Message To Mad Friend

photo by Kevin Carter won the Pulitzer Prize but lost something more valuable

Reading the press over the last few days I noticed a story about a famous photograph that won a Pulitzer Prize in 1994. I knew the famous photo, widespread in the network over the years, but I did not know is that the photographer who took this picture, Kevin Carter, committed suicide in response.

This photo was taken by the photographer in Sudan in 1993, in the midst of war and famine after it, it confessed later, he left to mourn under a tree and when he returned to the same place where he had left the child and the vulture lurking a few yards behind, he saw that the child was not there and never heard from him, which made since then his life would otherwise overrun by the criticism of many people who even said it was the second vulture history for not doing anything and at the end, the remorse of not having done something for this child would be so strong that the South African-born photojournalist end up committing suicide at 34 years and three months after having won the prestigious Pulitzer Prize.

The great dilemma was presented to this man was a difficult choice: should we remain passive in the face a harsh reality, perhaps difficult to change, but giving it at least witness the rest of society? Or on the contrary, we must take a more active role for intervention and assistance to try to change that reality, to the extent possible within our limited means? It seems that in the case of Kevin Carter was unclear who made the wrong decision, because of their moral standards.

And speaking of that child, it seems that it has now emerged that this baby was finally a child (and not a girl, as originally thought), which Kong called Nyong and that after that photo survived and lived for many years, until four years ago died of a fever.