We shouldn’t see this today

Famine stricken child crawling towards an United Nations food camp located one kilometer away, durring Sudan famine in 1994. The vulture is waiting for the child to die so that it can eat him.

Depressing, isn’t it? The image above is not a pleasant one for those trying to relax surfing the web, me included. I hate this photo. Some sources say that the reporter (Kevin Carter), who was on his way home, just took the picture and kept walking along, and if that’s true, I think I hate him too. I know the reporters – especially those who film animals in their own environment – must not intervene in their life, but this is something totally different. This photo gave him the Pulitzer Prize in 1994 but apparently it didn’t do any good because three months later he committed suicide due to depression. In my opinion, the suicide is the worst choice a human being can make, though I cannot imagine what it’s like to see this kind of scenes with your own eyes.

How can this be possible nowadays? Why do we let it happen? I know the financial differences between social classes, of course. I know how much money we invest in technology and research and I know how necessary those investments are, but this is way too much. This shouldn’t be happening.

We actually prefer to invest in wars; they seem to become a common choice now. I am only 25 and I already have some great stories to tell to my future nephews, because I was witness (from my couch, of course, but still…) to three wars: the one in Yugoslavia, the one in Iraq and the one which is still on for nine years now and shows no sign of stopping, in Afghanistan. Their costs are tremendous, more than any other investments in any domain, ever. The bad news is that there will always be wars against terrorism (at least) and guess what: terrorism will live forever. How does that picture our future?