3. War Photos

In class Sonja showed us some photos and she asked about three things listed below:

1) What you see

2) Questions / issues that arise

3) The role of the photographer

 Therefore I will upload (if I could :)) some photos and respond to these questions.

http://www.treehugger.com/nuke-war-h001.jpg
1) In this photo I see the smoke of a nuclear bomb. If I did not know that it is a nuclear bomb I would probably think that it look nice but unfortunately it is not a natural event, it is a bomb.

2) I think this is the whole idea of war: Why a person kill another person? I mean maybe you would be that much angry at a person so that you kill him but during wars you don't know your enemies in person. So how come you could kill someone even you don't know his name? What kind of commitment is this? In this photo, a person doesn't kill another person, a person destroys a village, a city, lots of families, trees, maybe ducks or any other thing that you can think of. It is very hard to accept this truth.

3) Here the photographer is on an airplane I guess because the smoke and the photographer are at the same level. I cannot make an assumption if he could stop those people but I guess he can't because they are killing a society, it won't be very hard to just kill a photographer.

 

http://www.treehugger.com/nuke-war-h001.jpg
I don't want to make personal response for this photo because it just make me think that soldiers are also human beings and they need something to relax. This photo says us that they relax by listening the radio. You might wanna check this out:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/war_tech_gallery_09.shtml

http://www.startrekexhibition.com/storage/004VietnamWar_468x382.jpg
1) I see that some soldiers are carrying another soldier hardly. The black soldier looks very tired, his expression is very impressive. The one on the right is not aware of that he is carrying another person. He looks like he just carries an object. The two soldier on the left were just looking forward and they look like they became heartless. Also at the back we can see two helicopters.

2) This first question arises in my head is, is he dead or not? What happened to him? I know this is a war everything is possible but what exactly happened to him?

3) The role of the photographer. I really don't want to comment on this but I feel like I have to. What was his aim? I guess he was very close to the soldiers. He was just doing his job I believe. I took my first photography lesson at 9th grade and we talked about this issue. At that time I was certainly agree with the idea that the photographer should stop taking photos and help the soldiers but at the end of that lesson they convince me not to think of it. Therefore today after 4 years I still don't think of it. Maybe because Turkish people are tend to be more obedient, I don't know. 

2. Reality TV

   "And as in reality, so on "reality TV." How long until the first TV death? How long until the second? By the end of Orwell's great novel 1984, Winston Smith has been brainwashed. "He loved Big Brother." As, now, do we. We are the Winstons now."  (Rushdie S, Reality TV: a dearth of talent and the death of morality, 2001)

In 9th grade, I read 1984 in Turkish just for myself. I liked it a lot but when I was in 11th grade I read it again for the English lesson in English and it was totally different. The parts I liked, the parts that I underlined and the parts that made me think of were different. In 9th grade the only thing I remember is; I was sorry for Winston and Julia and for the end (the part that Winston says that "I love Big Brother"). But in 11th I started to think of some other things like freedom and rebellion. 

Why do we obey the rules of the society? The simple answer is we have to. But why really? Don't we have the chance to rebel? The answer is controversial. Sometimes we have the chance to say no. For example when Sonja give us some homework we can choose not to do. But then we have to bear the consequences. 

My father says that "itaat et rahat et" (obey and be comfortable). I believe this is the simple rule for everything. It works in school, at work, with your friends, with your family and with your boyfriend or girlfriend. Unfortunately the system does not give us the chance to be ourselves or we can't choose what we want to do at the moment. I mean why do I have to go to every lecture or lesson in school, take notes, do homework and then get a job, maybe get married, have kids, have grandchildren and live happily after rather then spending our days just doing nothing in way or doing everything meaningful?

Why do we have to have labels like engineer, economist or social scientist? We don't learn anything because we want to learn. The system force us to memorize some of the information and then after the exam the same system force us to forget those information to replace them with the new forgettable information. We are all systemkids and it is very hard to change this truth.

If Winston did not rebel he wouldn't suffer for anything. He would still be eating those terrible food, living in a terrible house and also he would still be ugly. But because he rebelled, they tortured him, they intimidated him. As a result "Under the spreading chestnut tree I sold you and you sold me….”(1984/George Orwell) 

As a result, we can see the systemkids on TV especially in Reality Shows and only the systemkids are watching those shows.

1. About the road watchers

Last week Sonja told us about the road watchers, the guys who sit beside the road and watch the road regularly. Maybe it is because I am a little optimist but I always thought that those guys are waiting for a service bus to come and take those people to work. 

However Sonja told us that this is not the case. During the lesson I confessed that when I was 5 or 6 years old, I used watch the road, the people passing by and everything that you can see through window. Maybe some of you don't understand what is the point of watching the street but I don't know how to explain this to you. 

When I go back to my dorm after the last lesson I remembered something else that could be shocking for Sonja. My high school was also in Kurtköy and 5 years ago I was a prep student who was new in the school and also in the city. Everyday we had at least 4 lessons English and after a while it was getting a little hard to be concentrated. 

After 1 month I found myself counting the trucks. Sometimes 100 trucks passed by the road sometimes only 50. It depends on the day. Thursdays and Fridays were always the busiest days. I don't know why I was counting those trucks...

So the concept of 'road watchers' is familiar and normal for me.