Soldier-Photographer and the Double Bind of Photographic Practice

Nathansohn, Regev. 2010. "Soldier-Photographer and the DoubleBind of Photographic Practice", Critical Asian Studies 42(3):437-440. Soldier-Photographer and the Double Bind of Photographic Practice Downloaded By: [University of Michigan] At: 18:46 30 August 2010 Regev Nathansohn * Cameras have accompanied weapons in war zones ever since the Crimean War (1853–1856). In the wars thereafter, technological developments, government and military regulations, and the growth in visual literacy have contributed to changes in the ways cameras are used in battlefields as well as to the ways battlefield images have been circulated and received. One of the expressions of these changes is the widespread availability today of digital cameras, making it easier for soldiers to take part in the production and circulation of images of their war experiences. Although much of the discussion on war photographs deals with the effects of their circulation on public opinion,1 I would like to discuss the moral dimension of the practice of photography by soldiers during war. Based on an indepth interview with Ohad Gutman, an Israeli soldier who took images during his military service in the occupied Palestinian city of Hebron, I will argue that cameras in war zones can serve as a conscience-cleansing device, while at the same time they operate as a mechanism for maintaining the very condition that provokes a bad conscience.2 Gutman is a member of Breaking the Silence (Shovrim Shtika), a group formed in 2004 as a forum for Israeli soldiers who had served in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and who were committed to opening a public discussion in Israel about the consequences of the Occupation on the conscience of Israeli soldiers. One of the first public events Breaking the Silence organized was an exhibition of photographs taken by group members during their military service 3 in Hebron from 2001 to 2003. While carrying a weapon in one hand and a private camera in the other, Gutman took the photograph of the bound and blindfolded Palestinian young man pictured on the next page. This photograph was later presented in the Breaking the Silence exhibition. * 1. 2. 3. Doctoral student, Department of Anthropology, University of Michigan See, for example, Brothers 1997; Moeller 1989; Sontag 2003. This article is based on my M.A. thesis, “Shooting Occupation: Sociology of Visual Representation,” submitted in 2005 to the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Tel Aviv University (supervisors: Dan Rabinowitz and Yehouda Shenhav). The interviewee’s name was changed to protect anonymity. The exhibition attracted large media attention and was accompanied by soldiers’ testimonials and an internet website (shovrimshtika.org). Robertson et al. / Anthropologists and War 437 Downloaded By: [University of Michigan] At: 18:46 30 August 2010 Palestinian young man detained by the Israeli military in the Occupied Territories. (Photo source: http://shovrimshtika.org/gallery_item_e.asp?id=52) His description of the image shows how he initially used the camera as a tool to resolve a moral dilemma. This is inside a military post. This seventeen-year-old kid was hanging around in the city carrying no identification documents, and he shouldn’t have been there anyway. He’s not a terrorist, so we detained him and after a while released him in the area where he should have been. What you see here is how the rest of the people behave: sitting down, smoking cigarettes. I saw him sitting there, first from afar, and I told myself: I want to photograph this. As a matter of fact, not only this. In my album I have more photos of tied detainees. Whenever there was a tied detainee and I had a chance, I took a photograph. I told the others: “Look how helpless he is, look how helpless.” He didn’t know that I was taking a photograph of him. Maybe he realized it when he heard the click. I didn’t shoot this image immediately. I was searching for the right pose, so I walked around him, and he didn’t pay attention to me, as if I was not there. I think I took a good 4 photograph. This description suggests that the frustration of taking part in a morally problematic activity, while simultaneously feeling powerless to change it, can be resolved by its documentation with a camera. The act of photography here could be regarded as a noninterventionist protest, where the camera offers the soldier-photographer refuge from his own helplessness. 4. 438 Interview conducted in Hebrew in April 2005. The excerpts are presented here with only minor editing to keep the content as close to the original as possible. Critical Asian Studies 42:3 (2010) Downloaded By: [University of Michigan] At: 18:46 30 August 2010 Describing a photograph of another detainee, Gutman showed how the initial moral motivation in producing this kind of image was soon replaced by a desire to create an aesthetic effect. Throughout the interview, during which he reflexively observed his camera work, Gutman admitted how his aesthetic pursuits generated a growing moral indifference: What I like in this other image is that you can actually see the detainee’s facial features through the flannelette [used to cover the eyes]: his nose, the fold of his eyes. [My question: In other images you didn’t use such closeups, why?] Because here I had the time to do that.… I think that what goes on inside your head is…I don’t know if you can call it dehumanization, but there is this emotional wall that you build around you, allowing you to digest. Otherwise you cannot spend the whole day thinking: “Wow, this is an oppressed human being.” It is something you cannot handle mentally. Sometimes I felt that as a photographer, because I’m documenting it, I turn each image into a poster. This really makes you look at him as an object of photography rather than as a human being. I felt how it happened to me. I felt how I became more and more insensitive, and how gradually all I cared about was how to excite those who will look at the photograph. I became emotionally detached, searching for the best photographic positions. He is thirsty, and he’s hot, and scared, and he hears me talking and walking around him, and I’m totally alienated from him. If at the beginning my goal was to put the focus on the human beings, at a certain point they became my vehicle of expression. Instead of expressing humanism I also hurt them a little by turning them into objects of photography. Perceiving himself to have a moral capacity, but at the same time being trapped in a situation where he embodies the immorality he rejects, the only resolution Gutman can find is to point his camera at the immoral act. However, in aestheticizing his photography, he adds a veneer of immorality to an act — detention — that he already perceives as morally disturbing. I think that the feeling of burnout as a soldier happened to me as a photographer as well. [My question: Will you go back and serve in Hebron?] Is there any choice? Well, I know there is a choice. Will I be able to go back? It will be difficult, but I’ll go back stronger, more knowledgeable, more in control. The case presented here calls attention to the double bind created by the soldier-photographer who uses the camera along with his gun. While purging the gun’s immorality through an act of photography, he actually reinforces the immoral condition in which he is embedded. Searching for other means to express his crisis of conscience was one of the compelling reasons why Gutman eventually joined Breaking the Silence. Gutman’s reflections on his experiences as a soldier-photographer did not resolve this double bind, although a resolution of sorts might be found in other photographic practices. In his and other soldiers’ personal photo albums were images that they defined not as expressions of protest, but rather as commemorations of private moments dissociated from the Occupation. In these images it is the soldiers themselves who are the focal subjects, showing intimate moRobertson et al. / Anthropologists and War 439 ments with other soldiers, with Hebron’s settlers, and even with local Palestinians. Differently from the images of detainees analyzed above, such intimate images can effectively expose a more complex view of the Occupation’s mech5 anism. However, if such images are to enable critical analysis, a precondition must be that they not remain hidden in soldiers’ personal albums and be made available to a wider public. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: This article is based on my M.A. thesis, “Shooting Occupation: Soci- ology of Visual Representation,” submitted in 2005 to the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Tel Aviv University (supervisors: Dan Rabinowitz and Yehouda Shenhav). I wish to thank the members of Breaking the Silence (Shovrim Shtika) for their time and generosity, as well as to Jennifer Robertson and Zeynep Gürsel for their insightful comments. Downloaded By: [University of Michigan] At: 18:46 30 August 2010 q 5. 440 See Nathansohn 2007. Critical Asian Studies 42:3 (2010)