War's Reality

“I’ve witnessed many horrors in the past twenty years of covering war, but the intentional targeting of children and women is pure evil.”
— @lynseyaddario

I haven’t seen quite as much as Lynsey Addario, an amazing photojournalist who took the rest of these photos. But I have seen more than I ever thought I would.

I have an uneasy relationship with how to show the extremes of human suffering, and the way I’ve explained it in ethical storytelling courses I’ve led is that there’s no “perfectly right” way to present something so wrong.

I’ve worked a while in a nonprofit industry that’s a little too prone to exploiting images of suffering. But I also know that the right response isn’t to omit that part of the story, romanticizing a culture or a group, while turned away from suffering.

So much human discretion is required. Be present with people and remember that they are so much more than their worst day, and you‘ll be better positioned to be with them on that day.

Taking in some of the images and stories from a shelled maternity ward makes me a different kind of angry. It takes me back to learning about Darfur in the early 2000s, hearing about child soldiers and razed villages. Documentaries. Books like What Is The What. I felt like I couldn’t go on with life without knowing I was doing everything I could to prevent that level of suffering.

I’ve done a lot of stuff since then, and often I wonder if it’s enough, or if it’s directed in the right places given everything that’s going on. But I believe so much in the importance of the stories we tell. If today must contain horrors, maybe they can at least shake the souls of others into doing all they can to prevent tomorrow’s.