Newsweek, RIP. The Chicago Sun-Times has fired all its photographers. Greece’s public television stations has gone off the air. The “democratic leader” Erdogan has turned Turkey into the world’s largest prison for journalists, 76 are already cooling their heels in his cells. The cyber-surveillance of terrorists organized by the United States, revealed by Edward Snowden. Putin, too, is fighting terrorism, alongside his friend Bashar al-Assad. Young Chinese people have never heard of Tiananmen Square. And so on.
And yet, everything is carrying on: the NYSE is increasing every day, Merkel is going to be re-elected, the IMF and the ECB go on imposing their ruinous “authority” on needy states. Unemployment is rising, and Ferraris are selling well.
Photographs document all of these things, and from every angle, insidiously so, which makes it somehow dangerous, as Lenin said. Like reason, photography is nosy. It works discursively, feeling stories out. We need it more than ever.
Have a nice week.
Michel Philippot
