Catering to a Lebanese Clich�: World Press Photo Mix-Up - International - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News
By Ulrike Putz in Beirut
The World Press Photo of the Year 2006 shows upscale young Lebanese men and women visiting a bombed-out Beirut neighborhood like disaster tourists -- or at least that's what everyone thought. Bissan Maroun, one of those featured in the photograph, told SPIEGEL ONLINE the true story.
... The strong reactions prove that Platt has struck a nerve. He caters perfectly to a cliché about Lebanon that is not entirely unjustified. In fact Lebanon does see immensely wealthy people and extremely poor inhabitants sharing not just the same country, but also the small area of a few square kilometers that is Beirut. There really were rich people wearing expensive sunglasses -- mostly Christian or Sunni -- who sat, hookah in hand, in popular bars above the city watching the unloved Shiite neighborhoods go up in smoke.
The trouble is that Bissan and her companions don't belong to that group.
By Ulrike Putz in Beirut
The World Press Photo of the Year 2006 shows upscale young Lebanese men and women visiting a bombed-out Beirut neighborhood like disaster tourists -- or at least that's what everyone thought. Bissan Maroun, one of those featured in the photograph, told SPIEGEL ONLINE the true story.
... The strong reactions prove that Platt has struck a nerve. He caters perfectly to a cliché about Lebanon that is not entirely unjustified. In fact Lebanon does see immensely wealthy people and extremely poor inhabitants sharing not just the same country, but also the small area of a few square kilometers that is Beirut. There really were rich people wearing expensive sunglasses -- mostly Christian or Sunni -- who sat, hookah in hand, in popular bars above the city watching the unloved Shiite neighborhoods go up in smoke.
The trouble is that Bissan and her companions don't belong to that group.
posted 3/05/2007
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