this amazing image taken by jean-marc boujou won the world press photo contest 2004. This is the accompanying info on the picture:
An Iraqi man comforts his four yearold son at a holding center for prisoners of war, in the base camp of the US Army 101st irborne Division near An Najaf, southern Iraq, on March 31. The boy had become terrified when, according to orders, his father was hooded nd handcuffed. A US soldier later severed the plastic handcuffs so that the man could comfort his child. Hoods were placed over detainees’ heads because they were quicker to apply than blindfolds. The military said the bags were used to disorientate prisoners and to protect their identities. It is not known what happened to the man or his son.
The site is well worth a look – there are a lot of amazing photos there.
This one is the other one that stunned me…
The story that goes with it is astonishing. This isn’t documented on the site as far as I could see but is described in an article in Creative Review as follows…
The photographer had hiked through the jungles of Xaysomboune for four days to reach the secret mountain hideaway of a forgotten band of Hmong guerillas recruited by the CIA to be a secret army to fight communism, only to be discarded and abandoned at the end at the end of the Vietnam War. As Blnkinsop approached, the first Westerner to arrive since the withdrawal of the Americans nearly 30 years previously, hundreds of men, women and children fell to their knees and wept before him saying ‘please help us the communists are coming!’
Have a look at the rest of the set of photos.
It may sound crazy but this made me think about church! You know where I am headed… Who are the equivalent of the Hmong? Who live in their minds in fear of things that are not enemies any more beacuse the world has changed but they don’t realise it? Who is stuck 30 years out of date?….
Jonny: true. Also made me think of the Japanese soldiers on remote pacific islands that were found in the 1950’s and still ready to fight. Great metaphor for the church – fighting battles that aren’t even going on any more. Interesting that you highlighted the Hmong, because as Hmong refugees are coming to the US they are helping to cause a real revival of social justice in several churches in the American Midwest.
great post. some of us are still fighting battles that were settled hundred of years ago…
how sad to live in such a deluded state for so long, the analogy to the church makes me wonder though if most caught in the time warp wouldn’t prefer it that way?? (at least here in the us)
Who is stuck 30 years out of date?….
Jonny is the answer to your question, Pastors?
Peace
i’m not pointing the finger or not intending too to much. i just found it a powerful metaphor from which i couldn’t help thinking about church or at least some aspects or parts of the church… i think the picture of fighting battles that don’t need to be fought does resonate. an example would be say the way evangelicals tend to still see liberalism as an enemy and vice versa. that debate is just not answering the questions people are asking now. it belonged to another era etc etc
my first response to the question was: well, there are so many ways in which i am 30 years out-of-date. shoot — “30 years out-of-date” doesn’t have to be literal. it’s a great metaphor for much of what drives my personal spiritual quest.