i accept other's feelings without hesitation.
i get fearful when i am asked to look the other way to history though.
The photo of the tail assembly of a WWII German aircraft was taken in the Australian War Museum, in Canberra, the nation's capital. It is our national war museum, dedicated to the brave men and women who fought, and died, for our country.
It is a very large, and very good, museum. It documents the lives and the horrors of war in meticulous detail, from the very small and personal (personal diaries and possessions of soldiers on the Western Front) to the large machinery of war (the remains of one of the Japanese midget submarines that attacked Sydney Harbour on 29 May 1942, and in the
Aircraft Hall, an impressive static display of WW1 and WWII aircraft, including Nazi war birds).
It would be inappropriate to suggest the museum remove the swastikas from the Nazi war birds on display. Yes, the swastika is offensive, a graphically powerful symbol representing atrocities on an almost unimaginable scale. But it is part of history, and to attempt to expunge its image would deny visitors the opportunity to learn about the symbol used to rally an entire population around an evil regime.
The Australian War Museum is a place of great respect. You cannot walk the halls of the museum without being humbled by what you see. In this place, in these circumstances, Mike walked with his camera, seeing with his sharp photographer's eye light, shapes, patterns, the terrible beauty of
the machinery of war. He saw an interesting composition of light and form, and made a photograph - of what was there, in front of him, in a national shrine to the brave Australians who died fighting tyranny and evil.
Must Australians be criticised for photographing what is in their own national war museum?
I can understand the anger and anguish of those who look at the swastika symbol and all it represents. I ask those people, would you wish to expunge that symbol so that future generations cannot learn about the nature of evil? Would you wish for history to be repeated, and the lessons of history to go unlearned?
To my mind an appropriate response would have been to ask Mike about his photograph, and his intention in posting it, before making any criticism.
I applaud Mike for his humility in making an apology. He is a well-mannered gentleman. In the circumstances and in his intent in taking it, I believe it to be unnecessary.
If I were photographing the activities of Neo-Nazis now in America or europe, I would not hesitate to show their fanatical swastika-daubed bodies and faces in all their ugly detail. And I would not hesitate to photograph Nazi war birds. I have no desire for history to be repeated.
