[scandium]

Truth != Propaganda.

Way back when, in a 1st year university english class on "context, substance and style", which was a pure writing course, a lot of our assignments were 5% writing exercises where we'd be given a cartoon image, or a picture, or whatever, and construct some kind of essay around it (analytical, expository, whatever). For old time's sake I'll take a stab at writing a short analytical essay on this poster and the techniques used by the artist to convey his message to his audience.

Without having any background on this poster, or what the caption says, I'll have to confine the analysis to its imagery and presume that its based on the clash between Hezbollah and Israel. In that context, then, we are shown an armed Hezbollah militant male, a Muslim woman and her child on one side, and an Israeli male soldier, an Israeli woman and her child on the other. The number of participants presented are equal, as are the weapons, but this is where the symmetry ends.

The Hezbollah militant is depicted in an aggressive posture, crouching behind the Muslim woman and child, with his weapon taking direct aim at the Israelis who he appears to be about to gun down. The Muslim woman infront of him looks directly at the Israelis, in a confrontional posture of her own with a grim and determined expression on her face, with her child held in front of her like a shield.

The Israeli soldier, on the other hand, is drawn upright, looking directly at his assailants with his hand pressing the Israeli woman and child behind him and his weapon held at the ready, but pointed at nobody. The Israeli woman clutches her child to her, her stance is neutral and the expression on her face is that of a deer caught in the headlights - she is helpless, a spectator.

Thus taken at face value, as "truth", I would conclude from the artist's illustration that the Hezbollah militants attack the Israelis not man-to-man, but crouched, cowardly like vipers, behind their women. And their women, for their part, are defiant and even willing participants themselves as they hold their young before them as a shields posing the dilemna to non-agressive Israeli soldier with his own family behind him: 'do I allow them to kill me and my family or do shoot, and in the process perhaps kill both the woman and the child. But what choice do I have, what do I do?' His stance suggests that he is resolute, but not provactive; that he is in fact courageous, and valliant but faced with an impossible dilemna.

Is this then the truth? Can we extrapolate from this poster an accurate picture of the actual events in this conflict, the nature of the struggle itself, and the way it is being waged by both sides?

A picture is indeed worth a thousand words, and I suppose in a way even a propaganda poster is; but where a picture shows an unbiased, unfiltered reality taking place in real time a propaganda poster aims only to convey a perception of a reality, and that perception is what the propagandist wants you to see. Propaganda is the wrong place to look for truth.