Translator: Faith Gischler Reviewer: Denise RQ
I chose a profession that allows me to go places you can't go.
I am a photojournalist.
My job is also sometimes to show you
things you don't want to see.
Ironically, my job is to show you the gray areas.
For me, it all started in Afghanistan in 2004.
I showed up very biased, full of preconceived ideas,
and honestly, that worked well for me.
The next year, I got caught in a suicide bombing.
Miraculously I came out uninjured,
but I got a tough reality check.
In 2006 I was embedded with U.S. soldiers.
I didn't know them,
but I couldn't stand them, I hated them.
For me they were brutes who were mistreating the Afghans.
Stuck there together, we waited.
We waited for something to happen,
and eventually, I started to think they were nice, funny,
I started to become attached to them.
But one evening Mike, at only 19, burst out laughing and told me:
"Once I fired a missile at a guy.
I thought he was a member of the Taliban.
He turned into a flaming torch and ran around like a crazy chicken."
Everyone laughed,
but it didn't make me laugh.
Yet, I came to realize that with time, war dehumanizes the enemy
and makes the person on the other mean nothing.
And yet, I met that person on the other side.
Eric de la Varenne, Claire Billet, and I were the first westerners
to meet members of the Taliban.
Claire and I had to wear our burkas.
Here's my secret to make the fenced-in vision more bearable,
I have a little trick.
I crank my iPod up the whole way with Madonna's "Like a virgin."
That's my little revenge.
After a long road traveled in silence
and in sweltering heat,
finally, there they were, it was really them.
The young soldiers come towards us
and welcome us with cakes and juice,
and then start taking selfies with us and laughing.
They used their limited supply of English words,
we all ended up relaxing, and all of a sudden
(Music)
one of their ringtones.
(Laughter)
These were the Taliban?
In reality, I was most shocked
by the things the young American GIs and the young insurgents had in common.
So I made a choice that may be offensive or unsettling, but that I find relevant
to highlight the similarities of these enemies,
even though these enemies don't think of each other as people.
But it's a war, and in a war, there are victims.
August 18, 2008,
ten French soldiers and their fixer were killed in an ambush in Uzbin.
I was sent to cover the Afghan side.
Experience has taught me that after every attack,
there is an air strike retaliation.
Three villages near where the ambush took place were bombed.
There were casualties, civilian casualties.
I had to go to the site, but the zone was controlled by the Taliban,
so I had to request their permission.
And it starts all over again:
a burka, a long road, an escort,
and anxiety, I'm scared.
And all of a sudden, there are silhouettes descending the hill.
It's them.
I explain my plan to the leader, but he refuses.
I insist, and then I notice that one of them
is carrying a weapon that seems really modern.
I ask him what it is.
He replies that it's one of the weapons taken from the body of a slain soldier.
In fact, without knowing it,
I had come face to face with the insurgents responsible for the ambush.
So, for taking the photos you just saw,
I received death threats.
My parents received terrible letters,
and they even lost friends.
I was accused of having paid the Taliban 50,000 euros
which of course is stupid and completely unrealistic.
For one thing, for ethical reasons we never pay the people we photograph.
Secondly, our reporters never walk around with that much money on them.
I have also been accused of spreading their propaganda.
On that point, let's be clear.
Whenever a group, whether it's the Taliban or even the army,
decides to give a journalist some of their time,
you can be sure they have a message to get across.
I have also been accused of being unpatriotic
or of betraying my country.
Why? Because I dared to show the enemy's face?
Well, I don't believe I disrespected the lives of the fallen soldiers,
although I understand that it could be difficult for their families,
yet some parents thanked me
because they were longing for the truth even if it hurt.
In no way do I seek to justify
the horrible acts committed by the Taliban.
I just want to give you as much information as I can
so you can have the facts to come to your own conclusions.
It's true it would be simpler
if everyone in the world was either a good guy or a bad guy,
but this is war, and in war, that's rarely the case.
War is neither black nor white,
it's dirty, it's gray.
In fact, I've seen these gray areas in many other countries.
In particular in the Niger delta,
an area ruined by oil.
Nothing grows there, and there's nothing to fish.
Meanwhile, the local rulers fill their pockets.
That's when MEND came along: the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta.
They hide out in the mangrove swamp, and their thing is kidnapping,
attacking oil rigs, and controlling the black market for oil.
Both Manon Quérouil, the journalist I work with, and I
really wanted to meet Ateke,
one of the big leaders of these modern day so-called Robin Hoods.
So, as you can see, the Robin Hood we ended up meeting
was short, chubby, and uninspiring.
He welcomed us sprawled out on his sofa with a lukewarm bottle of Veuve Clicquot.
In fact, for some time now, things are much easier for them
because they are paid directly by the oil companies
so they won't attack them.
So they have lots of cash, and they're just bored.
Girls from the area, drawn by the goose with the golden eggs,
come to entertain these men.
Incidentally, this little chubby man fell for my friend.
I had to be the big sister, and explain to him
that in France we get married before we sleep together.
Well, he seemed a little doubtful,
but he finally accepted to send us back to town
so we could have a girls' shopping trip.
Needless to say, Ateke is still waiting for his runaway fiancee.
Ateke, who was long public enemy number one,
today is a close friend of the new president, Jonathan Goodluck,
and, apparently, one of the country's wealthiest men.
So in fact these Robin Hoods, are just regular thugs?
Black and white is for fairy tales, real life comes in color.
It's more troubling, more complicated, but it's more interesting.
And Nigeria is very familiar with these complex situations.
I was able to see this again working on a report in the north on Boko Haram.
Manon and I were not able to meet them,
but we came to realize that Boko Haram's roots
were much more complex and much older than they seemed.
In fact, for over ten years now, a real war is being waged
between the Nigerian army and Boko Haram.
And it's a war without mercy; an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.
The Nigerian army burns madrassas, Boko Haram burns schools.
The Nigerian army abducts women and children
suspected to have ties with members of the sect,
Boko Haram abducts young girls.
The truth is that the north of the country
was completely abandoned by the government in the south.
The northerners, left to their own defenses, naturally, became resentful.
Boko Haram took advantage of this resentment to draw in the youth;
and the near criminal behavior of this corrupt army
led to a series of abominations each one more tragic than the last,
until, as we all remember, the abduction of 219 high school girls
that finally managed to get our attention.
So, let us be clear: nothing we were able to discover
justified the abduction and enslavement of young girls.
Seeking out the enemy does not mean defending them,
and I do not want to become a spokesperson for the Taliban, MEND, or Boko Haram.
I am in no way trying to justify or defend their revolting actions,
I just want to allow you to understand them better,
so you might have the knowledge, to think in an informed manner.
Because I believe that sometimes,
knowing more, understanding better, helps in finding the solution,
and that many errors could have been avoided
with a better understanding of the people and the territory.
So we clearly see that black and white doesn't work
because in Afghanistan, the youth fighting on both sides are not that different.
Because MEND and other Robin Hoods are thugs like any other,
because the roots of Boko Haram are very complex.
So, it's true that black and white is nicer, it's more elegant,
but it's simplistic, and most of all, it's false.
Color is not an absolute, it's more blurred, but it's closer to reality.
So I want to continue to introduce you to these insurgents,
these revolutionaries, these terrorists,
so that you can come to informed conclusions.
That is why we reporters are there,
and sometimes risk our lives.
We go where you cannot go,
show you what, sometimes, you don't want to see.
You have a right to know the truth, so demand it.
(Applause)