West Africa

2011-04-21 WikiLeaks Notes: Tim Hetherington at the Frontline Club

Tim Hetherington was a photojournalist and Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker who was killed, along with his equally acclaimed colleague Chris Hondros, on Wednesday, 20 April, as they worked to cover a group of rebels opposed to the Gadhafi regime in Misrata, Libya.

In January 2009, Hetherington talked with his colleague James Brabazon at the Frontline Club in London about their work in West Africa. The discussion is a seminar on how interconnected politics are among former colonies artificially constructed as separate nations. Listen especially at about 1.11, when Hetherington talks about the problem of Western reporters dropping in to grab topical stories without grasping the historical and cultural context.

Many are dying in Libya and elsewhere because of the international crime of aggressive war, and most of those who die will not be memorialized in the international media, including the blogosphere. It still matters to recognize the value of every individual life. Tim Hetherington and Chris Hondros knew better than most how many human beings are being slaughtered and ignored as if nameless, as if they didn't matter, and they worked precisely to reinscribe that truth: we all matter. All honour to them.

And on Chris Hondros, from the Editor and Publisher article:

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