even be near 'sensitive' areas in Iraq; from what I can tell, this is standard procedure.
I won't even discuss freedom of speech, freedom of information, censorship or the rest. That is certainly an issue but one (or many) I'll leave to others. For now I just want to focus on the basic concept that because of this sanitizing of the photos we see here in the U.S., many people still believe what we're doing over there is a good thing.
For the sake of this post I'll stay away from the actual politics and not talk about whether we have a right to be there, whether we should be leaving now or later, what lies were told to get us there in the first place, and I'll, again, focus on photos.
Anyone not an idiot has been sure to notice the lack of images of war in the news - we don't see the blood, the gore, the body parts. We don't see Americans dying. We hear cold numbers - 4,000. Four thousand and more dead in a war... and we see none of it?
We don't see Iraqis dying. The numbers here range from 10,000 - 100,000 depending on who you listen to - at its lowest, it's more than double the Americans who died.
And no matter who it is, we see no pictures. We don't see the screaming children covered in blood, the broken faces of mothers and fathers who have lost their sons or daughters in errant firefights, mistaken identity, stray bullets, or a suicide bomb. We don't see the shattered shops or homes. We don't get before and after images that shows us that Baghdad wasn't a backwater slum to begin with. This we don't see because it would make us monsters.
We don't see the destruction on the face of a young soldier who has just had to kill a man, who has seen his comrades die at his side, who has to live his life facing the fact that he is responsible for the deaths of tens, of hundreds of people. This we don't see because it would make us ask 'is it worth it?'
We don't see dead soldiers. At least, we don't see dead American soldiers. These we don't see because it would make it too real.
When we do see dead soldiers, they are nameless Iraqis. These we get to see because they are, after all, not us. They are 'other,' they are enemy.
Ultimately, we don't see this war. We get excuses: showing photographs of the dead will hurt the families; it will dishonor the dead; it is not the point.
Actually, it is the only point.
If Americans could actually see - in living, bloody color - what war does to people, they might think twice (or four times, or eight) about sending young men and women out to kill others.
If Americans could see - in living, bloody color - what death really looks like, they'd be a lot less likely to vote into office another man who would jump at the chance to attack, who believes war is inevitable.
And if Americans were actually allowed to see - in living, bloody color - what war truly IS, they would, I think, work harder to figure out how not to destroy lives in this way again.
As it is, we open the paper and see words on the page: another soldier died in Kirkuk, another suicide bomber killed 10 or 20 or 40; another house was mistakenly bombed and 5 children killed. These words might begin to tell a story, but for us to truly understand, we need to see it.
We need to see what we bring into the world. We need to see what our actions do. For if we cannot see - in living, bloody color - what five children killed really looks like, then that is the tragedy. That is the dishonor. And that is the path to yet more and more - and more - dead children.
I say let the photographers in, let them make their own choices about what is fit for us to see. It's easy. If you don't want to see what this war is, what it does, what we do - then don't look.
It is always our choice to turn away and to choose what not to see.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
Pictures did not stop the war in Viet Nam. We lived with pictures of the war/conflict as we watched the evening news daily for years.
I've heard some commentary to the extent that in fact the photos of the war were what kept people protesting, and led in large part to its unpopularity. But, I agree, photos in and of themselves don't stop war.
My point here is that to NOT allow photographs is allowing the rhetoric of whoever has the power to control what we see (i.e., the government, whomever) also control what we think war is. Without photos, war becomes 'casualties' and 'bombs' and 'guided missiles' and really sanitized images for those who have never been there. That in turns makes people more likely to believe that it isn't as horrific as it is.
My further point is that, if we expect, ever, to have anything resembling a world without this kind of horror, a world in which war is unacceptable, EVERYONE needs to be able to see what it really is. They need to know what they support, what they send their - and others' - children to do. And if they have the opportunity to look, if the images are there, and they then CHOOSE not to look... that is when they become complicit in the continuation of the death and dying of both innocents in whatever country our soldiers are, and our soldiers themselves.
Post a Comment