It's true

All is fair in love and war; but mostly war.

This month's decision by the US Supreme Court not to hear the case brought by victims and sufferers of Agent Orange, the chemical defoliant used liberally in Vietnam during the American War, has made plain that when it comes to war, pretty much anything goes.  Forever.

I first came to Vietnam in the spring of 1990 as the cinematographer on a documentary by Tiana called  From Hollywood to Hanoi.  There was an afternoon in the weeks I was here filming where we visited what we referred to as 'the chamber of horrors' - it was a small room in a maternity hospital in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) with shelves from floor to ceiling on at least three sides of the room as I remember.  Tightly packed together on these shelves were clear glass jars filled with formaldehyde and suspended in the fluid were the deformed, twisted, three-eyed, two-headed fetuses, the aborted, the still-born inheritors of wrecked and ravaged DNA.  There was, and remains, only anecdotal proof of their afflictions and their parent's exposure to Agent Orange.  There was no marker in the chain claiming 'Property of Dow Chemical' or 'Made in Monsanto'.  But there were the jars and the children in them; mute, floating suspended in a murky and damning liquid - the ones with eyes, staring .  Those born and not condemned to the jars, they stare too.  These aren't moments you quickly forget.

I was recently invited to curate a photography exhibit by a group of disabled Vietnamese men and women from Thanh Hoa Province.  The images were made during a workshop conducted last summer by Paul Zetter through his organization ensemble creative over the course of five months.  The 16 people, most of whom had never used cameras previously, made over 8000 images in their communities, homes, villages - wherever they happened to be with their cameras and of whomever they happened to be around.

An interesting fact of Thanh Hoa Province is that during the American war here, the highest percentage of Vietnamese soldiers came from this very impoverished area.  Coincidentally or not, Thanh Hoa also has one of the highest incidences and occurrences of birth defects in all of Vietnam.  The theory being that soldiers from this province were out in the jungles and forests receiving the full benefit of the defoliant, returning home at the conclusion of the war with a system full of dioxin.  But, again, this is mere speculation; simple anecdote.  It might be true.  It might not.  The US Supreme Court will never know.

Anyway, the exhibition of their work was stunning.  Startling.  Heartbreaking.  Funny.  Real; babies-in-jars-real.  But for the photographers in the show, these disabled - a number of them in wheelchairs, one blind, one deaf, some with a twisted arm or a stunted body - and for their subjects, this is just what it is.  Forever.

Have a look at some of the work from the exhibition and three short films in triptych  (made by a young deaf woman of her mother, her signing class and herself) also from the show.  I'm pretty sure there's no compelling legal argument that would convince any court in any land to hear what these people have to say. 

 

But you and I might do well to listen.

photo credit: Ngo Van Bieu