My feed
Premium

Please
or
to access all these features

News

Anyone see the Sunday Times Magazine yesterday?

7 replies

monkeytrousers · 19/09/2005 11:22

The photomontage of the last 50 years called ?50 years of shock and awe?? I?ve searched the site but can?t find a link, sorry.

I was just devastated at some of those images. The Iraqi prisoner with a hood over his head trying to comfort his son, the tiny hand of a starving child in the hand of a white relief worker, the mother lifting the body of her dead child to bury in famine stricken Somalia and so many more. At first thought some of them were pornographic, there's always a moral question raised about this kind of photo journalism but the breath of these perfectly illustrated the common humanity of us all which is so easy to forget or brush aside in talk of war or aid. We should always think, there but for the grace of god go I, and my family. I don't know world leaders who have children of their own can look at such images and not think the same. If they did the world would be a very different place..

OP posts:
Report
koalabear · 19/09/2005 11:25

MT - I don't know how leaders of any country can see the photo of the tiny hand of the starving child, and still think that foreign debt is acceptable

shame of me for thinking that my biggest worry is how much maternity leave i should take

Report
monkeytrousers · 19/09/2005 11:30

It makes me so sad I can hardly bare it, Koala. And we can do nothing. The money we sent to Niger still isnt getting through and the UN is thinking of reducing aid.

OP posts:
Report
dinosaur · 19/09/2005 11:36

I didn't see it, but I have found the recent images from Niger very haunting and upsetting. I don't know what to do to help. I sponsor a child through ActionAid, so I guess I kind of kid myself in a wet liberal kind of way that at least I'm doing something somewhere.

Report
yoyo · 19/09/2005 11:36

They were extremely moving and prompted much discussion with our daughters aged 7 and 9. I did feel uncomfortable looking at them because the grief was tangible but we need to see these images. It is easy to be complacent in life and we all need reminding that the world can be a cruel place for so many.

Report
QueenOfQuotes · 19/09/2005 11:44

"I sponsor a child through ActionAid, so I guess I kind of kid myself in a wet liberal kind of way that at least I'm doing something somewhere."

But you ARE doing something, the fact that that child is going to school and learning to read and write - something which he/she will be able to teach their family is benefiting the family. Then as they grow up and have been to school they'll have teh skills and knowledge to be able to get a decent job, or perhaps even start their own business, which in turn then helps everyone around them.

Sometime we need to look at the 'smaller' picture, in order to make the bigger picture better. I suppose it's a bit like fine art. If the artist doesn't pay attention to each tiny brush stroke, then the whole painting won't be so good (I'm talking 'proper' art - you know the Turner's and Constables - not 'modern' stuff). But when they take the time to carefully look at each stroke one by one then he 'builds' a perfect picture.


Likewise if you sponsor a child it's like that one little brush stroke.

Report
Misspiggy · 19/09/2005 13:11

Q of Q - what wise words. I saw the article / photos last night and it really touched a nerve, especially the picture of the mother standing over the bodies of her 5 children killed in an earthquake and I then sat there thinking "what can you do" but what you said makes a lot of sense.

Report
QueenOfQuotes · 19/09/2005 14:46

Have to confess I haven't seen the article. Just wanted to tell dino that they really are doing something to help.

Report
Please create an account

To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.