We’ve all seen the picture.
I first saw it when I was in Secondary One. I can’t remember if it was a school-assigned reading article or from a newspaper clipping. But I definitely remember the photo. And to this day I still remember the photographer’s name. Kevin Carter.
It was an image so disturbing and inconvenient, that it was etched so deeply into my brain, haunting me to this very day.
The story:
Kevin Carter was a South African photographer. He begin his work as a sports photographer in 1982, but soon moved to the front lines of South African political strife, recording images of repression, anti-apartheid protest and fratricidal violence for several South African newspapers, and later becoming a freelance photographer.
He was arrested several times for violating a South African ban on reporting of domestic conflict.*
During a trip to Sudan in the March of 1993, he spotted this vulture stalking an emaciated child just a couple of feet away. He waited for the vulture to spread it’s wings to take a shot, but it never did. The above photo was what he got in the end.
It was sold to The New York Times and was published as ‘metaphor for Africa’s despair’. Overnight, hundreds of people contact the newspaper to ask if the child had survived, leading the newspaper to publish an unusual editor’s note saying the girl had walked away from the vulture but her ultimate fate was unknown.
Carter sank into depression after the trip. He won the Pulitzer Prize for the photo the following year. However, consumed by the horrific scene, guilt of not carrying the child away to safety and the mystery of the fate of that child, Carter committed suicide soon after that. He was 33.
As a young impressionable person who’d yet been seasoned to the cruelties of the world we live in, who’d heard of starving African kids but always felt unconnected and distanced, perhaps even desensitised, seeing that image made me break down. Even today, I still have mini-breakdowns when I see such images.
It had me feeling shocked, sad. Powerless.
I felt upset by the injustices of the world, of the fragility of human life. Of life.
I felt guilty of not doing anything, not being able to do much.
Truth be told, I even briefly contemplated ending my life. It just wasn’t fair. I was not any more worthy of my life than the child was hers.
But then I realise it would be even more unfair. How proud and foolish I was! Suicide! How did could I even consider it an option? Life and death is not a choice I was to make. The kid in photo, and many others the world over, are struggling to cling on to the very last inch of life, however hard theirs may be. Who the hell did I think I was to lay claim to the power of ending mine?
I could at least understand the photographer’s actions, much as I condone it not. For him, it was different. He had witnessed it first hand. He was just a few steps away from the child. He was shaken. He was guilty. He was merited an award due to this child’s sufferings. If you ask me, I think the Pulitzer was the final blow.
So, why bring this up now? Because we aren’t kids any more. We are young adults. We may feel powerless to solve world problems. But that is all it ever is, a feeling. You know, I know, deep inside, that we have the power. Sure, we may not be able to single-handedly solve the world hunger problem, the AIDS or malaria epidemic, regional conflicts or environmental degradation. But we can make change the world for the better, if just that little bit. A small change is still a change. Make that change. And make a positive one.
As Dr. Ang Swee Chai puts it, “I may not be able to save all the wounded [Palestinians from shelling], but my mindset was that if I could just help that one person, that one burnt kid, I would have saved that kid. And it was a difference made. I can only do my part with my two hands.”
We are young adults. We have the time, the energy and should have the right enthusiasm. You know, I know, that we have the power. We are not powerless.
Act.
*Source: The New York Times
