Thursday, July 30, 2009

The Horror, The Horror

An American journalist describes the refugee camps she has seen in 'Witness to War' on CNN (a programme whose short trailer that appears every five minutes contains three mosques in Istanbul interspersed with ruined Afghan monuments. Sloppy journalism? Hey, here are some pictures of nice mosques, let's use them!) She describes "acres and acres of makeshifT tents with children crying and having no one to turn to..." (and even some more melodramatic jargon I can't remember now) to the accompaniment of pictures of children scrambling for food.

Here's what Jean Rhys has to say about it all:

"Let’s say that you have this mystical right to cut my legs off. But the right to ridicule me afterwards because I am a cripple – no, that I think you haven’t got. And that’s the right you hold most dearly, isn’t it? You must be able to despise the people you exploit. "

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