Elections in Exotic Places (5)

Burgos, Spain: People vote during Spain's regional and
municipal elections. Photograph © I Lopez/AP

Belarus Free Theatre (2)

I posted here a while back on the political repression of the Belarus Free Theatre. You can find an update on their travails here in The New York Times.

Against Bipartisanship (yet again)

And here is a piece by Paul Krugman & Robin Wells, also from the most recent NYRB. They lay out the electoral imperatives that the Democrats confront quite nicely. In short, given the choice between actual Republicans and Republican-lite, voters tend to opt for the genuine article. Among the culprits here are those - from the feckless Obama on down - who've joined the cult of bipartisan consensus. It is way past time to call in the de-programmers.

Belarus Free Theatre

Belarus Free Theatre in rehearsals for their production of
Being Harold Pinter at Soho theatre earlier this year (2008).
Photograph © Linda Nylind/The Guardian.

I came across this story in The New York Times, reporting widespread harassment of political opponents by the Lukashenko regime in Belarus. The story itself chronicles the harassment of the Belarus Free Theatre; here is a clip from Voice of America that goes over some of the same ground.

And, of course, the elections have now taken place in Belarus. Lukashenko, predictably, won re-election. According to this report in The Economist, the results are being contested and the regime has responded with violence and repression.

Elections in Exotic Places (4)

The Week in Pictures: Nov. 27 - Dec. 3, 2010 (Salon.com)

Police officers carry ballot boxes to a counting center at Mahalla
El Kubra, north of Cairo, Sunday. Opposition charges of ballot
stuffing, bullying and dirty tricks clouded the legislative election.
Photography © Reuters/Amr Abdallah Dalsh.

A girl walks over electoral materials after angry voters trashed
a voting center in Port-au-Prince Sunday. Haiti's elections ended
in confusion as 12 of the 18 presidential candidates denounced
"massive fraud" and demanded the polls be annulled. Street
protests erupted over voting delays and problems.
Photograph © Reuters/Eduardo Munoz.

Local residents and opposition party supporters look through
a window into the local opposition party office where a deadly
overnight attack occurred in the Yopougon neighborhood of
Abidjan, Ivory Coast, Thursday, Dec. 2, 2010. Gunmen
attacked an office of presidential candidate Alassane Ouattara,
killing at least four people, authorities said. The unidentified
assailants used automatic weapons during the overnight
attack and were able to get to the site and escape despite
a curfew. Photograph © AP/Rebecca Blackwell.

These are three images (and captions) from the Salon.com week in pictures feature. And, as is typically the case, we are get a view of exotic elections as not just exotic, but exclusively as events surrounded by incompetence, mayhem, violence and corruption. (See earlier posts in this series here.)

Sally Goes to Her Polling Place ...

Election campaigns too often revolve completely around the dour, dissembling or irrelevant. Consider, by contrast, this election advert run by the Young Socialists of Catalonia (Spain). Whether or not the advert helps the Socialists win the election, it has gotten them a remarkable amount of international press coverage ~ at the bottom of this report in the BBC are links to similar reports world-wide. I am sure that there will be many who find this "offensive." Is it more offensive than having politicians lie to you? Is it more offensive than haivng them run on programs that are divisive, militaristic, and exploitative?

And, of course, here is one of the funniest movie scenes ever. Coincidentally, it ran on local TV here in Western NY last night. So, before we all get our knickers in a knot ...

Elections in Exotic Places (3)

Conakry, Guinea: A Guinean woman holds her voting card as
she enters a polling station. Photograph Jerome Delay/AP.

I have been remiss in my effort to build a base of images from which to discuss the conventions that govern 'election photojournalism.' I made some desultory efforts early last summer [1] [2] [3]; consider this a renewed effort. For this installment I offer the image above, lifted from The Guardian.

I have been prompted to take up this task again by reports from Burma on the "elections" being orchestrated there today. You can find the reports here and here; notice that one of them is image-less. Granted, this particular casting and counting of votes hardly qualifies as an election. But does the absence of photographs mean it has not happened at all?

Zombie Politics

Fear the undead. The rotting remains of our 31st president stalk the land ~ the Republicans will try hard to implement his economic policies, with the predictable consequence of deepening economic crisis. Here he is, Herbert Hoover, offering astute counsel to John Boehner and his cronies. What are people thinking?

Best Shots (122) ~ Ron Haviv

(149) Ron Haviv ~ Capturing a Coup, Panama 1989 (14 July 2010).

Elections in Exotic Places (2)

There were national elections this past week in both Burundi and Equatorial Guinea. Here are the requisite images of the current, slightly ominous, leaders of the respective countries, each accompanied by a retinue of security personnel, casting their ballots.

Burundian president Pierre Nkurunziza (R) casts his
vote at a polling station in his hometown of Mumba,
in northern Burundi's Ngozi province (28 June 2010).
Photograph: AP.

General Konate, the transition president, votes on
Sunday in the capital, Conakry (27 June 2010).
Photograph: Agence France-Presse/Getty Images.

Elections in Exotic Places (1)

A while ago I promised a set of posts on the conventions that govern images in the Western press of elections in 'faraway places.' Here is the first installment. This week there have been elections in Burundi.

A voter goes to a voting booth to make her mark at a polling station in
Bujumbura, Burundi, as people prepare to vote in the presidential election
Monday, June 28, 2010. After all the opposition parties pulled out of the
race, the voters have only the choice between the ruling CNDD-FDD party
or declaring their votes invalid. Photograph © Marc Hofer/AP.

A voter at the Burundian presidential elections shows his inked finger to prove
he has cast his ballot, after voting at a polling station in the Burundian
capital of Bujumbura, Monday, June 28, 2010. After all the opposition
parties pulled out of the race, the voters have only the choice between the
ruling CNDD-FDD party or declaring their votes invalid. Despite many fears
that the voting will be disturbed by violence, the polling stations remain calm,
and attendance is not brisk. Photograph © Marc Hofer/AP.

The folks at the Lens blog over at The New York Times included the top image among the "Pictures of the Day" (28 June 2010).

My plan is to simply start posting sets of images; once I get a 'critical mass' up, I will write something. For the moment, the images are food for thought.

The Problem With Conventions

Election observers taking notes at a polling station. Voting in
Sudan’s elections has been extended by two days to ensure
technical problems do not prevent voter participation.
Photographer © Pete Muller/AP (The Guardian, 13 April 2010).

David Campbell has written this typically smart post on the photography of famine generally and famine in Africa more particularly. His concluding comments, referring to the image I've lifted above, are especially on point:

"One of my refrains for how we should understand photographs in these situations is that the problem lies with the absence of alternatives as much as it does with the presence of the stereotypes. Which means I should conclude with a double-page spread published by The Guardian this morning on the Sudanese elections. Clearly any place that is home to both food insecurity and a practicing democracy cannot be simply represented."

David is concerned with the conventions of documentary photography and photojournalism that inform depictions of large-scale human suffering in forms such as famine, epidemic, war, and other sorts of mayhem. He is especially concerned that such depictions dominate the ways that African countries appear in the Western media. David has put his finger on two distinct problems:

(1) How can one depict famine and so on in ways that do not assume stereotypical form (familiar images of starving babies, lines outside of distribution centers, the crush of people with outstretched hands as aid workers distribute provisions, etc.)?

(2) How can one depict the diversity of social and political experience in African countries in ways that, while not ignoring the difficulties that people face across the continent, nonetheless do not perpetuate what some refer to as 'Afro-pessimism'. (I've posted on this matter here a number of times.)?

These are daunting questions and David is correct both to raise them and to suggest that on both dimensions we are captive to conventions. The problem, in other words, is not necessarily one of bad intentions on the part of photographers or the NGOs who host them. Moralism, after all, is a none-to-attractive convention too.

My suspicion, though, is that very similar conventions inform photographic depictions of democracy, especially in African countries and in other 'exotic' places that have yet to embrace our own faith in that political form. It is not so much that I want to question the faith (although it is important to keep an eye on how it actually manifests itself) but that I think we need to keep an eye on how we serve up democracy as antidote. This is a theme I plan to take up over the course of the summer. Thanks David.