The Right Way to Help

I finally went to one of the few museums in DC you have to pay to enter- the Newseum. It was a terrific experience and totally worth it! There is an interactive exhibit on ethics and one of the questions revolved around this famous Pulitzer Prize-winning photo:




The photo, of a Sudanese toddler on her way to a food distribution center, was taken by South African freelance photographer Kevin Carter. In 1993, Carter made a trip to document the famine in Sudan:

Immediately after their plane touched down in the village of Ayod, Carter began snapping photos of famine victims. Seeking relief from the sight of masses of people starving to death, he wandered into the open bush. He heard a soft, high-pitched whimpering and saw a tiny girl trying to make her way to the feeding center. As he crouched to photograph her, a vulture landed in view. Careful not to disturb the bird, he positioned himself for the best possible image. He would later say he waited about 20 minutes, hoping the vulture would spread its wings. It did not, and after he took his photographs, he chased the bird away and watched as the little girl resumed her struggle. Afterward he sat under a tree, lit a cigarette, talked to God and cried. "He was depressed afterward," Silva recalls. "He kept saying he wanted to hug his daughter."

After another day in Sudan, Carter returned to Johannesburg. Coincidentally, the New York Times, which was looking for pictures of Sudan, bought his photograph and ran it on March 26, 1993. The picture immediately became an icon of Africa's anguish. Hundreds of people wrote and called the Times asking what had happened to the child (the paper reported that it was not known whether she reached the feeding center); and papers around the world reproduced the photo. Friends and colleagues complimented Carter on his feat. His self-confidence climbed.

However, some critics questioned his ethics:

"The man adjusting his lens to take just the right frame of her suffering," said the St. Petersburg (Florida) Times, "might just as well be a predator, another vulture on the scene." Even some of Carter's friends wondered aloud why he had not helped the girl.

Two months after receiving a Pulitzer Prize, Carter committed suicide. The Newseum exhibit asks visitors to choose between two options, if they had been in Carter's position: 1) Helping the little girl and not taking a photo and 2) Taking the photo and not helping the girl. About 70% of the visitors choose the first option. Interestingly, about 70% of the journalists the Newseum polled chose the second option. One of the rationales given is that the awareness raised by the picture likely led to many more lives being saved.

This morning, I heard an interview with R. Dwayne Betts about his memoir, "A Question of Freedom," which recounts his coming of age in prison after he committed a carjacking. When Scott Simon pressed him to discuss what it was in prison that he had seen and could "never really recover from," Betts responded:

In a way it's difficult to talk about it, because, one, it didn't happen to me, so I sort of feel like I'm selling the pain of other people when I start telling all of these stories.

I think this is what some people thought Kevin Carter did. But then again, he put himself out there by going to Sudan and taking a picture that ultimately made a huge difference- is it fair to criticize him for not helping the "right" way? Of course, in the end, he could have taken the photo AND helped the child. After doing what his job as a professional photographer, he could have responded with personal compassion...

In a way, this criticism reminds me of this previous post on an op-ed by Marshall Kim, a Cambodian-born American who criticized a trial before the Special Tribunal for Cambodia, saying that it was "too late" for justice. Arguably, it's always too late by the time the UN creates an international criminal tribunal or a hybrid tribunal. This is one of the reasons why I'm drawn to refugee law- the law can be a very powerful tool to help people in real time, rather than just to compensate them for atrocities they have suffered or to punish those who have committed the atrocities. But is it necessarily wrong to eventually try to do the right thing? Maybe it is, especially in a world where resources are finite and could be better spent on "improving the lives of young Cambodians" as Kim suggests.