Tag Archives: Colonialism

From Headman To Hitman

Another photographer turns up at another recently manufactured ‘traditional’ culture, and produces yet another set of racist, reductive and entirely fake images. I don’t mean ‘fake’ in the way that most photographer’s get all concerned about. I mean ‘fake’ in a much more serious way, one that reduces people to social, political and historical caricatures […]

Sticking Our Head In The Sand

Larry Towell is looking for money for a new project in Afghanistan and has placed his request on Kickstarter. This would all have been fine had it not been for the fact that he is doing the wrong project. Larry Towell has been an inspiration, one of the first photographers whose works compelled me to […]

Hollywood And War Or How The Silver Screen Is Also An Obfuscating Veil

The program does not go far enough, to be honest, but I was pleasantly surprised to see a news channel taking on the question This of course is a subject well covered in some interesting books. The few come immediately to mind and that I consider interesting because they examination of the close collaboration between […]

Offering Silence To The Oppressed

An exhibition called ‘Beware The Cost Of War’ recently opened in London. Reading about it in the New York Times ‘Lens’ blog left me deeply disappointed and concerned. Let me explain. (Aside: Yoav Galai, the curator, is someone I have called a friend for some time now and I hope that he will forgive me […]

Fear The Pushtun Bogeyman

Juan Cole is the Richard P. Mitchell Professor of History at the University of Michigan. He is the author of Engaging the Muslim World. He has a regular column at Salon.com. and writes the Informed Comment blog. He has now written what I think is the first piece that connects modern day American imperialist paranoia in […]

Fighting Ghosts And Selling The Good War Or Why Are The Toy Soldiers On The Front Lines!

The silence is deafening. As American troops are dropped in on Afghanistan to fight their fantasy war, there is no sound from our defenders of truth and checkers of power i.e. the media, about the operation, its objectives, our continued presence in the country, our blood thirsty allies, our ‘pretend’ Afghani democracy, our support of […]

The Limits of Photojournalism

It is perhaps the most interesting, creative and compelling book of photography I have ever read. I have looked and read it over a dozen times in the last 8 years.  Edward Said & Jean Mohr’s ‘After The Last Sky: Palestinian Lives’ is perhaps the only example that I know of of a brilliant writer […]