Because of Conflict: Photographs by Peter Turnley

BECAUSE OF CONFLICT Photographs by Peter Turnley

BECAUSE OF CONFLICT Photographs by Peter Turnley

My interest in photographing life has always been about sharing, sharing my observations, perceptions, and feelings about the world that I witness and encounter.

It might be important to add that powerful photographs don’t come from a formula—they are about the human story, they most often emanate from human sincerity and authenticity, and, as in life itself, genuine compassion seems to go a long way.

— both quotes by Peter Turnley, first from “Interviews from Havana,” online interview, 2015,

second from “The Online Photographer” blog, July 10, 2019 Award-winning photographer and photojournalist Peter Turnley (American, born 1955) is known for his images of conflict, struggle, humanity, and inhumanity witnessed around the world. He has captured pivotal moments in history such as the 1989 overthrow of the brutal, communist leader Nicolae Ceaușescu of Romania and moments of reflection, such as an American soldier on duty in Saudi Arabia, writing home for the holidays during the Gulf War in 1990. Turnley also focuses on itinerant populations, such as refugees from Middle Eastern conflicts and migrants at the U.S./Mexico border in Laredo, Texas. This exhibition of photographs is accompanied by texts written by University of Richmond faculty and students, in response to the imagery and based on their own scholarship and experiences.

Turnley’s photographs have been featured in numerous publications including Newsweek, Harper’s, Paris Match, Le Monde, The London Sunday Times, LIFE, National Geographic, The New Yorker, and more, and he has published six books of his work. He is a graduate of the University of Michigan, and the Sorbonne and the Institut d’Etudes Politiques of Paris, and has received an honorary degree from the New School of Social Research in New York. He currently lives in New York and Paris, and is engaged in an ongoing photo-essay project in Cuba.

Organized by the University of Richmond Museums, the exhibition was curated by N. Elizabeth Schlatter, Deputy Director and Curator of Exhibitions, University Museums. The exhibition is made possible in part with funds from the Louis S. Booth Arts Fund, and it is part of the two-year themed programming, Contested Spaces: This Ground, offered by departments within the University of Richmond’s School of Arts & Sciences. All of the photographs are in the collection of the Joel and Lila Harnett Print Study Center, University of Richmond Museums, Gift of James P. Kearney, ’85, from 2018. All images © Peter Turnley.

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Somali Militiaman, Mogadishu, Somalia 1992, archival pigment print on paper

The existence of child soldiers has been a phenomenon that sowed misery in the Horn of Africa for the past three decades. In this picture, three things combine to create the gloomy atmosphere of a teenager’s misguided trust in violence. We see a pair of shadowy eyes lodged in a weeping face to foreground dashed dreams, a machine gun on his shoulders in a background of carcasses of heavy armament, and a big ship by the warehouse with instruments (containers) of unabated trade. The child soldier is both a hostage taker as much as he is a hostage of the horrific.

Clothed in a makeshift uniform, this person represents the child soldier who has been roaming Somalia for almost three decades. He could as well be a Liberian teenager, a Sierra Leonean hand cutter, a Central African militiaman, or a so-called traditional mai-mai fighter in Eastern Congo. They all share a common trait: a heavy machine gun entrusted to them by adults to “defend” their “threatened communities.” This is emblematic of Turnley’s way of capturing the effect of his subjects. Barrenness of emotion and deep sadness find reflection in the eyes, and here, the gloomy eyes of a teenager. The youth stands on an unproven path and relies upon his machine gun to live, to project his future, and to build some kind of society. The result is nothing but complete destruction and the hurried flight of inhabitants away from their places: stream of refugees with no date in sight to return home.

— text by Kasongo Kapanga, Professor of French and Francophone Studies, Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, University of Richmond

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The Romanian Revolution, Bucharest, Romania 1989, archival pigment print on paper

The story of the 1989 revolutions in Central and Eastern Europe is often told as a victorious narrative of peaceful democratic change. This was not the case in Romania, where 1,104 died and 3,352 were wounded in the tumultuous events that culminated in the capture and execution of dictator Nicolae and his wife Elena Ceaușescu on Christmas Day, 1989.

The Romanian “Revolution” (in quotes because its revolutionary outcomes are still contested) unwittingly began merely a week earlier after Ceaușescu’s army and the Securitate (internal security forces) opened fire on protesters in Timișoara. This photograph depicts the public mourning that aired during the aftermath of December 1989’s events.

Turnley’s photograph affirms the sense of martyrdom that was placed on the fallen in the brief duration of the revolution.

As anthropologist Katherine Verdery has written, burial processes and dead bodies “have properties that make them particularly effective political symbols. They are thus excellent means for accumulating something essential to political transformation: symbolic capital.” The socialist period denied the long history of East Europeans’ connecting death to the sacred. Thus, the religious imagery and the position of the body in the coffin and the solemnity of those gathered suggest that Romanians are symbolically reclaiming, in a very public way, their own culture. A kind of re-sacralization of the political order took place in Romania that would become an important part of the country’s exhilarating but challenging post-socialist future.

— text by Timothy Barney, Associate Professor, Department of Rhetoric and Communication Studies, University of Richmond

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Migrants Arrested after Attempted Border Crossing, Laredo, Texas 2006, archival pigment print on paper

The man’s hands and forearms are worn and appear bloody. He stands motionless in line with other detained migrants while a Latinx border patrol agent, photographed out of focus, addresses the group. The room with sterile white walls is also blurred and stands in contrast with the in-focus arms and hands. The viewer is left to wonder if that fresh cut, the center point of the photograph, is a result of moving through barbed wire quickly while passing through a rancher’s fence. Or was it caused by falling on caliche? Did he chew down his fingernails while waiting anxiously for his coyote to pick him or while under arrest with Customs and Border Patrol?

This image generates more questions than answers. We do know for a fact, however, that at this time the Department of Homeland Security’s Prevention Through Deterrence policy was functioning according to design, with an average of 431 people dying, mainly from dehydration and exposure, while crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in 2006 alone.

In his photo-essay of the U.S.-Mexico border, “The Line” (Harper’s Magazine, October 2006), Turnley explored migration, poverty, and binational identities in the context of border security efforts that limit people’s ability to seek a better life. Turnley described this project as a call for embracing difference and promoting empathy. His image of a migrant’s injured arms and hands is a photographic argument against those who support detaining migrants and, in the context of today’s politics, a statement against border walls.

— text by Margaret Dorsey, Associate Professor of Anthrophology, and Miguel Diaz-Barriga, Professor of Anthropology, both Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Richmond

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Afghan Refugees, Peshawar, Pakistan 1988, archival pigment print on paper

That night, my parents packed flour, bread and water for the journey ahead. After meeting about a hundred other individuals who also feared for their lives, they all started walking in the middle of the night to leave Kabul.

My mother had me on her back in a big chaadar, or scarf. My father was carrying the food. My parents made dough with flour they brought from Kabul. My mother didn’t have milk to feed me, so she made dough balls and put them under the sun to cook, where they turned to little breads.

On the way, my mom didn’t have any milk to give to me. My father bought a bottle of water from a man in a small dookan, or shop. The water had small worms floating in it.

They couldn’t find any clean water. My mother ripped part of her chaadar and put it on the top of the bottle, and then let me drink from it.

We hid for days, in big holes and under bushes. But in the night, we would travel.

One of those nights, while everybody was rushing to go, my mother started falling behind.

She had gotten sick and too weak to walk. My father held her hand and was pulling her to come faster. My father put her on his back to travel some way but she couldn’t move and passed away. People helped to bury her and started walking again.

Once we arrived in Pakistan, we introduced ourselves as refugees from Afghanistan.

My mother was gone but I was safe and provided for. That’s the price that my mother paid.

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Human experience is more than just the laws, policies, and what can be seen with the eyes.

It’s the emotions and feelings of happiness, sadness, disgust, anger, angst, embarrassment, guilt, pride, and hopefulness. Understand that freedom is never free and perseverance comes at a cost. Take a moment and listen, and ask the hard questions. If there is one thing that is more precious than freedom, it’s life.

For an immigrant or refugee to leave their home or stay behind, it’s not an easy decision. There are many sacrifices to make whether you chose to leave violence and make it to another place or stay behind. Just because you are across the border, the hardships are not over. There is an attachment to the place and the people you left behind, there are emotions of guilt and helplessness that sometimes you get to carry for the rest of your life.

Freedom is important and precious, but without the respect of one’s dignity by a fellow being, it can be meaningless, and it can feel confining. Recognition of each other’s dignity as human beings has the power to diminish ignorance that is prevailing over common decency.

Let’s be considerate and honor those that go through difficult experiences. Whether someone decides to leave their home or stay, the journey still requires faith and strength.

If one could go home, they would as the poet Warsan Shire writes, “I want to go home, but home is the mouth of a shark. Home is the barrel of the gun, and no one would leave home, unless home chased you to the shore.”

— both texts by Lina Tori Jan, ’20, leadership and political science double major, Bonner Scholar, and 2019 Newman Civic Fellow, University of Richmond

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Refugees from the Horn of Africa, Eastern Sudan 1988, archival pigment print on paper

The famine that struck Ethiopia in the 1980s left no one indifferent because of a severe drought that threatened the most vulnerable from preventable deaths. The world’s greatest singers of the United Support Artists came out with the “We are the World” song (1985) written by Lionel Richie and the late Michael Jackson. The sight of weakened women unable to provide for their small ones and that of emaciated children with bulging eyes raised the world’s empathy as much as the urge to assist.

Peter Turnley’s picture sums up the impact of this sad phenomenon on the most vulnerable members of society and captures the anguish that grips families. It highlights the devastating combination of a man-created crisis (a civil war) and a natural disaster such as a severe drought that struck the entire Horn of Africa and especially Ethiopia. Both had long-lasting devastating effects on people especially in the rural areas where the main livelihood (agriculture and cattle raising) depended largely on adequate rainfalls.

Malnourished, the child’s eyesight remains vivid as he attempts to draw his mother’s attention to his plight in the absence of what would heighten his curiosity such as games, toys, or singing. The mother with a worried face has nothing else to offer but her own presence. The blanket on her lap remains the only shelter to offer to a very weakened child. The scene exudes sadness, darkness, and powerlessness.

— text by Kasongo Kapanga, Professor of French and Francophone Studies, Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, University of Richmond

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Gulf War Refugees (Migrant Workers), Jordanian Desert 1991, archival pigment print on paper

The first Gulf War, called Operation Desert Storm, took place in January and February of 1990 and was a result of Saddam Hussein’s occupation of Kuwait on August 2, 1990. Peter Turnley’s photograph documents an almost forgotten aspect of these events, that is, the flight and expulsion of migrant workers from Kuwait.

Many hundreds of thousands of people from Egypt, Yemen, Jordan, and Palestine, as well as from various non-Arab Asian countries had lived and worked in Kuwait and found themselves suddenly not wanted, even forcibly expulsed. Two months after the Iraqi invasion, over two million workers had fled and tried to return to their home countries— provided they had the means. Many of them were unskilled laborers, but there was also a great number of skilled laborers and professionals among them. Their way home in most cases meant traveling under harsh conditions, stays in refugee camps, and when they reached their home countries, they often found a less than friendly welcome. The sum of the contributions they had sent home had been an important factor to the economies of their countries and their families, and their skills and work force were not needed back home. Thus, they disappeared from the public eye and ended up as a part of the statistics of a noticeable increase in “refugee population” and “unemployment.”

— text by Martin Sulzer-Reichel, Director of the Arabic Language Program, Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, University of Richmond

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Inside Ceaucescu’s Private Office with Rebels During the Romanian Revolution 1989, archival pigment print on paper

Was it a democratic revolution or a military coup? Or both? The memory of the Romanian Revolution is still contested — but one thing, though, was clear: the Ceaușescu regime had met its end. On December 21, 1989, Ceaușescu gave a disastrous speech from the balcony of the Central Committee Building to over 100,000 gathered in Palace Square, where what started as a rally turned to chaos and quickly became an ad-hoc protest.

Nicolae Ceaușescu and his wife Elena were just barely able to escape a crowd of protesters flooding the building.

In Turnley’s photograph, revolutionaries occupy Ceaușescu’s office, capturing a symbolic coup as much as an actual one. The image captures the way space had transformed amidst the revolutions of 1989 — the fact that the Ceaușescus held such an iron grip on public spaces and discourse is inverted here, with the irony that revolutionaries had now infiltrated Ceaușescu’s private space. This photo also showcases how much the revolution was accompanied by the hard power of the gun. In this way, the photo suggests a volatile transition and an unsettled future, as the revolutionaries had to establish what postsocialism would look like and reckon with Romania’s violent totalitarian history. Rhetorical scholar Noemi Marin has noted the difficulties of this shift, arguing that “Romanian political discourse continues to fight instability and legitimacy, as rigid political discourse intersects with yet-to-strengthen vocabularies of democracy.” Even thirty years later, this struggle continues to mark Romania’s political identity.

— text by Timothy Barney, Associate Professor, Department of Rhetoric and Communication Studies, University of Richmond

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Refugees from Kosovo, Albania 1999, archival pigment print on paper

Since the 14th century, Serbs and Albanians have claimed historic, religious, and cultural ties to the same geographical area — Kosovo — and coexistence between them has been a continual struggle throughout the centuries. In the late 1980s and 1990s, Slobodan Milošević’s nationalistic discourse and aggressive politics led to the systematic oppression of Kosovo’s ethnic Albanians. After numerous attempts to establish peace in Kosovo failed, NATO troops with U.S. support launched airstrikes in March 1999. During these conflicts, more than 500,000 Albanians fled Kosovo and were displaced in neighboring countries and throughout Europe. Just as Europe witnessed once again the horrors of ethnic cleansing within its own borders, the child in Turnley’s photograph became a powerful call to our failures as a community.

— text by Lidia Radi, Associate Professor of Italian and French, Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, University of Richmond

Indeed, this image is a puzzle; it opens up to us and withdraws from us. The image is travelling — like the three bodies in the frame, in a state of displacement, uneasy. How do we encounter the face of the other? The wide-eyed face of the child: is it fascinated, frightened? The blurred face of a woman (the mother?) receding into darkness: is she wary, curious, tired? And then a third face, whose contours we will never see: both disappearing into a background without form and melting into the folds of maternal fabric. Are we to rescue this hidden face or to respect its privacy? It is a lost face: but we are not to assign a definite meaning to its loss.

— text by Sonja Bertucci, Visiting Professor of Film Studies, Department of Journalism, University of Richmond

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Iraqi Kurdish Refugees, Gulf War, Işıkveren, Şırnak, Southeastern Turkey April 1991, archival pigment print on paper

Under the impression that the U.S. government gave him a “green light” to do so, Saddam Husayn, the ruler of Iraq, invaded and soon annexed neighboring country Kuwait on 2 August 1990. International condemnation and economic sanctions followed. Given an ultimatum to withdraw, Husayn refused and remained in occupation of Kuwait until mid-January 1991. By 17 January, a coalition of 35 countries led by the United States commenced Operation Desert Storm, bombing Iraq and Iraqi forces in Kuwait from the air for five weeks. In late February 1991, Husayn ordered a retreat from Kuwait. Declaring Kuwait liberated, President George H. W. Bush openly and without considering the possible consequences encouraged the Iraqi people to rebel against Husayn. Emboldened, the Shia Arabs in southern Iraq and the ethnic Kurds in the north rose up in rebellion in early March. Yet Bush’s implied support never materialized. Although the rebellions in the south and the north were initially successful in capturing a number of towns and cities, the tide turned relatively quickly. Led by the Iraqi Republican Guard, forces loyal to Husayn brutally suppressed the Shia and the Kurds.

As the Iraqi Republican Guard moved north, they pushed before them over a million Kurds heading to Iraq’s borders with Turkey and Iran. Mostly on foot, the sudden exodus created a major humanitarian disaster. Some 280,000 Kurds fled to Turkey, while at least another 300,000 waited on the Iraqi side. This photograph shows a Kurdish man and a child, possibly his daughter, in Işıkveren (Turkey), who managed to cross the border across minefields.

— text by Yücel Yanikdağ, Associate Professor of History and International Studies, Department of History, University of Richmond

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Iraqi Kurdish Refugees, Gulf War, Işıkveren, Şırnak, Southeastern Turkey April 1991, archival pigment print on paper

10 April 1991, Işıkveren, Şırnak, Turkey. This photograph shows a young Kurdish woman and an infant, likely siblings, who crossed the border into Turkey. Fleeing Iraqi forces who were trying to put down the Kurdish rebellion in northern Iraq, 280,000 non-combatant Kurds found relative safety in Turkey while another 300,000 huddled up to the border in hopes of being rescued as Iraqi helicopters opened fire on the refugees during their difficult trek over rough terrain. Though it never delivered the implied military support during the rebellion, the U.S. (and the coalition forces) finally declared northern Iraq a “no fly zone” for Iraqi airships to stop the air attacks on the refugees. Because neither Turkey nor the international relief organizations were ready to handle such large numbers of people, several hundred refugees died daily on the Iraqi side of the border. Those who crossed the border into Turkey, such as this woman and the infant, were safe from Iraqi reprisals, but not necessarily from exposure or other dangers. Many, especially infants, also died on the Turkish side of the border before proper measures could be taken.

— text by Yücel Yanikdağ, Associate Professor of History and International Studies, Department of History, University of Richmond

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Hamas Demonstration, Gaza 1993, archival pigment print on paper

In this photograph, Palestinian citizens flood the streets of Gaza on 28 September 1993 to celebrate the signing of the Oslo Peace Accords. The man in the center holds a mini Quran. His raised left forefinger symbolizes the oneness and unity (tawheed) of God.

Following the intifada, or “shaking off” of and uprising against Israeli occupation from 1987 to 1991, the accords were negotiated secretly between Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and Israeli officials in Oslo, Norway in 1993. The agreement, referred to as Oslo I, introduced a five-year program to create Palestinian autonomy in the Gaza Strip and part of the West Bank, both occupied by Israel since 1967. In agreeing to negotiate, PLO officials recognized Israel’s legitimacy, and Israeli officials recognized the PLO as a legitimate representative of Palestinians. The autonomy agreement was signed on 3 September 1993 on the White House lawn by PLO Chairman Yasir Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, signifying progress on a seemingly insurmountable disagreement.

For Palestinians, the Oslo Peace Accords were a victory won through nearly five years of resistance. The intifada, which empowered PLO officials to negotiate with Israeli officials in Oslo, declared as one of its demands the recognition of an independent Palestinian state under the leadership of the PLO. Though the 1993 agreement ensured that Israel retained sovereignty over all Palestinian land, it granted the PLO autonomy in a step toward an independent Palestinian state.

— text by Nadia Neman, ’20, history, English, and French triple major, University of Richmond

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Writing Home, Gulf War, Saudi Arabia, Christmas Day 1990, archival pigment print on paper

More than 50 years ago in Vietnam, service members who wanted to keep in touch with folks back home wrote letters. Phone calls were impossible for those away from all but the largest bases, and even there most troops weren’t allowed to make calls. It took a week for mail to get from Vietnam to America. It took another week for mail from home to Vietnam.

In Iraq and Afghanistan today, U.S. troops have more options. Even at remote outposts there are frequently internet connections and satellite phones. Commanders sometimes complain that all of these new ways to keep in touch have a downside: Will war fighters be fully engaged with combat duties when frequent and instantaneous communication with folks back home is there to distract them?

Despite satellite phones and internet cafes, service members still write old-fashioned letters home, as this soldier appeared to be doing in Saudi Arabia at Christmastime 1990 before the start of the First Gulf War. But even with “sat” phones and the internet, one thing hadn’t changed since Vietnam: that GI’s letter was still going to take a week to get home.

— text by Robert Hodierne, Associate Professor, Department of Journalism, University of Richmond [Note: from 1966-1970, Professor Hodierne photographed American troops on two tours of combat in Vietnam.]

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Designed by Claire Burke, ‘21, Business Administration Major, University of Richmond 28

University of Richmond Museums