Picture perfect?


Editorial August 06, 2010

If it is true that a photograph speaks a thousand words, then it also obscures another thousand. Time magazine’s current issue features a striking cover image of an Afghan girl with her nose severed. The title that accompanies the photograph, ‘What happens if we leave Afghanistan?’, is superfluous; the image tells us everything we need to know about the magazine’s intentions and would make some wonder whether its editorial policy is an extension of US foreign policy. At a time when a many Americans feel that the Afghan war is going badly, a perception that was reinforced by the Wikileaks documents, the magazine is using the power of photography to change public opinion. While it has every right to use its platform to advance US war aims in Afghanistan, it is doing readers a great disservice by neglecting certain details that would contradict that narrative. The girl in the photograph, for instance, is a reminder of the Taliban’s brutality. This ignores the fact that the Karzai government and its US allies have not been stalwart upholders of women’s rights themselves (for instance, the country’s Supreme Court has, in the recent past, given several rulings that would be deemed as being as misogynistic as some of the edicts passed during Taliban rule).

The photograph makes the assumption that the Taliban will immediately take over if the US withdraws from Afghanistan when, in fact, continued US presence in the country is making that outcome all the more likely. Worst of all, the photograph retroactively changes the history of the Afghan war by making it seem as if the US-led invasion and occupation was undertaken to ameliorate the plight of women. Now that the original mission has failed, it seems that Time is trying to write its own version of history. Regrettably, it has followed a tradition of using Afghanistan’s women as a tool to argue in favour of military ventures.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 7th, 2010.

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