Cynthia lessons learned in books and life

One South African book I read recently is The Bang Bang Club Snapshots From a Hidden War by Greg Marinovich and Joao Silva. This is a nonfiction book about four white photographers that choose to capture the violence that was occurring during the final years of apartheid in South Africa. The story is told from Greg Marinovich’s perspective and he tells it all without holding anything back. He writes about enjoying the benefits of being born white growing up. He also discusses how when he got to the age when he understood what was happening to the black and colored people in South Africa, he knew that he didn’t like it so his way of dealing with it was ignoring it. I believe that is the way many people including myself deal with things we do not like. Living in a house with 9 other people in Cape Town was a once in a lifetime opportunity as well as a major challenge for me. In the beginning, many things occurred that I personally did not like but chose to ignore them just to avoid confrontation. As time went on the issues would gradually progress and I would still ignore them until I had a talk with one of my mentors on the trip Carrie Graham and she told me that the more you hold things inside the worst that thing get. That is when I realized that talking about a problem and coming up with a plan to solve it is one of the best ways to deal with it. I took the advice Carrie gave me home and now I apply it to in my daily life. Just like me, Greg Marinovich got to a certain stage in his life when he realized he had to do something about the violence and that is when he decided to photograph to violence. The plan was to use the photographs to bring awareness to what was  happening but a bigger issue arises when the photographers are faced with a moral dilemma.

           

After standing still and witnessing many acts of violence, the photographers including Greg realizes that sometimes it is better to act in a situation than to just stand still and do nothing. At time when they do act and nothing happens then they begin to regret their decision and think that everything they did was a waste. I know how it feels to be in a situation where you do your best to help a situation and then nothing happens, but after this experience I believe it is always better to try than to just do nothing. I could not imagine what this world would be like if everyone never acted on something there felt was moral wrong.

The lessons Greg and Joao learn during their years of photographing the violence are the same lessons I learned during my 4 weeks in Cape Town. Some of the things this experience has taught me that you do not have to accept things just because that is the way they are now and doing something is better than doing nothing. As a young women it gets very challenging, especially when your voice is the minority in the group, but I know in the end it will work out for the common good because it always does.