Politics and the 3-legged stool

The retirement of Ian Paisley from Northern Ireland’s politics reminded me of a conversation I had in South Africa some years ago. Travelling from the industrial complex at Secunda to Johannesburg I chatted with the driver about the changes in his country. He provided a simple picture to explain how South Africa was able to move from the violence of apartheid towards an integrated society. His model was a three-legged stool. In his story, one leg of the stool represented the extreme whites who wanted to continue with apartheid. One leg represented the extreme blacks who wanted to violently overthrow this system. The third leg represented the majority of the people – black and white. They just wanted to get on with living and provide a better future for their children. My driver reminded me that a three-legged stool falls if one leg is missing. In the same way South Africa’s conflict could only be resolved if these three parties all agreed to change. His first key to getting change was the condition of the legs. The population must be tired of the status quo and must really want something different. The opposing leaders must both have spotless political credentials. They must also have courage to lead their group of extremists along the new path. His second key to change is that all three legs must be present at the same time. That second key is why real political change is so rare.

As we drove through the darkness he told me that in old South Africa there was general unrest among all people. The lack of progress under apartheid was having an impact on everybody’s life. People wanted to change. He then noted the courage and vision of President F.W. de Klerk. This white leader’s history and politics allowed him to stifle any serious arguments from his followers. Finally, Nelson Mandela was loved and revered by the black community. His struggle against oppression was legendary. He had the moral authority to ask his followers to accept the changes. All three legs were together at that moment in South Africa’s history. Change happened. South Africa surprised the world with its peaceful revolution.

More recently, we saw the same thing happen in Northern Ireland. The majority of the people in Northern Ireland have been ready for an end to “the troubles” for many years. That was demonstrated when Mairead Corrigan and Betty Williams won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1976. Also, for many years, Ian Paisley has been a strong and charismatic leader for the ultra Loyalists. Only the Republican leg of the stool lacked a single leader with similar stature. That leader finally came into the picture when Gerry Adams emerged and grew as spokesman and leader for Sinn Fein. The stool now had three legs. Change became possible and Power Sharing and peace got off to a creaky start.

As I apply this analysis to other crises, the picture for 2008 is not encouraging. The Israeli-Palestine stool almost had all three legs at the same time a few years ago. Change was nearly within the grasp of both sides of Abraham’s family. Now, I fear that both the leadership legs are missing and all the rhetoric and cajoling from Washington is just adding more hot air to the desert winds. In Iraq the leadership leg for the Sunni faction is missing and that for the Shiite majority looks wobbly. In Afghanistan, all three legs are waiting to be discovered. I took the picture above during a visit to Belfast. The few remaining murals have now become tourist attractions. I pray for the day when each three-legged stool in the Middle East find all of their legs and the Jerusalem Wall can follow the way of the Berlin Wall and these murals.

Unused immigrant visa available !

Edith Agnes Andrews was my Great Aunt. I found her passport during a visit to Belfast and was fascinated to discover this visa allowing her to immigrate to the USA. Aunt Edie did not exercise that visa. According to family folklore, she went with her friends to catch the boat to the USA. The boat was anchored in Belfast Lough and a small tender carried the immigrants between the shore and the ship. Aunt Edie boarded that tender, went out to the ship and returned to Irish soil with the tender. She never did leave Britain and is buried in Belfast.

Why do I mention Aunt Edie? In recent months the subject of immigrants, border fences and national security has filled the airways. Aunt Edie is an example of past times. Coming from Ireland she was a textile worker. That was probably a useful profession in 1929. When she applied for that visa she was sure that immigrating to USA would give her a better life than staying in Belfast. I know that thought pattern continues today. People only leave home when the benefits on the other side of the fence are clearly better. For Aunt Edie, the ties to home were more powerful than the greener grass across the Atlantic. Every day, immigrants to USA – legal and illegal – make that same calculation. Fences, even double fences will not stop immigration. They will only change the arithmetic of the decision to come.

Is there an answer? As long as people view life in the USA as “better” they will try to come here. If our standards regress then immigration will naturally decline. Right now that might be happening but regression is not an acceptable policy. If we want to slow immigrants then the only real way is to help those other countries increase their standard of living. We give lots of aid but much of it is military aid. Sadly, in terms of our size, the amount of our practical help is small compared to countries like Norway. Maybe the solution to our immigration problem – and our declining image abroad – is not to become a walled and gated community but to spend that money raising standards in countries outside.

The camera doesn't lie . . . . Right!

Image manipulation is not new. Anyone who has watched a TV series about Henry VIII knows the problems caused by a flattering portrait. Holbein painted one of Anne of Cleves and showed it to Henry. Henry agreed to the marriage but when he finally met his betrothed he called her a “fat Flanders mare”. History suggests that Holbein exercised too much artistic license. Today, we take photo manipulation almost for granted. Of course, photographs have always been manipulated. There are the classic examples from the early Soviet era. Former party faithful who fell from favor were not only physically removed. Their images were skillfully airbrushed from any group photographs and history was rewritten. Less dramatically, photographs of movie stars and politicians and all those beautiful people in magazine ads are also retouched. In every photographic studio creative lighting enhanced features, clever poses hid signs of too many calories and double chins were banished with a raised head and flattering camera angle.

Lighting choices, lens type and camera viewpoint are still powerful tools. They still require skill to use. At another level, digital cameras and simple software have given everyone with a computer the power to change photographs. Most of us use these tools with little thought. “Red-eye” correction and removing skin blemishes are every-day examples. Blurring the skin to reduce wrinkles, brightening teeth and removing stray hair could be considered simple courtesy for a lady. But where does courtesy end? When do we become a twenty-first century edition of Holbein? Today, I can buy a program that will restore skin texture, remodel the nose, contour chin and cheeks, adjust the brow and hairline and enhance the eyes – all with a few clicks of a mouse. The final image is an artistic masterpiece – but is it still a photograph? Equally important, does it matter if the subject is happy with the result?

It is a fool-hardy blogger who would post portraits and confirm that the camera was lying. Those concerns do not apply to flowers. The image above was taken early in the morning with a macro lens and a small aperture for good depth of focus. Those choices started the manipulation before the shutter was pressed. The geranium below was taken in the afternoon using a very fast telephoto lens to achieve a shallow depth of focus and a fuzzy background. The photograph was also de-saturated to give a pastel appearance. Those choices yield very different images. As for the saxophonist at the beginning, he was left in peace to play cool jazz – only the backgrounds were slightly modified to return the buildings to vertical.

Old Photographs - new media

Last night I scanned some 20-year old 35 mm slides for a friend. The scans were straightforward so at the end I included this slide. The photograph is about 45 years old, the colors are fading and the surface needs to be cleaned. But, with a few computer adjustments the scene can be quickly restored to a presentable image. Here is the Singapore River in 1964. I took the photograph when I was a teenager. I was returning home after a morning shopping in the city. In those days the river was a busy gateway for Singapore’s imports and exports. If you visit this spot today you will find that those buildings in the background have been renovated. They are now restaurants and bars. A few boats also remain but their only cargoes are sight-seeing tourists. That empty skyline is now filled with giant office buildings.

Moving this image from film to my computer and the Internet was easy. In 45 years, will it will be as easy to move my digital photographs? I store my digital photographs on a computer hard drive. I also make back-ups on CDs. I read that CDs last a long time – perhaps more than 45 years. But will the equipment to read those CDs still be available when it is needed?

The first computer in our home had two floppy disk drives. During the past 20 years floppy disks improved, they changed format several times and they have disappeared from most computers. Any personal information stored on floppy disks is effectively lost. The same applies to business information. All those old files, reports and spreadsheets so carefully preserved on floppy disks might as well be forgotten. In most offices the only way to recover anything older than 10 years is to hope that it was printed and filed. Like my old slides, those printed copies can be scanned and resurrected to a new electronic life. In 2008 we can process a paper copy of Christopher Marlowe’s Tamburlaine published in 1587 but not an electronic copy stored on a floppy disk in 1987.

Cities are not the only things that change with time. People and lifestyles also change as we enjoy the “benefits” of progress. I photographed these Qashqai ladies one spring day as they moved with their family and flocks from the area around Shiraz in southern Iran. I wonder if the scene still exists today.

This slide is only 30 years old so the colors are still bright. The image is more than a travel record to me. It still conjures the emotions I felt then; a thrilling journey in an exotic landscape, my excited children (before they became “cool” teens and adults), the companionship of my wife and her parents, my worries about the reliability of the car on remote roads, all mixed with the fun of a family outing amid beautiful scenery. Photographs capture memories and emotions. I wonder if the moments captured by my digital camera last week will still be readable when technology had advanced another few years.

Yokohama

My first assignment to Japan began twenty years ago this week. In the intervening years I have returned many times. A lot has changed since I first arrived in 1988. Surprisingly, much also remains the same. My latest visit was last October when I spent almost three weeks in Yokohama. Twenty years ago the trains ran like clockwork but there were few signs in English to guide novice travelers. I became adept at reading the map outside station and counting stops to make sure I got off at the correct destination. Today, electronics make everything much easier. Most train compartments include digital signs that display the approaching station name in Kanji, Hiragana and English. This makes rail travel much more relaxing.

The area around Yokohama has changed dramatically. The new development of Minato Mairi that began in the late 90’s is nearing completion. The docks of the old shipyard are now a tourist attraction surrounded by a splendid shopping mall, tall office buildings and international hotels. A focal attraction is the Nippon Maru. This is a former sail training ship and is now transformed into a maritime museum.

But the traditional Japanese character still remains in Yokohama. Twenty years ago I was introduced to the simple pleasures of okonomiyaki. This is a batter cake that can contain vegetables, shrimp, squid, . . .just about anything the diner requests. Most okonomiyaki restaurants are set up as grill-it-yourself and the result looks like a well filled omelet. Twenty years ago I first visited this small restaurant located off Honmoku-dori. Last October I wandered along memory lane with my Pentax and was pleasantly surprised to see it is still in business. Cooking okonomiyaki is best enjoyed with friends – a bit like a fondue evening. I was alone so I didn’t look in to see if the owners have changed. Maybe next time.

Quiet subjects

I was taking photographs at a church event last Sunday morning when the need to plough through the instruction manuals that came with my digital camera was driven home. The event was held in a well-lit “fellowship” room. Even so, I used flash to ensure that shutter speeds were fast enough to freeze movement. I also used a 31mm f/1.7 prime lens. On the K10D that lens provides coverage very close a standard 50mm lens in a 35mm film camera. It is wide enough to capture good groups and long enough so that the camera is not stuck under the subject’s nose. J gave me this lens as a Christmas present and it is wonderful. It is legendary within the Pentax fold for sharpness at wide apertures. Even so, I decided to “stop-down” to make sure I had sufficient depth of field to keep everyone in a group in focus. With flash working I started to the first batch of photographs. Horrors – when I checked the results some time later they were all taken at f/1.7. The point of focus was sharp as expected from this lens but people standing near by were blurry. It was then that I noticed the camera was set to “Program” mode. Instead of following my careful settings it was following another set of instructions buried deep in the set-up menus. A turn of the dial imposed human control and I took the final images the way I planned.

I appreciate the assistance that modern cameras provide. I don’t want to give up my integrated light meter or auto focus. But as Sunday proves, these aids can be subversive especially with subjects that only offer one chance to take the shot. For me, those are usually people. Maybe that is why I love photographing flowers. They don’t move. They don’t get bored waiting while I compose the shot and they patiently continue to look beautiful if I want to repeat the shots from a slightly different viewpoint. Most of my human subjects loudly complain if the picture is not taken when they say “cheese”. The dragonfly above was in my back yard. The orchid below is growing in my son’s new greenhouse in North Carolina. Both were very, very patient.

From "have not" to "have"

My last job with “Big Oil” was an assignment to a country not a million miles from here. For part of the time I was assigned to a site building an oil production facility. It was located about two hours drive from the nearest “large” town. For twelve months I travelled each Monday morning to the site and returned on Friday to my wife who remained in the capital. During that week I lived in a “single-wide” mobile home. This was located on a camp that dated back to days when the Seven Sisters controlled the country’s oil wealth. A high security fence enclosed a self-contained community. Within the wire were a well financed school, medical center, social club and swimming pool, supermarket, barbershop and beauty salon and even a 9-hole golf course with lighting so that oil company employees could complete their golf round without concern for the early tropical dusk. The camp had secure electric supply, treated water and mains sewage. We even had satellite TV and mobile phone service. It was remote, but not a hardship assignment.

On my drive to the construction site each morning I passed another community. This had no security fence, no supermarket, no swimming club, and no golf club. There was a few-room school but it had fewer teachers, no finance and no facilities. There was electricity and water. I never asked what happened to the sewage but in that community a well-developed sense of smell was not an asset.

There are a couple of verses in Matthew that always jar when I hear them. They are the ones that go, “whoever has will be given more . . . . whoever does not have, even that which he has will be taken away from him.” Jesus was not talking about worldly possessions but those verses came to mind each morning when I left my trailer and travelled to work. The gulf between those who had and those who had not was so embarrassingly evident.

The people of that country elected a new government almost ten years ago. So far, the gulf between rich and poor has not been removed. Still, I remain hopeful. During my adult life I have watched as an island country in Asia with no natural resources but a hard working and educated people became a commercial powerhouse. There is no reason why oil wealth should not be used to help nations closer to home follow that path.

I took the photograph above one afternoon when college students were on their way home. These are the future of that country. I am always nervous when taking street photographs. There are photographers who seem to merge with the crowd. I always feel that everyone is looking at me. I am tensed for that angry shout. That shout has not come yet and when I look at the images nobody is looking at the camera. Maybe I am invisible after all.