The Last News Story…?
I couldn’t resist coming to Israel/Palestine to cover this historic day , Friday, September 23, when Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian Authority, would deliver his speech before the United Nations General Assembly and probably, nobody knew for sure, request recognition for an independant Palestinian state. I didn’t really think anything extraordinary would happen, but a photographer can never be sure. On the other hand, I was sure that if I remained in Paris, the more reasonable thing to do, I would regret it. I kept thinking of a photo I made in front of Damascus Gate in Jerusalem on Sept. 13, 1993, when Yasir Arafat and Yitzak Rabin shook hands on the White House lawn, sealing their committment to the Oslo Accords. This was the first time that Palestinians could fly their flag freely without worrying about being arrested or shot by Israeli forces.
So, almost 20 years later, another momentous occasion for Palestine on the slow road to becoming a full-fledged indepenant state. In those twenty years Israeli colonization of Palestinian territory has gone unhampered (the Oslo Accords called for a freeze on all settlement building in occupied territories), the settler population in the West Bank and East Jerusalem has doubled, Israeli facts on the ground have progressed to the point that one questions whether or not an eventual Palestinian state would even be viable.
This Friday, Sept. 23, promised to be a busy day : typically, after Friday prayer, Palestinian boys go to the Qalandia checkpoint (this is the main gate between Ramallah and Jerusalem) to confront the Israeli soldiers. They throw stones with slings and on a big day even a few molotov cocktails are thrown at the concrete guard towers. Pres. Abbas was schedualed to speak before the General Assembly around 18H30 local time. A large screen had been set up in the town center of Ramallah so that Palestinians could gather to listen to their president.
By 12 :30 or 1pm, there were 50 or more journalists, foreign and local, photographers and T.V. crews, waiting at the entrance, Palestinian side, to the Qalandia checkpoint. The muezzin’s final chant from a nearby mosque signaled the end of prayer ; and like clockwork, Palestinian boys began trickling out of back streets, only a handful in the beginning, to defy the Israeli soldiers. It is very much a ritual of resistance.
What I had not anticipated, I really should have known better, was the overwhelming presence of the media, far outnumbering the rock throwers. In fact, it was quite clear that our presence incited to a large extent the actions of the young Palestinians. We didn’t create the event but we certainly transformed it. The young Palestinians, thirsty for attention and anxious to exhibit their bravour in front of the cameras, were wise to the game. Those who carried flags or any other accoutrements that would give visual value, knew that this would attract the attention of the photographers and cameramen ; the image makers sometimes falling over each other in their attempt to get that defining action shot, trying to isolate the single Palestinian stone thrower from the mass of media closing in from all sides.
Photographers will always search for that iconic image to describe what it would look like if they were all alone, trying to exclude anything that distracts from the composition ; that untidy extraneous reality. I am not immune to this desire of wanting to make that great action shot, but at some point one becomes equally aware of that reality beyond our desire and personal ambition. I wonder if this is not when we become less effective as photographers… ? While I watch, disdainfully, from afar, as the younger photographers rush in for that shot, I am also aware that I will not get it. Perhaps too proud, too intellectual, I am less and less willing to lower myself to such unthinking antics.
Ultimately we have to ask ourselves, what are we doing ? What does this mean ? What is the sense of this picture ? Does it represent the reality of the moment ; without going so far as to ask if it represents the Truth ! I was more sure of myself 20 years ago than I am today. What I am wondering is if whether or not I am a better photographer… ?
Aubry & Royal se font la bise…ouf! Le choc des titanes!
Royal: “ne veux pas y aller (la campagne electorale 2012) en reculant…”
Aubry: “ne pas se laisser distraire par le clapotis des vagues…”
“Elle s’avance finalement dans la salle entourée d’une horde de caméras. Puis elle attend. Tout se négocie entre les deux femmes, y compris le siège où Royal va s’asseoir. Une place avait été réservée pour Royal à quelques sièges d’Aubry. Trop loin pour l’image de rassemblement que les deux femmes veulent donner. Après quelques discussions entre les deux staffs, le temps que Laurianne Deniaud termine son propos, Laurence Rossignol finit par céder son siège. Royal peut approcher, saluer Aubry et s’installer à sa gauche.” -Le Figaro, 12/12/10
French anguish over agony of retirement myth.
Extract from insightful article by philosopher, Robert Redeker, in Le Monde (21/10/10), concerning the on-going demonstrations and strikes over the French government’s proposed law to prolong the age of retirement in France. An attempt to explain the mobilization of the masses…
“During a whole lifetime, (the idea of)retirement offers the hope of a better life. It is the sacred Graal of which the salaried job is the quest. It draws the picture of a happy and assured paradise, to which everybody is destined to attain. Retirement is the period of life for which one has a thousand projects. Our existance is fantasized as a Dantian journey: to know Hell, passing through Purgatory, and finally arriving in the Paradise of happy days. Retirement is therefore perceived as a recompense for having accepted, without flinching, a lifetime of hardships.” (my translation from French)
Temps des Crises, Michel Serres (cont.)
27/12/09
Admitedly, for me, the thread of Michel Serres’ reasoning is not always easy to follow…a lot of backing up and re-reading of text…trying to make sense. But I know from experience that if I persist, I will discover a brilliant pearl of thought at some point ; a new way of seeing the world.
He proposes that the World, what he calls the Biogée (life and earth), become an actor, rather than object, as it has been since the early philosphers, and reason for which we humans find ourselves in such a predicament as we presently are with global warming, etc. « Who was representing the Earth at the Copenhagen Conference on Climate Change ? asks Serres. Serres proposes the creation of a world institution, WAFEL, made up of representatives of Water, Air, Fire, Earth, and Living species, a sort of parliament of the Biogée.
Politicians would definitely not be the representatives in this world parliament, if I understand correctly, more likely scientists. But first they would have to take an oath, much like the Hippocratic oath taken by doctors…the oath would be something like this :
« To the best of my powers, I swear : to never let my knowledge, my invention nor any applications thereof serve violence, destruction, or death nor the spread of misery or ignorance, subservience or inequality. To the contrary, I dedicate this knowledge and invention to the spreading of equality amongst Mankind, to it’s survival, elevation and liberty. » (my translation from French).
This is not meant to be a complete commentary of Michel Serres’ book, I have neither the competance nor the desire, only to note the points, for myself, that I connect with. I’m not quite sure how all this will come to pass nor that Mankind is intelligent enough to get it right the second time around. Maybe the big question is, will there be a second time around… ?
le Temps des Crises…
Short pamphlet by Michel Serres, French thinker, on the present situation in the world, “No return to the past is possible, therefore we must invent a new world…”
Serres makes an interesting comment on the social collective: “The collective is replaced by the ‘connective’. The most ignorant amongst us presently has easy access to more knowledge than the most erudite of scientists of the past. This ‘aisance’ renders somewhat useless university thesis’ on history, philosophy, or any other subject where the budding intellectual, in order to dispay his stubborn eruidition, studiously recopied everything that was previously known on a given subject. Today, a clic renders all this information immediately accessible; a fraction of a second replaces years and years of research.”
Copenhagen, 12/12/2009. 30,000 to 50,000 demonstrators marche to impress their concern about global warming upon the world leaders that will be meeting here this week. The demonstration was largely peaceful. “Black bloc” made their customary appearance at the tail end of demo; massive arrests. I was at the front…so no pictures. Not really sure that it is important…wondering what is the point of the anarchists…an expression of alienation and nihilism?
Berlin/Nov. 9, 2009: Kids playing tag in labyrinthine Holocaust Memorial near Brandenburg Gate on the day of the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Nov. 9, 2009: Ich bin ein Berliner…the wall comes down, Mr. Gorbachev…
