# Why I believe I would be a major FAIL in a famine-disturbing photo...



## SurviveNthrive (May 20, 2010)

As heavily as I am into preparedness, I know there are likely limits I will reach that will prohibit success. I prep and prey I never reach those limits.

In a truly bad situation, this is what survival is about. Take a look at the picture below and then read some of the information. I've heard a survivor of a famine tell me that one of the crucial traits of the survivors is an ability to walk past starving people, when you have what you believe to be enough food, but keeping it to yourself because you've got an idea of the scope of the problem.

It's worse than it appears.










© Tom Stoddart Getty images. A well-nourished Sudanese man steals maize from a starving child during food distribution at a _medecins sans frontieres _ feeding centre, Ajiep, Sudan, in 1998

_The most famous picture from this harrowing photo-essay showed a skeletal boy who had waited for hours to receive the very limited supplies of aid available 'The boy was crawling along the ground with a bag of maize and I was making pictures of the scene,' Stoddart told me in 2009. 'Suddenly a guy walked past me and picked up the maize and left very quickly.' Stoddart's photograph records the exhausted boy's expression as he looks towards the relatively wealthy, well-dressed and well-fed man striding away with his food. As well as recording an actual incident as it happened, the picture also works on another level. 'From my point of view,' continued Stoddart, 'it's a symbolic image of Africa as it shows a man with a stick keeping everyone else down. The picture works because of several components - the man's finger pointing down on the stick, the fact that you can see the maize through the bag and the completely disdainful expression on the boy's face.' _

Icons of Photography - Iconic Photograph Famine in Sudan by Tom Stoddart features - Amateur Photographer - news, camera reviews, lens reviews, camera equipment guides, photography courses, competitions, photography forums

That's not disdain, it's a whole lot more in that boy's expression and dispair leads it but all that's irrelevant. The truth is that man is a hard core survivor who is taking care of himself and his own. He's hardened himself enough where the suffering of others is irrelevant to him and he will prevail. I don't accept the ethnocentric notion of 'well, that's Africa' and assuming we're different. Happened in Europe too. It wasn't the good and pure, and kind who survived the concentration camps, the gulags, and other horrific, long-term, horrific situations, it was self involved, heartless SOB's.

If it gets bad enough, a horrific long-term famine, those who survive won't be the 'best' people. The compassionate died.

None of us can feed everyone, I guess it's best to simply be away from everyone else if possible and _be very wary and cautious when running across other survivors._


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## Canuck (Nov 18, 2010)

Survival of the fittest, cruel and cold, sadly it is natures way 

Be prepared, better to be the predator than the prey!

Cordially


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## Aemilia (May 27, 2010)

> Stoddart unflinchingly documented life and death in the camp at Ajiep. His compassionate photographs show the starving, emaciated people he met as they struggled to survive.


At least I'll guarentee that if people are starving around me, I'm not gonna sit on my butt and take pictures - even "compassionate" ones. Sorry but WTF does that mean!!!



> Stoddart said he received some criticism from people who believed he should have intervened in the incident by taking the bag of maize from the man and returning it to the boy. 'Photographers in this situation are faced with this kind of dilemma all the time,' he says. 'The picture shows something that happens every second in Africa and other Third World countries. My job is to bring back telling images. This one moved people and still does, so I did what I was there to do. I'm very proud of my work from Sudan.'


Sounds like a great guy. (That was the sarcasm font.) So he's going to talk about people stealing from the poorest, but doesn't sound like he gave up his dinner. Very neat job of washing his hands. I guess he would make a great survivalist. (And I'm not sure if that was sarcasm.)

In the Bible it says to help the widow and the orphan (aka those who can't help themselves). And there is the example of the good Samaritan. That is the standard I'm aiming for, and I want to be able to sleep at night.

But I think this issue is one of those where "hypotheticals" don't work. There are to many variables, and a 'survivor' who is able-bodied but trying to steal is different than a child. Interesting picture though - very sad.


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## mosquitomountainman (Jan 25, 2010)

Looking at the person who stole the food from the kid it would appear that he wasn't taking it to ward off starvation. Looked more like greed to me. He's no different than any thug stealing from anyone else who is weaker than he.


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## SurviveNthrive (May 20, 2010)

I'd probably get involved...and that goes against what a good survivalist should be doing.

But I don't like that SOB with the stick... I really, really don't like that guy, and I've been donating to Doctors Without Borders for a long, long time. The guy who stole the child's food is no doubt, an excellent survivor. Cold blooded, possibly a functional psychotic or operating off some weird hate like tribalism, or more likely, religious based hatred, but he definitely has what it takes to survive_ there_.

As for a photographer, this is a pulitizer prize winning one by Kevin Carter.

http://flatrock.org.nz/topics/odds_and_oddities/assets/wanting_a_meal.jpg









This photograph showing a starving Sudanese child being stalked by a vulture won Kevin Carter the 1994 Pulitzer Prize for feature photography.

Different famine, same horrible country. This photographer committed suicide, supposedly haunted by the circumstances of this photo and what he saw, did, and didn't do...(supposedly he chased off the bird and the girl continued on her way, _right_.) We'd all be like Kevin Carter but we won't have the 'luxury' of mulling about it when we're trying to survive.

But this is WHY we prep, so it doesn't happen to those we care about and ourselves.


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## Concerned_ Citizen (Jan 20, 2010)

tat second photo gave me chills and brought a tear to my eye.........if anyone ever hears me complaining about shit, PLEASE slap the hell outa me......I always tell people that no matter how bad things are at the moment.....it could ALWAYS be worse......

The first picture pisses me off something bad......I do not see that as Survival of the fittest.....


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## mosquitomountainman (Jan 25, 2010)

SurviveNthrive said:


> I'd probably get involved...and that goes against what a good survivalist should be doing. ... But this is WHY we prep, so it doesn't happen to those we care about and ourselves.


And that's why we learn to say "no."

In the second picture the photographer was also close enough to the aid station to easily carry the child there himself but he didn't do it.

Neither of these are real SHTF "survival" scenes. While the children are starving the problem is a crass indifference from those who had lots of resources and could have helped but wouldn't. This attitude is why people were starving in those countries in the first place.

In a true EOCAWKI or EOTWAWKI nearly everyone will be in the same boat. It won't be so much indifference that causes people to turn their back as it will be hopelessness.


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## kyfarmer (Feb 22, 2009)

The hardest and must learn word for anyone to have to say and them to have to hear, even those who have been told and have sat on the arse and done nothing is NO, no meal here move on, if ya can't do that you have condemed your love ones to what is before you. Yea it's a bitch ain't it. We all want to make it but it will be no game, it will be ba*** to the walls for those who depend on ya its a must. I have allready started dropping hints about our bad spot for food if things get tight, bad three years in the garden ya know. Some family are pure leeches before and after post shtf they would be super sized.


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## Herbalpagan (Dec 8, 2008)

I work very hard so that me and my loved ones will not be in situations such as this. I don't care if it seems like hiding, but I hope I'm not around other people to see such horrors. I can say "no" to people pretty well, but a starving child on it's own I would have a hard time passing by.


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## lotsoflead (Jul 25, 2010)

there'd be no point in giving food to people in the condition of those in the pictures, they're just what they look like, buzzard bait.Even some of the prisoners at Treblinka and Dachau looked a little better than these pictures and it took months and some in cases yrs to get their system so it could take food


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## kyhoti (Nov 16, 2008)

Yup, that's heart-breaking stuff. I do what I do so that MY children do not end up looking like the ones in the photos. I train my children to survive; my 8-y.o. knows where to gather nuts and roots, knows how to hunt for reasonable game and understands that "Bugs = protein = life". He knows where and how to find water in out region, can construct shelter and knows how to gather fuel for a fire. He is getting ready to move onto sharpened tool use, now that he has the hand strength, and has a healthy enough respect for fire that I can now teach him how to start one. We can't save everyone, not even a decent handful, if we ourselves are compromised. Remember that folks.


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## SurviveNthrive (May 20, 2010)

Can you imagine if it comes down to simply having put aside a bit of grain, some rice, and beans and other such staples? 

Just a few cans of food, a bag of pasta or rice now and then, put away, safe from bug damage in plastic pails can make the difference.


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