[Marxism] "Guilty" photographer's sucidie highlights horrors that humanity faces worldwide

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Suicide is a complex  issue, and the idea that ONE THING  precipitates it
has little support any more (like the idea that a single "traumatic event"
precipitates mental illness. But anyway,this is a powerful story of the
impact on one man, who actually did act as he should have after taking the
powerful picture, of the horror taking place in Sudan --  and, to put it
mildly, not just in Sudan.

Fred Feldman

GRANMA
April 9, 2007

The Photo and the Controversy

ROLANDO PEREZ BETANCOURT

Fourteen years after it was taken, the international controversy over a
photograph has been reopened. 

A scrawny, almost mummified, but still breathing, young African girl goes
down on one knee, begins to fall and at the last moment puts a hand on her
forehead; behind a vulture watches. 

The photo was taken in Sudan in 1993 by South African photographer Kevin
Carter and earned him a Pulitzer Prize. Shortly after, Carter committed
suicide and the legend began. One image had been sufficient to show what
hunger had become in Africa, but it also submerged him into months of grief
until finally his tormented soul led to his death. 

Take the photo or scare off the vulture?

What's first the artist or the human being?

Many people took sides in the controversy when the photographer admitted
that for twenty minutes he watched the agony of the girl as he fruitlessly
waited for the bird to open its wings, which would have put the final
"touch" on the picture. After being awarded the Pulitzer, interviewers were
confronted with a bitter man, reluctant to speak. After much insistence, he
said that even though the distinction was the most important of his career
he hated the photograph. "I still regret not having helped the girl," he
said before turning around and leaving without offering a single smile to
the cameras.

When Carter committed suicide many people said he had done so out of a shame
he couldn't live with. Later, other opinions and speculation would arise,
which are now being rehashed. They speak of the photographer's personality,
that he was marked by the horrors of years of taking photographs of the
genocide committed by racists in his country. Others talk about drug use as
a refuge for depression. One of his close friends says he didn't know why
Carter said he didn't help the girl when on more than one occasion he had
told him that once the photo was taken he had scared off the vulture.
Without hesitation that friend states that the suicide was instead due to
the unexpected death of a good friend, also a photographer.

Others talk of motives, circumstances and severe depression. They speculate
about this and that, and rekindle the controversy over what comes first, the
artist or the human? It's discussed and discussed, but what draws my
attention is that to date, nobody has clearly made the point that 14 years
after the photo, the girl and vulture are still there.

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