Three eyes and ink on my fingers

“There are two kinds of sufferers in this world: those who suffer from a lack of life and those who suffer from an overabundance of life. I’ve always found myself in the second category. When you come to think of it, almost all human behavior and activity is not essentially any different from animal behavior. The most advanced technologies and craftsmanship bring us, at best, up to the super-chimpanzee level. Actually, the gap between, say, Plato or Nietzsche and the average human is greater than the gap between that chimpanzee and the average human. The realm of the real spirit, the true artist, the saint, the philosopher, is rarely achieved.

Why so few? Why is world history and evolution not stories of progress but rather this endless and futile addition of zeroes. No greater values have developed. Hell, the Greeks 3,000 years ago were just as advanced as we are. So what are these barriers that keep people from reaching anywhere near their real potential? The answer to that can be found in another question, and that’s this: Which is the most universal human characteristic - fear or laziness?”

From the film Waking Life (Richard Linklater, 2001)

Some weeks ago the Freedom House Organization published a report on the freedom or lack of it in some countries and territories. Chechnya was classified as a territory without any kind of freedom. Asmik Zakaryan collaborates with a NGO specialized in the Caucasus conflicts. She didn’t want her name to appear because she feels frightened of having problems with the Kremlin so we’re using her nickname.

What’s the situation in Chechnya now?
It’s a peaceful country but just in terms of war because there isn’t one but I don’t think it’s really stable. The republics like Ingushetia or North Ossetia have a lot of problems with people being tortured or kidnapped. Chechnya as well but there it’s like a huge wave of this disaster.

The current president, Ramzan Kadyrov, appears to have a good image on some citizens.
He is the result of a friendship between Chechnya and the Kremlin, he does anything he wants with the country if he makes sure the citizens don’t bother the Kremlin. It’s true that he is constructing new buildings but there’s a lot of corruption. Some foundations give money for the reconstruction but a lot of people take advantage of it and don’t spend it on the good purpose. There are cases in which flats are given to people who paid some money to the public agency that is distributing them.

How do people react to this situation?
There are a lot of people who feels comfortable with this system because they just have to pay to get anything they want, they aren’t interested in living in a democratic country.

What about people who don’t have enough money?

We’re talking about people who get fifteen Euros a month. These people have so many problems that they aren’t really interested in wasting time asking for freedom.

A chechen woman stands outside her home in Chechnya / Eddy van Wessel

I suppose fear plays a big role in their decision as it’s known that critical voices tend to disappear.

If you don’t act in line with the government you can’t live there and if you have some relationship with a liberal view person you’ll have a lot of problems. You can’t go to the police because nobody will help you, it’s a lawless country.

How did people in Russia react to the murder of the lawyer and the journalism student?

There were some protests in Moscow and Chechnya but it’s not like here. There won’t be thousands of people protesting in the street. They think it’s not worth it.

What’s the situation of the media there?

There are a lot of journalists who leave their country because they can’t understand the way things are going on. Furthermore, they might get killed. There’re a lot of TV programs that used to criticize the government that have been closed and the rest can only be seen at 2 o’clock in the night.

We don’t get a lot of information coming from there. It seems like our media aren’t really interested in this issue.

I think that they aren’t interested in spreading out this kind of information about Russia because there’re so many economic and political interests. Chechnya was interesting some years ago with its’ two wars but what about now? You know, there’s “just” corruption, people disappearing and suffering… and that’s not interesting anymore.

Is it difficult for a foreign journalist to get to Chechnya?

You have to explain exactly why you want to go there, you need various permissions from the Russian government. There’re cases of journalists who had to pay around 6.000 Euros because they didn’t have the correct papers.

Do they feel presured when they’re in?

They’re controlled for sure but Russian journalists are under double pressure because they could be killed, while they can’t do so to the foreign ones if they have all the permits. They know that newspapers will have its’ own filters.

But, assuming that those filters won’t let critic visions about the Kremlin make it through, what about freelancers?
They probably won’t be allowed in and, if they’re, they’ll find it really difficult to work on proper conditions. Once the government invited international journalists to visit the country and what it did was to give away a great vision of the “reconstruction” of Chechnya and the way it was growing.

One of the things I enjoy the most is watching people pass by, trying not to be noticed. In a big city as Barcelona I often find myself staring at people’s faces, gestures and movements while I make up their life history, their thoughts or their ambitions. Usually, I end up wondering what vision they might have on life, are they aware of our fragile but powerfull existence?

The photographer Simon Hoegsberg has been able to capture these fleeding moments in the course of 20 days at the railroad bridge on Warschauer Strasse in Berlin in the summer 2007. He’s merged 178 unknown people in a photograph that’s 100 meters long. Most of them didn’t notice that they were being photographed.

Visit his website to take a long look at this amazing project, presented in an original slideshow.

2008 is coming to it’s end and, as usual, the media is coming up with selections of the most representative photographies of the year. You can easily come across some amazing imageries by surfing the web but among all of them I’d like to highlight a pair.

Reuters has summarized the year in 135 pictures about some of the hot topics of 2008 as the Olympic Games in Beijing, the arrest of Josef Fritzl suspected of keeping his daughter prisoner and abusing her for 24 years, Obama’s victory and the conflicts from Georgia, Congo, Afghanistan and Palestine.

The New York Times has created a beautiful slideshow with audio and extra information on the issues their pictures portray. It’s more based on the American territory and it’s divided in eight sections: The election, The economy, The nation, The world, Iraq and Afghanistan, Arts and Entertainment, Sports and The region.

A boy in Gori, Georgia, stood near the remains of a medium-range Russian missile that crashed through his apartment during fighting between Russiand and Georgian troops. The New York Times/Joao Silva

I strongly recommend you to listen to this interview from NPR to Reza Deghati, considered among the world’s great photojournalists. His latest book, Reza War and Peace: A Photographer’s Journey, is a retrospective of his amazing work as an eyewitness on various conflicts. On the link you’ll also find a selection of some of those photos.

“I heard some demonstration against the shah — and this was in those days unbelievable,” Reza tells NPR’s Scott Simon. “Nobody really thought that there would be demonstrations on the streets because the presence of the secret police and army was so strong … that nobody would dare.”

As he watched from the window, army jeeps arrived and soldiers began shooting into the demonstrators, many of whom were students.

One of them “had a camera and he was taking pictures and running,” Reza says. “This was a moment that really changed my life. The day after, I was on the street starting [to take photographs], and day after day I just forgot to return back to my office. And this was 30 years ago.”

Sudan, 1989: “I saw his feet, scarred by chains that also bound his hands. His eyes were resigned, his violence contained.” - Reza