Kamangir (Archer)

Pornography of The War

Kamangir | July 26, 2006 | Category Iran

This picture shows a baby whose head is smashed in the blast. The horrible picture is stuck in my mind not only because of the sense of violence that it spreads but because of the gesture of the man who is holding the poor baby. Lets try to imagine what has happened in the scene. An Israeli airplane has dropped a huge bomb, probably equipped with a state-of-the-art design. Dozens of people have been injured and killed. Then, right at the scene or later in a hospital a man holds the dead corpse and shouts. I tried to imagine being him, looking at the flesh while I am holding his/its hands. It has not been a pleasant experience, it is for sure. So, why did the man do that.

The picture is from a blog I came up with through a comment in my blog. The blog or photo blog, as it almost only contains images, is dedicated to pictures of dead Lebanese kids (see Warning: It includes graphic scenes). I have tried to find a name for what this blog, which is apparently managed by two Iranians, is doing. The only thing that I came up with was pornography. If you lookup for pornography in Google (see) the first item says “any sexually explicit writing and/or picture intended to arouse sexual desire”. While referring to pornography I am talking about the kind which you are exposed to without your personal intention. Very much like an ad which convinces/tempts you to buy a shampoo through not very relevant pictures of a half-naked woman kissing her partner. To my understanding during the recent war people have learnt how to use the old temptation game to buy people’s sympathy. It seems that whenever an event happens there always are people in the scene with their cameras in their pockets. Thanks to the digital media it really takes less than an hour to have your image posted and reposted in the internet. So, obviously, when the poor Lebanese baby got caught at the middle of a war, which was not very much relevant to him, digital copies of his smashed head found their way to the internet. To this moment it was only human curiosity, plus an undefendable passion for destruction. From that moment on this picture is added to a larger campaign to show how cruel Israelis have been and how miserable and innocent Lebanese are. This is exactly where I think a pornography-style event happens. When we see people killing others probably the first move is to stop and to think and to ask each other what has gone so much wrong. I suspect this deliberation will result in levels of condemnation for the both sides. But as if none of them really wants this deep investigation they turn into plan B. I have seen the old Israeli lady who is crying for his lost beloved ones more than ten times in CNN. Also, it seems that there is only one building in Israel severely damaged by Hezbollah rockets. The Lebanese side is unfortunately more lucky in a sense. While they are shooting light rockets Israelis enjoy multi-ton precise bombs which blow up a neighbourhood in a second. So, we have more Lebanese casualties resulting in more graphic pictures. Frankly, when CNN shows the lady over and over and when I see blogs like that one I start to loose my respect toward the both sides. To my understanding there is a real difference between facts and what you make people think through temptation and solicitation. What these pictures do is the later one.