After reading various articles from The Guardian and other newspapers its very clear there are mixed responses and biased views on war. Mainstream media yet again infiltrates the public into believing that countries such as Afghanistan and Iraq are nothing but violence, terror and bloodshed lands. An article I found first was about a book called ‘Life in War’ which focused on the humanitarian issues, with a special interest in telling previously untold stories of social injustice. The images to the right are from the book and were photographed by an Iranian photographer Majid Saeedi. The article mentions Saeedi was tempted to photograph the war on the front line but instead remained with the people. As he was able to speak their language, it enabled him to embed with the people, showing photographs of suffering and violence that they had endured for over a decade. Saeedi also mentions that the men, women and children are the main victims of war, yet they are not seen anywhere. Afghan women are under immense pressure with the enforced Islamic laws and traditions that dictate what a woman is allowed to do in a male-dominated world. Forced marriages, domestic violence, poverty and lack of access to education are said to be some of the main reasons for self-immolation, an example is a photograph to the right which shows a 20 year old female who burned herself when she was 14. Its clear the presence from western society, civil wars and conflict within the country all have an impact on Afghans society, the photographs have gave me more of a close up insight of the damaging effects of war, the worst thing is its still happening right now.
In comparison to the other article I read from the guardian this article takes a much lighter approach to the documentation of Afghanistan. Steve McCurry has been photographing the landscapes and people of Afghanistan since the 1970’s and they really are spectacular, it was quite refreshing seeing these images as in the west the mainstream news focus mainly on the violence, suffering and terrible poverty. The article explains that it was not always a country of suffering, in the 1960’s it was an ideal tourist location, with snowcapped mountains, relics from empires thousands of years old, deserts and lush valleys. The picture to the right described by The Guardian is of “a lone horse galloping past two pillars of rock at the Band-e Amir lakes, they seem like a mirage at first sight, vast bodies of perfectly blue water nestling several thousand metres above sea level in the heart of central Afghanistan’s arid highlands. There is a shrine and a few people come to bathe, but mostly there is a haunting emptiness captured by this picture.” I think the article puts things in perspective for us as human beings, we get sucked in by mainstream media to believe anything they say and are not aware of the true horrors people of war are dealing with. There is a definitely a call for revolution, looking to our politicians and priministers for comfort of non-existing promises is dead. This is definitely fueling my project to educate and inform the public to broaden their perspective of the world we live in.
