This one is worth a thousand words
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Hats off to Luis Vasconcelos for this powerful picture.
The caption says, “An indigenous woman holds her child while trying to resist the advance of Amazonas state policemen who were expelling the woman and some 200 other members of the Landless Movement from a privately-owned tract of land on the outskirts of Manaus, in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon March 11, 2008. The landless peasants tried in vain to resist the eviction with bows and arrows against police using tear gas and trained dogs. REUTERS/Luiz Vasconcelos-A Critica/AE (BRAZIL)”.
Images of heavy-handed oppression really don’t come much better than this – defenceless, screaming woman clutching naked child is shoved and beaten by faceless, armoured authority.
The symbols are reinforced by the strong composition. The woman and her child appear all the more vulnerable as the only elements of humanity and colour against the advancing wall of shields and boots.Such a potent image leaves very little room for any doubt. In such circumstances do we need to know the details of the dispute to have any doubts that what we are witnessing is wrong?
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The Wall
A tremendously powerful image. This is an important photograph and I hope it will be seen by the world. I’m sure it will affect many.
great photo¡¡¡¡¡.
Manu Lozano
Serves her right she should not be there anyway!!!
David,
You have done it again. That is one of the most powerful photos I have ever seen.
Do you know what happened to mother and child? Is there anyway I can help?
~Brandon
What a brave woman, putting her child in harm’s way like that. I bet she even had his consent to risk his life in that futile manner.
This is a lesson about private property. She has none.
“In such circumstances do we need to know the details of the dispute to have any doubts that what we are witnessing is wrong?”
You should always know the details. At least, know that the MST (Landless Movement) is a semi-terrorist organization that frequently kills farmers and land-owners, and work close to another organization which has destroyed 20 years of genetic engineering research a couple of years ago. This does not mean that what you’re witnessing in the picture is right, but it does mean that reality is much more complex than the picture shows.
In such circumstances do we need to know the details of the dispute to have any doubts that what we are witnessing is wrong?
YES
The problem with pictures is no context. There could be a lot more to this picture.
Very powerful
Tremendously powerful and radicalising image. Will give a significant boost to the MST in Brazil. Imagine the concern of the Brazilian Government with this image spread across two pages of today’s Guardian newspaper in the UK and I’m sure figuring in the press across the World. Good luck to the MST and their fight for the landless!
“A tremendously powerful image. This is an important photograph and I hope it will be seen by the world. I’m sure it will affect many.”
Sadly, it will affect nothing…
The powerful prey on the weak. A scenario that repeats itself time and again among animals as well as humans. You think some powerful person will see this image and have a change of heart? Keep dreaming.
Emotional, yes. Sad, yes. Frustrating, certainly. But in your own description, this woman (and her colleagues) are being evicted from “a privately-owned tract of land”. Where is the story about the person who worked hard to buy this land and then watched it get trampled and used by these squatters from the Landless Movement? Perhaps I could feel more supportive if they settled on Public Lands rather than stealing resources from another _individual_ human being.
There is not much you can do to help directly. Indirectly you can help by changing you habits of consumption. The efforts against the Landless Workers Movement is mostly spurred on my large American and European corporations looking for cheap land and cheap labor in foreign countries. The only real way to distance your selves from these companies is to consume locally. Try the 100 Mile Diet. Only by Fair Trade certified products. Don’t support any company that denies its foreign workers access to unions and a living wage. American habits of consumption are the key factor in driving these mega-corporations to do all the horrible things they do.
I mean, couldn’t she be protesting without putting her baby within arm’s reach of batons? I feel for her, but seriously…
This is a powerful image. However, your conclusions bother me:
“do we need to know the details of the dispute to have any doubts that what we are witnessing is wrong?”
Um, yes. Yes we do.
Allowing your emotional response to an image to overwhelm your reason is precisely why propaganda works. In this photo, the story is “helpless woman oppressed by faceless regime.” In others it’s “snarling black man/muslim/etc. clearly sub-human.” In either case we most certainly “need the details.” I would suggest it’s a mistake to allow good photography to determine right and wrong.
She has the power.
Brandon, you can help by going down there and buying her a tract of land to live on. Not only that, but you must build her shelter, and train her how to run a business or derive enough income to raise enough money for the taxes to the government. Harder than throwing a few cents a day to some charity over the telephone, huh? People have become so numerous that less and less land is available to them, and unfortunately the worth of a single individual human has become near worthless – almost seen as an infestation. I don’t really know what to do about that.
What is the point of this?
An infinite number of these type of photos exist but what good has come from them?
Why do people still vote in politicians that support such a system?
I hope they arrested her for child endangerment.
That is just sad.
Interesting. So if one takes a clever picture, it’s no longer necessary to know the facts in order to judge the pictured event?
Personally I think it’s always necessary to know the facts in order to form a valid judgement.
It certainly is an awesome photograph, but it offers no answers, only questions. What was this woman thinking when she endangered her child this way? Does the ostensible landowner have a valid claim on the land, or was this conflict the result of some kind of collusion between the landowner and someone in local government? Why did the police use such overwhelming force?
For that matter, how many police were present? This photo shows only nine or so, but since the photo was composed such that the nine span the full width of the picture, it creates the impression that there must have been many, many more officers present. Similarly, how many other civilians were involved? We see only two, but it’s unlikely this woman and child are representative of the whole group. And what is the nature of this “Landless Movement”? Is it composed of people who have been deprived of their natural right to own property, or of those who wish to deprive others of this right?
So yeah, it’s a great photograph, but it’s also propaganda apparently designed to convey a misleading picture of events and distract attention from the real issues here.
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This looks bad, but you don’t know what the full context is. That woman might have been trying to attack those officers with that naked baby. You don’t know.
why didn’t she just move out of the way?
Wow, Now this is a very very powerful photo. This lady is hopeless and so is the child. thanks for this great but sad image.
Wow, they were attacking police with bows and arrows and the police are restraining themselves and not shooting back. And I doubt these police with their shields rushed this one woman. What the hell is she doing with her child getting so close to these guys.
Clearly they are using an appropriate method to clear the space. There are far more violent alternatives and if it is true that the squatters are being evicted from private land, she should be thankful it is a wall of flesh and not cuffs and foster care.
I think this is a powerful image, but it was a planned protest and I can’t believe that this mother brought her child into this environment and enderaged him or her like that.
If the piece of private land she was squatting on was your front yard, how would you feel about her presence? If you didn’t remove her, she might eventually be able to claim ownership of your yard by law under squatter’s rights laws in some countries.
So yes, the context of the photo is absolutely needed, and anyone (like the original poster) who claims otherwise is either a fool or some other synonym for the word.
sucks for this lady, but thats what happen when you knowingly break, then resist, the law. trespassing, and then squatting, is jail worthy.
Powerful image. It is a shame it is not of higher technical quality because I think you would really have had a shot at a Pulitzer.
Photoshopped
THE ENTIRE POINT is that the context and specifics does not really matter.
It is a picture, a form of art, that usually exists to symbolize something.
It is what it symbolizes, and what it can offer you (and how well it does just that,) which matters.
“In such circumstances do we need to know the details of the dispute to have any doubts that what we are witnessing is wrong?”
Congratulations. You’ve just crossed the line between journalism and manipulative propaganda.
For all I know just looking at the photo, everyone in it could be a paid model. For all I know, it’s been Photoshopped. For all I know, there are a hundred people standing off to one side with “what an idiot” expressions on their faces, which would have given the image a whole new meaning before they were cropped out.
No single image tells the whole story. Most importantly, we never see the things the photographer chose to omit from the final product.
If you think pictures can’t lie, you’re sadly mistaken. If you think a powerful visual is an adequate substitute for knowing the real situation, you’re stupid.
I have to agree with Peter G.
I’m sure that many good, kind-hearted people will look at this image in horror. They will react emotionally. They will probably feel the desire to help the woman and her child. However, they won’t know the facts and you can’t truly have justice for all without all of the information.
This is right up there with the Tiananmen square photo of the protester standing before a tank. It’s moving because, at once we have, in a photo…the worst yet the best of the human spirit, captured in one photograph. People can be so pathetic, and yet so brave.
A well composed photo, but yes, you do need context of the situation. Approproaching any situation with that floating, contextless mentality will only end up with bad conclusions.
Wrong? By which standard? In what context?
This deeply saddens me and ……..that’s it! So out of control…
Why doesn’t she just, you know, move? I’m sure that line of officers isn’t like a mile long.
I don’t understand why that lady is putting her child at risk by confronting armed police with an infant / toddler in her arms.
Secondly, they are on someone else’s property. I understand it may not be the most humane thing but they are squatting someone else’s property.
“In such circumstances do we need to know the details of the dispute to have any doubts that what we are witnessing is wrong?”
Wow, that’s stupid. It’s almost like you’re *asking* to be manipulated.
And to answer your question: yes, we do.
First, MST is not semi-terrorist organizacion, second this is not context, this woman is not from a Landless movement, third this is not the state Police force. This picture is problaly in the amazon, where the “Força Nacional de segurança” (Nacional Security Force, a special federal Police Unit) is ansingment against the illegal wood extraction called “Operação Arco de Fogo” (Arc of Fire Operation) in an attempt to reduce the destruction of the florest. This woman is problaly from a family of those whom works in the wood extraction, a workmanship whose is been manipulate by local politicians and their employer to protest againt the police force presence.
This woman is obiviously a victim, but not necessarialy of the police, she was throw into a situacion that she doesn’t understant, thinking she is fighting for her right to work, without the knowlegment of the ambiental awareness of the wood extraction, and don’t understand that in fact she is been manipulated.
http://news.google.com.br/news?q=Opera%C 3%A7%C3%A3o+Arco+de+Fogo&ie=UTF-8&oe=utf -8&rls=org.mozilla:pt-BR:official&client =firefox-a&um=1&sa=N&tab=wn
Sorry for the spelling flaws..
Someone else owns the land. If brute force is the only way to get her off it, then so be it. I’d do the same thing to her if she walked into my house and wouldn’t willfully leave.
Out of context!
As I can see, no one but Roberto de Almeida is a Brazilian citizen, and he’s totally right! I’m Brazilian too and I know very well what the MST (the landless movement) do. They are a terrorist organizations, and uses the old fashion comunist’s strategies to disturb the public order, invade and destroy private properties and even kill people, and they need MARTYRS obfuscate the public opinion. They are not popular here in Brasil. They are not a small group of poor people who lives in the middle of the jungle, far away from the eyes of the media (TV and newspapers) and the public opinion. They are a very well organized group, which has connections with dozens of left movement around South America like Hugo Chages and Colombian terrorists FACS. They are all over Brazil. The receive money from the federal government and they are creating a University to spread their ideology throw our society.
Please, read about it! It is very important to us, Brazilians and South Americans people that everybody in the world realizes what’s going on around here!
PS: Sleep on it: What a woman with her child in her arms is doing in the front line of a brutal police force?
It is sad. I just watched a really interesting documentary on Current about the Amazon and how many animal species are wiped out yearly. Only about 5% of the biodiversity of the Amazon has been documented, yet a parcel the size of New Hampshire is cleared yearly, mainly for cattle grazing (yet another of the myriad reasons I don’t eat meat.) Given the large number of medicines that have natural origins in tropical life, allowing this to continue will undoubtedly result in delays in curing the world’s most pressing diseases.
Not sure if this is what the woman was protesting, but it graphically describes the futility of private citizens fighting against greedy, corrupt government and big-industry interests.
awesome pic, yet it saddens me.
Roberto De Almeida: “You should always know the details. At least, know that the MST (Landless Movement) is a semi-terrorist organization that frequently kills farmers and land-owners, and work close to another organization which has destroyed 20 years of genetic engineering research a couple of years ago. This does not mean that what you’re witnessing in the picture is right, but it does mean that reality is much more complex than the picture shows.”
I think you need to do some research yourself Roberto. Wikipedia is not the best source of information on the internet. You should try and diversify your sources perhaps to get a better overall view of an issue. Just a suggestions bud
this is insane! how can they do this to an innocent with a baby in her hand! do they have any human rights in their country ?
Reminds me of this picture:
http://aishel.wordpress.com/2007/04/17/p hoto-from-amona-struggle-wins-pulitzer/