This is the "Pulitzer prize" winning photo taken in 1994 during the Sudan famine. The picture depicts a famine stricken child crawling towards a United Nations food camp, located a kilometer away.
The vulture is waiting for the child to die so it can eat it. This picture shocked the world. No one knows what happened to the child, including the photographer, Kevin Carter who left the place as soon as the photograph was taken.
Three month later, he committed suicide due to depression.
This was found in his diary ,
Dear God, I promise I will never waste my food no matter how bad it can taste and how full I may be. I pray that He will protect this little boy, guide and deliver him away from his misery. I pray that we will be more sensitive towards the world around us and not be blinded by our own selfish nature and interests.
I hope this picture will always serve as a reminder to us that how fortunate we are and that we must never ever take things for granted.
Please don't break.. keep on forwarding to our friends On this good day. Let's make a prayer for the suffering in anywhere any place around the globe and send this friendly reminder to others Think & look at this...when you complain about your food and the food we wasted daily........
After my initial reaction to the photo - balling my eyes out for ten minutes, I read the text. Apologies to Mum and Dad as I know they sometimes read my wee blog. You have got to be fucking kidding me. Nobody knows what happened to the child? How could anyone see such a thing and not want to protect him/her, pick up the wee child and comfort him/her? And as for the photographer... yes, it's a fantastic photo and deserves recognition but how could anyone witness something so heartbreaking, take a photo, then leave? I'm not surprised he killed himself.
Later on in the day, I received another disturbing email. Apparently, last year, an 'artist' tied up a dog, starved it and put it on display so people could watch it die. I'm crying again as I write this. As if that wasn't bad enough, the exhibition was so successful, he's been asked to do it again this year, in the name of 'art' of course.
There was a link to follow, included in the email but I haven't been able to bring myself to look. I'm still hoping it's a sick prank but I've heard from other people that it's quite legit.
What is the world coming to! Excuse me while I go and vomit.
Difficult picture to look at and difficult words to read.
ReplyDeleteIf you research him, you find that he chased away the vulture and the little girl continued her trek to the food station and he sat under a tree and smoked a cigarette.
ReplyDeleteYou would think he would have picked the little girl up and taken her to the food station.
Amazing!
You're not wrong Keith
ReplyDeleteWow, it's amazing all right, amazingly disgusting. Nice to see you back hun, I've missed visiting with you on the front porch.
ReplyDeleteAh my dear the world is full of these types of things.
ReplyDeleteWithout knowing the full story who are we to judge.
As for the dog one. Hang Him High and I ain't referring to the dog!
There's no excuse for any of it WS
ReplyDeletethat makes me so sad and it is beyond belief that this is one child and there are many who suffer each day. I guess we often forget how lucky we are but it is the responsibility of us all to change things for the better.
ReplyDeleteThe dog story is, unfortunately, absolutely true and the obvious solution is to tie the artist up and starve him.
It does annoy me. We spend billions on immigrants and asylum seekers. Money which could much better be spent on providing for these unfortunate people in their homelands. We've got it all wrong.
ReplyDeleteIt is very well written but there happen so many things in the world we can't understand.
ReplyDeleteI wished we had a peaceful world.
Thanks for your comments boys. I'm sorry to hear the dog story is in fact true.
ReplyDelete*sigh*
` Thank goodness! I think the dog-starving thing appears to be a misunderstanding.
ReplyDelete` The exhibit was supposed to give the impression that the dog starved to death because nobody would pay attention to a starving dog if it lived in the streets. The dog did eat and drink regularly and was later released.
` Indeed, why did the photographer not carry the child? I would have given her all the food I was carrying, at least - of course, maybe he couldn't? Maybe he already gave all his food to someone else?
Thank you, thank you SEE. I hope it is indeed a hoax.
ReplyDeleteIt IS an extremely disturbing image. And goes part of the way to explaining why the belief in a benign God has diminished somewhat. What has this infant done to deserve this?
ReplyDeleteWhat must she be thinking? Can she even think? Is she simply numb? Where are her parents? Why aren't they protecting her?
Shouldn't sterilization be considered until some semblance of control can be achieved over a situation that allows this to happen on an almost daily basis?
A violation of human rights? Maybe. But where are this child's rights? A basic one which surely must be to eat.
As I write, more children are suffering the same horror - and tomorrow - and the next day.
And we sit and watch on CNN on our plasma TVs. Before going out for dinner where we maybe eat it all - maybe not.
Meantime another baby crawls through the dirt...
For Christ's sake. A kilometre - one fucking kilometre. She could see the camp. Why couldn't they see her?
And what sort of man could take the picture, then chase away the vulture then not help the child. I mean, he got the picture, the prize. Literally 5 minutes, 300 seconds would've carried her to safety - at least for a while.
Surely he must be in hell.
Well said, Mutters!
ReplyDeleteNice to see you
` Actually, it's possible that he was being shuttled away by armed guards and was not allowed to do anything. Maybe that's why he was so depressed, that he couldn't stop and help people. Maybe he had nothing to give them, either.
ReplyDeletePeople condemn other people for things and situations they know nothing about. One of the horrible parts of being a foreign journalist, or even a local one, is seeing and documenting tragedy with out the power to intervene.
ReplyDeleteWe should be thankful of the power the picture has, and the good that has come from the international community being exposed to the reality of the situation. Even the most heinous person will spontaneously lunge forward to save a falling baby, so if a picture of a falling baby is taken, one can safely assume the photographer was not in a position to save it.
Ask any journalist in a disaster area, they will all tell you the same thing, if a journalist starts sharing their water, try to save people, ward of enemies, well, then they most often suffer the same fate of those they try to help, because journalists are journalists, not experts in aid, and most of the time they are in no position to give it.
Valid point, Lucas, but there must come a time when one must set aside the immunity of his/her 'position' and act.
ReplyDeleteWe're talking about a life here - not a hypothetical situation.
KB, seriously, stop 'approving' my posts! Haven't we discussed this?
ReplyDeleteSEE - We may never know what happened and that is a tragedy in itself.
ReplyDeleteLucas - Thanks for visiting. My husband shares your views *sigh*. I understand what you are saying and I agree the picture is powerful but what about the child? Many of the comments here defend the photographer and give him the benefit of the doubt but how does this picture stop the childs hunger and tears? How does taking this picture help the child? Who is here to defend the child?
ReplyDeletemutters - I don't think there was a 'discussion', if I remember correctly you expressed your opinion and I listened.
ReplyDeleteI'll repeat my original thoughts. I wouldn't dream of altering your comments, I have the moderation function enabled to ensure I can deleted comments from unwanted visitors and you my friend, don't fall into that category.
Aargh
ReplyDeleteM - You dissapoint me... I was expecting at least one profanity
ReplyDeleteHEHE!
` To make things more clear; what we're saying is that it is often the case that journalists will be shot dead if they try to help, so documenting situations to spread awareness so that these things are not kept secret is sometimes the best they can do.
ReplyDeleteMy point was that you folks have no idea what the circumstances were. I believe that moral people do everything they can all the time. I believe, wholeheartedly, that journalists and photographers are, most of the time, not in ANY position to help. Most often, if they are in a position to help, they do. A news story or a picture does not take 24 hour a day to complete, and most foreign journalists can tell all sorts of stories about helping in disasters and also stories about almost dying, both while trying to help people, and, simply because disasters kill journalists too. Again, ask yourselves " how many lives did the picture save?" or better yet "what the hell have I done besides bitch about stuff on blog comments?"
ReplyDeleteYeah, I understand what you are both saying SEE.
ReplyDeleteLucas - You have no idea of the circumstances either so how can you defend his actions? You and I both have no idea if he could have saved the child. We don't have the facts, all we have are our opinions, which are obviously very different. If I had taken such a picture and left the child to die, regardless of the fact if I could have helped or not...I wouldn't have been able to live with myself either.
As for what I have done; you are correct, all I've done is write about my impressions and feelings about the photo. This is my blog, I can write about anything I like. If you don't like it, don't read it!