by umene

                There are photographs that remain in the people’s mind. There are photographs that change the world somehow. And there are photographs that let people being aware about what is happening in the other side of the world. The photographs I am going to introduce today are these kind of photographs. Both pictures were taken during the Vietnam War.

First of all, a brief introduction about the Vietnam War. This war occurred during the Cold War, and it is called a proxy war of the Soviet Union and America. The start of this war was the First Indochina War (1946 to 1954). After this conflict, France supported to build the State of Vietnam to persuade Vietnam people for the agreement to the French Indochina. However, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam did not accept this and the First Indochina War started. The People’s Republic of China and the Soviet Union supported the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. America, which was confronting the Soviet Union, supported France. After the Geneva Accords was decided and the defeat of France became crucial, the land of Vietnam was divided in two; the North Vietnam (the Democratic Republic of Vietnam) and the South Vietnam (the Republic of Vietnam which was supported by America). In this accord, it was decided a "general election" to be held by July 1956 to create a unified Vietnamese state.[i] However this election was not held, and the National Liberation Front (NLF)[ii] started to combat with the South Vietnam Government. Also the North Vietnam, which longed the Vietnam to be united again, start to attack the South Vietnam and America, which was supporting the South Vietnam Government, intervened in the war and the Vietnam War started. During this war, America used many bombs to combat and win the guerilla attacks of NLF and the North Vietnam.  America used a napalm bomb, defoliant and many other weapons to cross out them.

                This is a picture taken by Vietnams photographer, Nick Ut (Huynh Cong Út) in 1972. He is a photographer for the Associated Press (AP) who works out of Los Angeles. His best know photo is the Pulitzer Prize-winning picture of Phan Thị Kim Phúc, who was photographed as a naked 9-year-old girl running toward the camera to flee a South Vietnamese napalm attach on invading North Vietnamese at the Trảng Bàng village during the Vietnam War.[iii] Kim Phúc, the naked girl in the center of this picture, talks about her experience in the book written by Craig and Marc Kielburger, “Me to We: Finding Meaning in a Material World”. She was running the highway to escape from the napalm bomb dropped in the village she was living in. While running, she saw airplanes flying really law and dropping other bombs. Something strong pushed her and felt down. Feeling burning, she took off her shirts and saw her left arm, which was covered by fire. It was then, when Nick Ut took the photo.

                This photograph won the Pulitzer Prize, too. This is a picture taken by Eddie Adams, an American photographer working for AP in this time. The man with a gun is the chief police General Nguyễn Ngọc Loan executing a Viet Cong prisoner, Nguyễn Văn Lém. This photograph was taken on 1968 during the Vietnam War. However, this is not taken in Vietnam, but in the street of Saigon. This is because NLF and the North Vietnam Government was using a Ho Chi Minh trail, which is a way to bring food and military to the South Vietnam, through Laos and Cambodia to bring food and weapons, America started to attack also these neutral countries. This is how Laos, Cambodia, Hanoi and Saigon were involved in this war and still suffering for the defoliant aftereffects.

These two photographs brought people to think again about the necessity of the war. In America, students, artists, and many other youth started demo for the peace in Vietnam and in the world. In the American presidential election, people chose Richard Milhous Nixon who committed to withdraw American military from Vietnam. It was because of him that the Vietnam War ended. And it was because these, and many other photographs taken during the world that changed people mind from the war to peace.

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[i] Wikipedia, Geneva Conference (1954), Available: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geneva_Conference_(1954)

[ii] They were also called “Viet Cong”.

[iii] Wikipedia, Nick Ut, Available: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Ut

References

Wikipedia, ベトナム戦争, Available: http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/ベトナム戦争

Wikipedia, Geneva Conference (1954), Available: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geneva_Conference_(1954)

Wikipedia, Nick Ut, Available: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Ut

Craig Kielburger, Marc Kielburger,(2008), Sekai wo kaeru! Minna no chikara. Me to We--- “Me to We: Finding Meaning in a Material World”, Touchstone.

MyMediaFeed, Binary Moon, Available:http://mymediafeed.wordpress.com/2008/02/03/forty-year-anniversary-for-photo-that-changed-the-vietnam-war/