[Reader-list] Images and Weapons

[Shammi Nanda]

One used to think that these days the wars are fought
not with the armies, but WTO and World Bank and their
pressure tactics, but one should not underestimate the
power of manipulations through images as they are one
of the most reliable weapon, wethter it is the Chinese
people sitting outside macdonalds in Peking or of
people fleeing Kabul.
Thankfully someone had seen the footage of Palestenian
boys earlier, but what of the image of people fleeing
Kabul, it could be of a normal bus and (a regular
bombay-nasik bus could be shot) and said people are
fleeing the city just to demoralise the citizens of a
country and Taliban.
The pictures in a lot of newspapers are same, and it
seems evey image is chosen carefully, its going
according to their plans, it seems they know which
image will go five days from today. Its like the film
story they are trying to make. Just that they have to
show the terror of pearl harbour and make it sink in
our minds as we had been talking 'too much' about
hiroshima. similarily the film called WTC, has already
started, it doesnot begin from the funding of Bin
Laden, but only from,  the attack on WTC, the first
day in the papers we see a pic of WTC crashing down 
and on the left people watching it, even matching the
eyeline, of three people, one white, one asian(could
be india or pakistan or...) and another hipsanic. they
are all shocked, and also in the background is a black
man standing, one had slight doubts as to why they
chose this pic, was it intentional or may be one is
reading too much into it, but the second day a black
policewoman consoling a crying white woman, with the
caption under it 'united colors of America', 
Second day one sees the mourning, cnadle lights and
all, third day bush in tight close up with tears in
his eyes, and an expression of sorrow turning into
anger, with posters carrying slogans 'today we mourn
tommorrow we avenge' or 'Nuke em'.One now realises
this it is not just a particular image chosen on a
particular day but the whole sequence or a montage in
which the first image stays with us for minimum 24
hours till we see the next image on the next days
newspaper.
Ya images are weapons but what do we say of the images
that were not shown, or clicked, they could find an
image of a sikh man taken by the cops, the incidents
prompted the sikh leaders to come on TV to say 'WE ARE
NOT MUSLIMS'(so while your attacks on muslims are fine
but spare us....) , but no phptographer clicked a pic
of muslims being attacked, probably it will jeopardise
their relation with their allies, like people from
Jordan who are shown kissing the american flag.
around the fourth or fifth day we start seeing the
pics of Laden, or a group of taliban leaders, all
huddled togeather looking scared, with shots of people
fleeing.....The image of Laden is important as that is
their target, and we have to identify our target first
to destroy it at 'any cost' or we will be like 'rest
of the world'. Its good that they have a target and
dstroying it they can prove their machismo.
And we watch the realistic film move on, with its
cause and effect logic till one day they kill many
people,but they will not show us the pics of those
killed by bombs or by lack of medicines due to the
sanctions.
In this story we dont know what will happened on the
20th day , but they know it and also know what picture
that will be carried on that day and the photographers
tickets will be booked in advance,as their
destinations are know to them, but may be we know this
much that many who are walking, talking, eating,
smiling, crying will not live after a few days, they
could be kids, women, men or any one, but the fact is
that their days are numbered, how many are going to be
killed even that they know but we don't.
But in the end they will make another Pearl Hrbour,
called WORLD TRADE CENTERE and not a film called
hiroshima, but in the news this time the film is 'FROM
WTC to Hiroshima or Kabul'. 

shammi

--- Shuddhabrata Sengupta <shuddha at sarai.net> wrote:
> Two interesting ideas can be drawn out of the
> discussions on this list for 
> the past few days. Its all about Images and Weapons.
> 
> 1.It is possible to lie with images 
> (whether or not the CNN footage of the cheering
> Palestinian kids is true to 
> the moment is less important than the fact that News
> Networks do sometimes 
> muddy the truth with images)
> 
> 2. It is possible for people to kill themselves and
> thousands of other people 
> for the sake of an image. 
> This image can be a picture of heaven, or hell.
> (here, consider - the image of an after life that is
> preferable to life as it 
> is - the program that ticks in the suicide bombers
> mind - as suggested by 
> Richard Dawkins's essay)
> 
> Why should we be so reluctant to accept this fact?
> 
> Images cause as much sorrow as they cause joy, or
> wonder. To pretend that the 
> realm of images and of image making is devoid of
> ethical dilemmas is to 
> presume that images are actually not about life as
> it is lived and about 
> death as it is died. 
> 
> We are happy to hold an ethical torch to science, we
> are happy to ask 
> difficult questions about technology, what makes
> religion, the spirit, the 
> arts, culture, holier than nuclear physics, finance
> capital or military 
> strategy ?
> 
> Once, someone said, "when I hear the word culture,
> it makes me reach for my 
> gun". It could be said today, "when you hear the
> word, gun, you reach for 
> your culture". As if guns and culture need not go
> hand in hand. They do, and 
> then again, they dont. 
> 
> The national anthems that goad people to war are
> also music. 
> The mysticism that produces jihadis, crusaders,
> dharamyoddhas is also 
> mysticism. 
> Just as the science that produces chemical,
> biological and nuclear weapons is 
> also science. 
> 
> There is nothing less scientific in a smart bomb.
> There is nothing less 
> musical in a war song, or less mystical in the cult
> of martyrdom. 
> 
> Anyone who makes images , or deals in images, or
> circulates images(artists, 
> photographers, filmmakers, new media practitioners,
> writers, prophets, 
> mystics, curators, art dealers) is as culpable, or
> not, depending on the 
> images, as those who make weapons, deal in weapons,
> circulate weapons.
> 
> Because some images can be weapons.
> 
> Just as some weapons ( planes crashing into tall
> buildings) can become 
> images, which in turn can be  used as weapons again.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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