Atrocity, memory, photography: Imaging the concentration camps of Bosnia - the case of ITN versus living Marxism, Part 1

Abstract

Among the many images of atrocity that emerged from the Bosnian War, the picture of Fikret Ali' and others imprisoned at the Trnopolje camp in the Prijedor region stands out. Taken from a 1992 British television report that detailed the role of camps such as Omarska and Trnopolje in the ethnic cleansing strategy of the Bosnian Serb authorities, the image of Ali'has become the focal point of a controversy about how the Bosnian camps were represented, and the political impact and purpose of those representations. Resulting in a legal clash between Independent Television News (ITN) and Living Marxism (LM) magazine, this controversy is the subject of this two-part article. In Part 1, the allegations concerning the filming of the Trnopolje inmates is considered in detail. In Part 2 (forthcoming), the argument moves beyond the specifics of the case and the camp to an exploration of the historical, political and visual context in which those specificities are located. This involves understanding the significance of the camps in terms of the Bosnian War and the history of the concentration camps, as well as discussing the question of photography and the Holocaust to question how particular atrocities are represented. The articles conclude with the issue of intellectual responsibility and the politics of critique in cases such as these.