Regarding the pain of others

By Katie — January 16, 2010 | 5 comments

“Being a spectator of calamities taking place in another country is a quintessential modern experience, the cumulative offering by more than a century and a half’s worth of those professional, specialized tourists known as journalists”

- Susan Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others

As international journalists have arrived in Haiti over the past 24 hours, the web and television have been flooded with images from the aftermath of Tuesday’s earthquake. So many of them are images of chaos; of dust-covered bodies; of lives in ruin; of rubble, rubble, and more rubble. On this website, we’ve shared – and created – many of those images already, and we’ll share and create many more before the month is out. They’re real, they’re immediate, and they’re an essential part of capturing the enormity of the country’s suffering.

But as we try to get a handle on the now-constant stream of stories, images and data about Haiti emanating through our news and social media networks, it’s useful to keep another truth in mind: that more information does not necessarily equal greater understanding. Consuming images of suffering alone does necessarily bring us closer to the people on the other side of the lens. Multiplied in the thousands, these images can eventually have the opposite effect: they become numbing, dehumanizing, exhausting.

I thought of this as I was looking through a new batch of Flickr photos from Port-au-Prince radio and television host Carel Pedre. Pedre has been one of the most prominent Haitian media voices since the earthquake; he’s been interviewed around the world, and his Twitter updates from the capital are now followed by close to 4,700 people, and included on 329 lists.

His set of 245 “Random Haiti Earthquake Photos” is filled with imagery that is brutal, shocking, and sad. But what struck me most were the images of life continuing, not ending, in Haiti:

Images of people holding each other up:

Of friends supporting each other:

Of everyday life going on, within the pain:

Moments of stillness:


Of quiet suffering:

And one, small, glimpse of peace – whatever that means:

I think they’re a beautiful reminder that Haiti is, and always has been, defined by more than its suffering.

Thank you, Carel, for sharing them.

Tags: Featured Katie McKenna Media