Category: New York Times 9/25

Each day, thousands of illegal immigrants are smuggled across the border. They are shoved into gas tanks, squeezed into cargo boxes, and  hidden in the backs of trucks.They are pressed into small boats by the hundreds just to be sunk off the coast.  News coverage has made us all painfully aware of what Syrian refugees go through in order to enter Europe.  Yet with all the focus of the Syrian refugees fleeing the Middle East, why haven’t we asked ourselves what happens to those who stay behind? In his article “Photo Exhibition Puts Syrian Refugees on the Seine,” Elian Peltier features Reza Deghati who seeks to answer this question by creating a photo exhibition right on the banks of the Seine River.

Before we look at Reza’s work, we must first understand what is happening in Syria. In 2011, a series of reform movements and protests spread across the Middle East including Syria. Feeling threatened by the movement’s demands, Syria’s president Bashar al-Assad responded by attacking the protesters. He ordered their kidnappings, tortures, and murders in addition to destroying the suburbs in which they lived. In wake of this totalitarian atrocity, militant rebel groups were formed, aiming to establish a more moderate government. Syria erupted into a full blown civil war. In the midst of the internal fighting, ISIS entered Syria in search of territory and has been fighting both the rebel and government forces ever since. Surrounded by three opposing fronts in a war that has been going on for over four years now, Syrian civilians have no choice but to flee the country.

Once outside of Syria, refugees have two options, to stay in the Middle East in a refugee camp or to enter Europe and try to establish themselves. It is easy for Europeans to blame the refugees for entering Europe instead of staying in the Middle East. After all, these refugees are disrupting local economies and cultures. In the midst of this harsh sentiment, Reza’s photos call their audience to see past the negatives and accept the immigrants as human beings.

Reza’s works focus on the homeless children living in Middle Eastern refugee camps. While it is easy to dismiss a suffering adult, a child in pain cannot be so easily ignored.  He glamorizes their childhood in certain pictures by capturing the children while playing. It is easy for a viewer to relate to his own childhood in such pictures, and as such he recalls fond memories and develops a connection with the child in the photo. Later photos shock the audience by capturing the children at their low points- while performing physical labor or laying on the ground motionless. According to Reza, “[these] kids have lost the paradise every kid has.” Now in his state of shock, a viewer is more sensitive to the conditions refugees face and will be less likely to dismiss their rights as humans.

By forcing the public to see what the alternative is, perhaps Reza’s works will persuade Europeans to be more accepting of the current demographic shift from Syria. These immigrants are not criminals sneaking into a country. They are victims fleeing from one.

When one develops an urge to enrich himself/herself with the knowledge of another culture what would be their main source of information? Many would turn to google or on a rare occasion even to the library, and to be honest I would’ve done the exact same thing. New York Times journalist Holland Cotter, however, has more creative and innovative idea on how to learn more about a culture’s history in his article, “Review: ‘Kongo: Power and Majesty’ at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.”

Cotter believes that art is the key to learning the truth of a cultures history. He uses the new Kongo exhibit in the MET as an example. He mentioned how the people of the Kongo region didn’t take records of their history or important events for most of their early generations. Due to this, westerners never really understood their cultures and what they have truly been through. Cotter goes on to say that this is not the case, the people of Kongo have always been keeping records of important events in their cultures, just not in the traditional way of paper and pen.

The Kongo people have recorded important events of their pasts with the help of art. They used sculptures, paintings, engravings, masks, religious objects, and ceramics to record their history. I was fascinated by their clever and unique artworks that had so much to say about their cultures. I completely agree with Cotter and feel that artwork is a great tool to record one’s history.

            This tusk carving is a great example of how the Kongo people used art to record their history. This carving depicts Kongo’s relations with European countries. At the beginning of the tusk, it seems as if everyone is happy with their relations and there is a mutual respect between them. The second visible level depicts upper class Europeans making shady deals with some Kongo people. With the help of these deals, Portugal, France, and mainly Britain began enslaving the people of Kongo. They managed to chain up a third of the Kongo population by 1850. As one could see this small tusk artwork told us so much about the people of Kongo.

There are other great examples of the Kongo artworks that depict their culture if you’re interested. I believe that this is a much better and more enjoyable way to present one’s cultural history than the way of a classic textbook.