Over the weekend were a series of photos taken by photographer James Oatway that have become controversial due to the nature of the
photographs and what the photographer did whilst the incident took place. It
has South Africa divided as to what the photographer should have done in the
situation that he was in and what is the correct thing to do when you are faced
with something like this.
The photographer took photos of an incident where a
foreigner in South African soil, Emmanuel Sithole, was being stabbed in a
xenophobic attack. James took the photos but he did not intervene until the man
was left wounded on the ground. Only once the attackers had left the victim James
went to Emmanuel, helped him to his car and took him to hospital where he died
due to his injuries.
This has caused outrage in South Africa and many other
places in the world. Some people say that James should have stopped taking
photos and helped the man, others are saying that all that he was interested
was in the fame that the photos would bring, another group are saying that he
would not have been able to help the man and he could have been killed himself
and the final group say that his pictures will do more to stop Xenophobia in
South Africa than stopping one incident.
I do not believe that there is right answer to the issue.
All sides have valid arguments and the Emmanuel and his family would have preferred it is James had saved his
life. We do not know that if James had intervened that he would have saved
Emmanuel’s life. By the looks of the photos taken I do not believe that he
would have. The attackers were very focused in Emmanuel and, in my opinion,
looked like they might have turned on James if he had even attempted to stop
them. I do not have any proof that they would have attacked James so it is totally
my opinion.
It so happens that the police have used the pictures to
catch four of the murderers so James’s pictures have been extremely helpful.
This would not have happened if James had not taken the photos.
With regards to the awareness that has come from the photos,
the fact that the pictures have been all over the news and there has been a
controversy about the pictures, has made the whole world aware of what is going
on in South Africa. It is important that people know that this has happened and
that more of these incidents are happening. It was world pressure that stopped apartheid
and it will be world pressure that will get South African’s to stop being so
apathetic about the situation and do something to stop xenophobic attacks.
There have been incidents recently in the United States
where someone took video footage of the deaths of Eric Harris, Eric Gardiner and
Walter Scott. There was more chance of the people recording these incidents of
stopping them and surviving the incident than what James had gone through.
However, even though the incidents were terrible and it has
come out that they could all be police brutality crimes, the person that
recorded the incidents have been made heroes and not been interrogated by the
public because they did not stop the incidents. Why does the case with James
have to be different? I do not know, maybe because there is a different agenda
with regards to the crimes. The American ones are showing severe brutality
between police and black men that has been going on for years and needs to be
exposed and the South African one is one where we would like to pretend that it
did not exist and instead of facing the reality of the situation we are looking
at blaming someone who has documented a terrible crime.
In the last couple of years, South Africa, has been reminded
of the terrible political situation in the country in the late 1980’s and early
1990’s through the book and movie Bang Bang Club. There is an incident where
Kevin Carter took photos of a poor kid in a Sudan refugee camp that was so
starved that he had collapsed on the ground and there was a vulture that was
stalking him. Kevin won the first Pulitzer award for photography for South Africa
with that picture. The result of his instant fame was that the general public
got up in arms, much like in this case, and Kevin committed suicide shortly
afterwards. I would hate James to go through similar pressure that Kevin went
through.
There are many pictures in South African history like Kevin picture for example the picture of Hector Pieterson being carried by Mbuyisa Makhubo after being shot by South African police. This picture is one of the many pictures that woke up with world to the problems in South Africa and in the end brought apartheid to it's knees. I hope that this picture will do something similar and stop these murders and attacks.
I wish that there was an easy answer what James should have done.
There are many photographers that face situations like this on a daily basis.
To understand it better I would suggest reading the book the “Bang Bang Club”
and getting to understand what these photographer go through. The put their
lives on the line to get us the stories and we expect them to tell us what is
happening. I don’t believe that we should crucify them for telling us what we
need to know even though it is so brutal that we would rather not know what is
going on.
I was not at the incident and I do not know the photographer
and I have not spoken to him so everything in this article is all heresay.
