On ethics and censorship

Afterimage, May-June, 2004 by Alexandra Boulat

My ethic is to tell the truth, to be journalistically sharp and, once on the field, not to go for the obvious only but also to point out subjects and stories that are not being told too often. I believe that often, there are two sides to a story, and it is important to me to give a global idea and a broader view. In Iraq, before the war, under Saddam's dictatorship, the tendency was to show the misery and the oppression of the Iraqi people and how the country was laid back. This was a reality that had to be told, but it wasn't the only thing to say about Iraq. Also, the press was very much interested in the current news, such the UN inspections for Weapons of Mass Destruction, so the journalists would put most of their efforts in following those inspectors, trying to get quotes and photographs of the inspectors' actions. Therefore, they would miss some other realities, and other aspects of the life of the Iraqi people. As I was working for National Geographic Magazine, where the focus is less on the news, but more about a story and a country in depth, I thought it would be interesting to show not only the misery and the disasters of Saddam's dictatorship, but to show the rich people's lives, and to show how much the population had access to western culture. Therefore, I went to photograph the favored and privileged Iraqi bourgeoisie. Also, I thought it was interesting to see how the Iraqis would entertain themselves, in going to fast food restaurants, computer game shops, and in attending to weddings and parties. Also, during the war. I did not only go to the hospitals, the morgue's and the funerals of the victims of the coalition bombing, but I tried also to show the life of the people of Baghdad during the bombing at home and in the streets.

As a photojournalist, I believe it is important not to focus on ready-made and preconceived ideas, but always to keep an open mind and a fresh eye on the story that has to be covered. As another example, during the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan, after September 11, every NGO agency was expecting floods of Afghan refugees into Pakistan. So, journalists were trying to get access to the border of Afghanistan to wait for those refugees, but in the end, only few refugees were seen entering Pakistan.

Regarding censorship, I experienced the worst in my career when I was working on the Iraqi side of the conflict. I chose to stay in Baghdad from January until May 2003, so I witnessed Iraq before, during, and after the war. Before the war, I had to deal with the Iraqi Minister of Information, who was extremely strict about the movement of journalists. I always had to have a minder with me, whom was assigned by the legendary Press Center in Baghdad. For any mistake, I would have been thrown out of the country. The government did not want the outside world to get a negative image of the country, so, it was difficult to show the misery and almost impossible to show the oppression of the dictatorship on the Iraqi people. Also, the people I met were so afraid of retaliation, that they would impose censorship upon themselves, telling me that they were doing fine, and that they loved Saddam. Only under special circumstances, would a few tell the truth of their lives. During the war, the problem escalated as the Minister of Information tightened the grip on the news allowed out of Iraq. Journalists were assigned to stay in the same hotel, and were told where and when to go. Every afternoon we were taken all together to the bombing sites by bus. It was a real struggle to get permission to wander around the city or to visit people in their homes. I managed to do it, but under very heavy pressure and only for short periods of time. There was no access to the front line, and in the hospitals, we were only allowed to visit the civilian casualties, not the wounded soldiers. In the end, of course, we saw the dead soldiers, as there were so many, but I would take a certain risk each time I photographed them.

After the fall of Saddam, censorship was imposed by the US Army, much less then when the Iraqis were in charge. Actually, it wasn't a real political censorship, a few places and events could not be photographed for security reasons only.

As an independent photographer, there is little I can do about the way my pictures will be used inside a magazine or a newspaper because of way the press is consistent in its use of photographs. Often, the pictures function as illustrations to an article, and the photograph will be published as a confirmation of the articles message. The best situation is to be on assignment for a single magazine, where my material can provoke the magazine to report things that, either they had not thought about, that have not been shown elsewhere.

Compared to other countries, I believe the USA's press is the most free and trustworthy. I do not believe too much in the idea that my photographs can change the world. My pictures are witness and a proof of reality. They may stand as historical, but even after we have seen so many pictures of wars, wars will continue to happen. In the case of Iraq, the pictures that would have stopped the war would have been pictures showing that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. During the few months before and until the war, there were no pictures showing any weapons, but it has not been enough! In Former Yugoslavia, a war I covered for almost to years, journalists were reporting with passion, and photographs of the horrors of that war were published daily all over the world, but the people of Sarajevo waited 5 years before any one decided to intervene.