May 24, 2004
The Intention of the Abu Ghraib photos
When the photos of American soldiers abusing and humiliating Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison hit the media, they struck a nerve of outrage. Clearly the images and actions are shameful and revolting. But I wonder why these particular photos created such a storm of controversy. Every day, reports from writers and photojournalists covering atrocities around the world (such as innocent civilians killed by American troops, suicide bombings, etc.) fill our newspapers, TVs, internet news sources. Yet these `normal` objective photos of outrageous events barely cause us to pause mid-sip with our morning coffee.
What's the difference? Is it perhaps the `intention` of the photographers in this case? Is that what makes them particularly repulsive?
Comments
Susan Sontag wrote a thought-provoking essay about these photos for the May 23 NY Times Sunday magazine. One excerpt:
If there is something comparable to what these pictures show it would be some of the photographs of black victims of lynching taken between the 1880's and 1930's, which show Americans grinning beneath the naked mutilated body of a black man or woman hanging behind them from a tree. The lynching photographs were souvenirs of a collective action whose participants felt perfectly justified in what they had done. So are the pictures from Abu Ghraib.
The full article can be viewed at: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/23/magazine/23PRISONS.html
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Abu Ghraib Photos y Susan Sontag