Photo Journalism and World Poverty

Kevin Carter 

Have you ever heard the story or seen the award winning Pulitzer Price picture depicting the 1993 famine in Sudan?

The picture depicts a Hooded Vulture that has its attention on a child that is starving and trying to crawl using his last strength. 

I have heard about this story and seen the picture many times. I sometimes questioned what re-posting this picture 20 years later would do to children that are suffering the same faith as this child, today. Since I just started my blog, and I recently came across this on Facebook I felt I finally could share it and write about it because there is a story to be told. 

A picture says more than a thousand words and this award winning photograph was taken in a way that makes people react. All we see is a Vulture and a crawling child. Kevin Carter took the picture while being in Sudan with the United Nations aboard Operation Lifeline. I tried to do some research first behind the story of how the photographer left this child and why he later committed suicide. In the short time Kevin Carter had in the area he wanted to take as many pictures as he could before he and the crew had to leave, he was "at work" taking pictures and was told not to touch anyone because of diseases. While he was taking a picture of the child a Vulture appeared and he managed to capture the "perfect" moment. It showed the world how helpless the child was in the picture and how hopeless the 1993 famine was. What I found out was that many of these children's parents were running towards the UN crew that handed out food, which is why it seemed as if many children were left behind, like this one, but it is hard to tell the story without being there ourselves. Kevin Carter committed suicide a couple of months after he received the Pulitzer price because he was depressed in his life as well as he felt as if he could not do anything to end the suffering of a child like this one. As much as I want to say "how could you?", it is an unfair statement to put on him. Now, 20 years later this picture has been shared and re-posted countless of times and I felt I should do the same.  

"depressed . . . without phone . . . money for rent . . . 

money for child support . . . money for debts . . . money!!! . . . 

I am haunted by the vivid memories of killings & corpses & anger & pain . . . 

of starving or wounded children, of trigger-happy madmen, 

often police, of killer executioners . . . "- Kevin Carter

Carter's message and distributive justice

Do we have to wait for another picture like this one by Kevin Carter to wake up, realize, and be aware of that this is STILL going on? At the same time, I think it is reasonable to ask how we can help unfortunate children when we are so far away from them. Sending some money to relief organizations might help many, but it does not remove the problem of famine or corruption. Even though, I believe we can do a lot more than to watch people suffer from the selfishness of madmen. As human beings we should all have the equal opportunity to benefit from the ability to have distributive justice. People should have the equal opportunities to be able to achieve the same and have food to eat, and if there is a need for help, people should reach out more to the ones that need it more efficiently than what has been done so far. People that are suffering from exploitation from other countries, unjust systems and corruption, where they cannot benefit from the same resources as affluent countries, do not have economic or distributive justice. 

Here is a food for thought that was found in Kevin Carter's Diary:

"Dear God, I promise I will never waste my food no matter how bad it can taste and how full I may be. 

I pray that He will protect this little boy, guide and deliver him away from his misery. 

I pray that we will be more sensitive towards the world around us and not be blinded by our own selfish nature and interests. 

I hope this picture will always serve as a reminder to us that how fortunate we are and that we must never ever take things for granted."

World Poverty and Human Rights

I read an essay by Thomas Pogge called World Poverty and Human Rights, where he gave a good argument to why we (more fortunate human beings in regards to having more economic and distributive justice) should not be happy living in this fortune without going out of our way or contribute in more helpful ways especially for children around the world. It all dates back to the history of colonization, where today's affluent (rich) countries took advantage of today's poor countries, which is a big part of the reason for the present inequality in regards to countries' wealth and the distribution of it to its people. Many would argue that we cannot change history, which is true, but Pogge says that it is irrelevant to raise that argument, and gives a good point to why it is irrelevant. 

“We indeed cannot inherit responsibility for our forefathers' sins. But how then can we plausibly claim the fruits of their sins.”¹ I agree to his statement. The poor should have a much stronger claim to the 1 percent of the global products they would need to meet their basic needs. 

“A morally deeply tarnished history should not be allowed to result in radical inequality.”² 

The unjust institutional orders needs to be changed in order to have a shift in the safety of human beings, and to have more just distributions of economic justice between all people. The shared institutional orders today are shaped by the better-off and imposed on the worse-off. This is why I agree to Pogge's argument which is that people of the affluent countries should bear more responsibility for the global institutional arrangements that have been done by their governments in their names. I think we should take on more responsibility especially if we want to continue to live off of the goods and services that we receive, we have to do something in any way that we can. Who are we to claim ownership of these goods? 

1Ethics & International Affairs P. 308

2Ethics & International Affairs P. 259