Horrible Photos

 Last year I went to Belarus in connection with the work of a charity called ’ÄòFriends of Chernobyl’Äôs Children’Äô. We flew into Minsk and drove well over a hundred miles east in a dead straight line to the city of Mogilev. There, we were visiting the families of some children who come to Britain every year to get a month of a more healthy diet than they often have at home and simply to have a break from a zone still affected by the consequences of the nuclear reactor explosion back in the 1980s.

We weren’Äôt the only ones visiting: this charity has branches all over Britain. One morning, we were having breakfast when I observed a gentleman in one of these other groups pat his camera and say, ’ÄòRight, today I’Äôm going to take some really horrible pictures.’Äô

I had a strong reaction to those words. I was quite upset that someone should want to take advantage of the poverty of many of the families. That he should seek out the underdeveloped features of one of the last countries still behind an Iron Curtain in order to pull at the heartstrings of people at home and gain access to their wallets. In effect, I thought he was saying that it’Äôs useful for some of the Chernobyl children to live in what we would see as squalor just so that people living at ease in Britain can be moved by it. There certainly was plenty to photograph ’Äì whole families sleeping in one room ’Äì earth toilets outside many a shack.

In the end, I realised that I was probably being unfair and even a little too idealistic. For the moment at least, charity work requires strong images and graphic portrayal of need. I wonder if there ever will be a time when people are moved to compassion not so much by spectacular need shockingly rendered as by a sober assessment of issues of justice and mercy. In any case, as Jesus said, ’ÄòThe poor you always have with you and you can help them whenever you want,’Äô so we have plenty of opportunity to keep on trying to get it right.