Witnessing suffering

One of this year's Oscar nominee is Dan Krauss's documentary film "The Death of Kevin Carter." The film is about the life, work, and suicide of Kevin Carter, who won a Pulitzer Prize in 1994 with his photograph that captured a starving Sudanese girl being collapsed on a desert plain and stalked by a vulture. Carter committed suicide only weeks after he received his honor. According to the director of the film, it was Carter's own conscience and morality that haunted him. He could not survive the psychological dilemma between being a witness and a savior. The film director believes that "in the starving child, [Carter] saw Africa's suffering; in the preying vulture, he saw his own face." Today, more than a decade later, aren't we all still witnessing all kinds of suffering from many corners of our own world?

I just had the opportunity to see that starving girl image. According to some writing about the political and social conditions out of which the image emerged, such kind of suffering of children was not only caused by famine, but was also directly related to ethnic discrimination, oil exploitation, and social injustice. It happened in Africa, but was in many ways connected to a large number of rich and oil consuming nations.

The photograph and some information about the Kevin Carter film can be found on the following websites.

http://www.huaren.com/UnitedNations/photo-1.htm

http://www.kevincarterfilm.com/synopsis.html