RE: [Leica] News from Belgrade

[Alan Ball <AlanBall@csi.com>]

Tina,

Maybe the Internet and satellite TV help 'undistort the truth', but, also, 
maybe not.

There are plenty of newsgroups and other forums on the Net today where 
interested luggers will find out how painfully hateful the Internet 
community really is. The various Yugoslav oriented groups overflow with the 
most putrid insults and threats. From all sides. The Internet is as much 
the dreamed soap box of everything the real world counts of nationalist 
racist imperialist loonies as it is a tool for the democratic expression of 
the quest for a more peaceful and humane world.

Regarding satellite TV, after initial enthousiasm (due more to the lively 
editing and the general tone of comments than to content), most people look 
at it the same way they look at state run propaganda broadcasts: with 
confidence or defiance depending on who they want to believe. CNN or BBC 
World are considered as US propaganda tools by a large number of viewers, 
even here in western Europe. I know people here in Belgium, living less 
than a mile away form Nato HQ, who genuinely consider that the only 
accessible 'truth' about Kosovo is what is relayed in Russian and Chinese 
media, and who see the shelling of the Serbian TV as a further proof that 
Nato is manipulating and hiding the real 'truth'. Those views have high 
momentum in Europe's public opinions, despite daily 'neutral' TV coverage 
at the Albanian and Macedonian borders. Or, maybe, because of it ?

Regarding the testimonial value of (Leica) images: we all suffer from the 
Timisoara syndrom, and have learned not to believe what we see. It is not 
the images or the words that count anymore, it is the identity and 
loyalties of the person who supplies those images or words. That also goes 
for pictures shot through a filter free 35mm summilux-asph. Now that I know 
you are a Republican, Tina, I shall never believe you anymore ;-)

Serbia is not Irak, and the Serbs are not deprived from access to outside 
information: they plainly and simply do not believe it.

Anyway, the LUG is a bad place to discuss those matters: it has shown how 
it can be collectively carried away in agressive confrontations for much 
more benign subjects. A war, such as the one our representatives are waging 
in our names in the Balkans, is not a benign subject.

In the sincere hope Vladan, our LUG 'comrade', does not get hurt and does 
not get to hurt anyone,

Friendly regards,

Alan
On mercredi 26 mai 1999 3:49, Tina Manley [SMTP:images@InfoAve.Net] wrote:
> Me?  I'm a South Carolina Republican!  I have, however, lived in 
countries
> run by dictators and realize how little the people are allowed to know 
and
> how the truth can be distorted when there is no freedom of press.  I hope
> the internet (with the help of Leica photographs) will be one of the
> factors that will change that in the future.  Back to photography now!!