A shocking image of Syria's brutal war – a war that will continue regardless | Jonathan Jones

Even the most horrific photos are not able to prevent wars happening, they remain decoration for our conscienceThis week the Guardian published the kind of picture that deserves to change the world. The front page of Thursday's print edition was dominated by an epic scene of human suffering, reproduced above. In a canyon between grey shattered precipices of bomb-ravaged buildings, an uncountable number of people wait for food. The faces in the front of the vast desperate crowd are anxious, stoical, subdued; beyond is a sea of heads whose expressions are unreadable but guessably similar.This is a great photograph – and it wants the world to act. It was released by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees and shows what happened when aid workers tried to give out food parcels at Yarmouk refugee camp on the edge of Damascus. The picture illuminates the mind-boggling devastation of the war in Syria: tottering jumbles of concrete and plaster gaping with voids and caverns, are all that is left of this cityscape. Above all, it captures the sheer scale of human suffering with this horribly mesmerising sea of faces.But will it make a difference? It is intended as a campaigning picture, not a work of art. Here are the facts from one small part of Syria; here is the fate of part of the Palestinian people.When I look at photographs that try to move the world to compassionate action I am haunted by Jurgen Stroop. In the 1940s, Stroop, the SS General who led the final attack on the... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'

[ The Guardian | 2014-02-28 00:00:00 UTC ]

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