It's very hard to turn your back once you're aware of what's going on, and you're aware of the injustices, and you're aware of the civilian casualties. It's much easier if you have no idea and you've never seen it.
Interpretation
Becoming aware of injustice compels one to act, even when it's difficult.
This quote by Lynsey Addario highlights the overwhelming moral responsibility that comes with awareness. Once a person knows about injustices and the suffering of others, they can no longer ignore the truth; this knowledge creates a burden that demands action, while ignorance may provide an easier, albeit morally questionable, path of inaction.
In practice
This quote could be used in a speech about social justice at a rally.
I do think my childhood is one of the fundamental reasons that I'm able to do my job. We were raised in this totally nonjudgmental family. We never knew who was going to walk in the front door. And as a journalist and a photographer, you walk into so many different scenes that you have to be open to everything.
As a Western woman in the Middle East, I am often put in a different category. I am sort of like the third sex. I am not treated like a man. I am not treated like a woman. I am just treated like a journalist. That is usually really helpful.
My strength is looking for composition and light, and I think those things come in the quieter times of war or photographing people affected on the margins of war - civilians, refugees; that is where I really excel.
Don't expect things to happen fast. Be empathetic with the people you are photographing. Don't be concerned about money.
If people really saw what was happening in Iraq and Afghanistan, then they might be marching in the streets to end wars. But you know, I think that no one ever sees because we're not allowed to see, and we're not allowed to publish what we do see. So it's quite difficult.
Look, I would say that anyone who does this work and doesn't have a strain of idealism is an adrenaline junkie or completely narcissistic. There is no other justification. You're risking your life, and if anything happens, it's our families who suffer tremendously.
All adventures, especially into new territory, are scary.
Every wrong seems possible today, and is accepted. I don't accept it.
All great and honorable actions are accompanied with great difficulties, and both must be enterprised and overcome with answerable courage.
I will always remember the first show I did clean and sober... It was in New Mexico, in Albuquerque. I literally felt elevated, as everything was coming with such clarity.
The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis.
I often say now I don't have any choice whether or not I have Parkinson's, but surrounding that non-choice is a million other choices that I can make.
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