Extraordinary Women
We recognise great photo-journalists by their signature images; Robert Capa’s Spanish Civil War Death of A Loyalist, Don McCullin’s frozen-faced US Marine traumatised in the aftermath of a firefight with the Vietcong.
We recognise Tom Stoddart’s images through his subjects’ humanity. It is their story he wants told, it is their lives he wants chronicled, recognized, and rewarded with our appreciation, our awareness, that our voices may be raised in their defence.
And it is in this book where Tom’s story comes into sharp and unique focus reaffirming the inconvenient truth – during the tectonic convulsions that rip landscapes to shreds, be they earthquake, famine or war, it is always the women and their children who bear the burden of calamity, it is their faces that tell the story and remind us we might be the next casualties of disorder.
But this is not a book about death, horror, terror. Where others see only violence, and despair, Tom sees courage, defiance and endurance; where others see only frailty and tears, Tom finds strength and dignity, where others record women as victims, Tom captures their fortitude.
For this book is the story of extraordinary women.
It was such a story that enraged and ignited me when I first met Tom. I was a senior editor at The London Sunday Times in 1987. Years of Middle East turmoil had taken its toll on the news cycle; places like Beirut and Belfast generally attracted resigned sighs and even cynical yawns in editorial conferences in London or New York.
Two young freelance journalists were ushered into my office by a sympathetic reporter; the foreign desk had just rejected their story as stale. A car ferry had capsized killing 193 on board, Margaret Thatcher was visiting Moscow as the Soviet Union faced collapse – who cared about a refugee camp in Beirut where Muslim was killing Muslim?
The two journalists had braved weeks of murderous gunfire and near starvation in the southern suburbs of civil-war torn Beirut where the Palestinian refugee camp, Bourj – el Bharajneh was under siege from Amal Shi-ite militia; tanks shelled and snipers murdered the inhabitants around the clock. The reporter was a young freelance American journalist called Marie Colvin, her friend and colleague the British photographer Tom Stoddart.
And there in their epic story, deemed too expansive for publication, was, in words and pictures one element that exploded off the page; a series of photographs of women, running across open ground, under fire, with empty buckets to collect water from an exposed well. One was felled almost instantly by a sniper. They knew they were easy targets for the murderers laying siege but they needed water, for their children, their casualties, themselves. After filling their buckets, two run back, water slopping and halted in the full sight of the snipers to scoop up their fallen friend and drag her back, with their water pails, to the safety of a building already reduced to rubble.
It was war on women. And that would be the headline. As Marie reworked her words, Tom and I laid out a powerful full- page feature showing the sequence of events under the headline, thinking it would take a powerful visual display to elevate Beirut in the news agenda. When I took the dummy page layout into the editor’s office. Andrew Neil took one look and declared, “I want this on the front page”.
That Sunday the world woke up to Bourj – el –Barajneh’s plight. The Arab nations immediately brought pressure to bear on the Syrian backed Amal militia and the siege was lifted – the power of Tom’s photographs and Marie’s words proved that the press still had the power to marshall public opinion and silence the guns.
It was a theme we reprised five years later. Again Tom was under fire during one of his many forays into Sarajevo. Again a town besieged by tanks, artillery and snipers and once again it was a war on women.
Tom walked into my office with a startling portfolio in which one jumped out; her name was Meliha, a striking, defiant, beautiful woman, dressed to allure in a city without medicine, or make-up. A city where women were reduced to using berry juices for rouge or lipstick. Meliha wore her beauty with pride and defiance as she strode down what was called Sniper Alley, in heels, stockings and pearls, knowing a bullet might end her life at any moment.
Another extra ordinary woman, another cover story that changed and shaped our world. Another image among many in a career in which seeks to show the endurance, fortitude and dignity of women in the frontline.
You won’t find Tom Stoddart gracing fashionable parties in London or New York, receiving the praise of his contemporaries. You won’t find Tom on stage at award ceremonies accepting the applause of his peers. You’ll find him where most of us fear to tread, and where his subjects have no choice – on the parapets of crisis, catastrophe and conflict.
You won’t hear Tom talking about himself on television or radio either. He simply doesn’t have the time or the inclination to occupy the spotlight that so many of his peers crave but that is so deservedly his. He would cringe to read such praise, and abruptly change the subject to – his subjects.
Even now when many of his contemporaries are con- templating their third life of travel, or gardening, or enjoying their grand-children, after successful careers, Tom is still packing his camera bag - after 40 years on the frontline, he is still climbing those parapets that continue to be built by violence both manmade and natural.
And he continues to expand our consciousness.
Robin Morgan, Editor in Chief, Sunday Times Magazine. 1991-2009
Palestinian women and children shelter from Amal militia sniper fire as Haji Achmed Ali lies wounded on the Path Of Death out of the Bourj el Barajneh refugee camp. Southern Beirut, April, 1987.
Haji Achmed Ali lies wounded on the Path Of Death out of the Bourj el Barajneh refugee camp, Beirut, after being shot in the head and abdomen by Amal militia snipers besieging the camp. Southern Beirut, April, 1987.
Haji Achmed Ali is rescued by her friends after being wounded on the Path of Death out of the Bourj el Barajneh refugee camp in Beirut. Southern Beirut, April, 1987.
Haji Achmed Ali is carried to the medical centre in Bourj el Barajneh refugee camp after being shot by an Amal milita sniper. Dr Cutting and colleagues vainly try to save the life of 22-year-old Haji Achmed Ali who had been shot by Amal snipers. Southern Beirut, April, 1987.
Sunday Times foreign correspondent Marie Colvin (left) pictured in 1987 when photographer Tom Stoddart and Colvin smuggled their way into the besieged Bourj el Barajneh refugee camp in Beirut, Lebanon. Colvin reported on the terrible conditions and killings being inflicted on the Palestinian inhabitants of the camp by Syrian backed Amal militias. Next to Colvin is Dr Pauline Cutting who herself was trapped for months inside the camp alongside Scottish nurse Susie Wighton. The pair provided emergency health care to people wounded during the siege. Southern Beirut, April, 1987.
A young gymnast at Wuhan School of Sport where dozens of children with sporting prowess endured the harsh training that enabled them to become Olympic and World champions. Wuhan, China, 1993.
The blistered hands of a girl at a Chinese sports school where child gymnasts went through a severe training programme designed to turn them into Olympic and world champions. Wuhan, China, 1993.
A young gymnast practises her leaps at Wuhan School of Sport in 1993 where dozens of children with sporting prowess endured the harsh training that enabled them to become sporting champions and bring international prestige to China. Wuhan, China, 1993.
A girl carries away topsoil at the Gurukul open cast mine near Delhi, India, where children are used to break rocks with shovels and pickaxes. Millions of Indian girls are working up to 16 hours every day in quarries and factories, or selling cigarettes on the street to help their families make ends meet. Delhi, India, 1990.
In the dangerous Sarajevo suburb of Dobrinja, Meliha Varešanović walks proudly and defiantly to work every day. Her message to the watching Serbian gunmen who surround her city is simple, 'You will never defeat us’. Sarajevo, 1995.
A small girl stares silently through a shattered window as the first United Nations aid convoy in four months reaches besieged people in the Sarajevo suburb of Dobrinja. Sarajevo, 1992.
A smiling girl runs across Sniper Alley in Sarajevo during heavy fighting. Sarajevo, 1992.
Welcome to hell - a woman hurries past graffiti in the area known as Sniper Alley in Sarajevo's main thoroughfare. Sarajevo, 1992.
Women sprint across the most dangerous area of Sniper Alley where many Sarajevans were shot trying to cross the intersection. After hostilities ended it was estimated that snipers had killed 225 and wounded 1,030 people during the siege. Sarajevo, 1992.
Women shelter from gunfire behind a UN armoured personnel carrier as they cross Sniper Alley during the siege of Sarajevo. Sarajevo, 1992.
A woman tries to summon up the courage to run across Sniper Alley in Sarajevo. As well as snipers bullets, people moving around also faced the daily torment of bombardment. On a single day in July 1993 some 3,777 mortar and artillery shells crashed down into the city streets. Sarajevo, 1993.
Alone with her thoughts, a beautiful girl mourns in the Lion Cemetery, Sarajevo, 1992.
A woman wearing traditional hijab passes an Islamic mural in Tehran. Following the Iranian revolution in 1979 Iranian authorities imposed a mandatory dress code requiring all women to wear the hijab in public. In December 2017 and January 2018, several women took off their headscarves while standing on electric utility boxes across the country to protest against the law that requires that all women cover their hair. They became known as “the Girls of Revolution Street” and the authorities have responded with arrests and prosecutions. Tehran, Iran, 1996.
A member of the Iranian national shooting team takes aim with a pistol during training at a Tehran shooting range. Tehran, Iran, 1996.
Under the gaze of curious boys a self-assured young woman takes a chairlift alone up Mount Tochal where Terhanis can enjoy skiing and hiking away from the heat of the city. Tehran, Iran, 1996.
Young Iranian girls during a visit to the tomb of Ayatollah Khomenei. Tehran, Iran, 1996.
A small girl looks through barbed wire at a refugee camp in Macedonia where thousands of Albanians were kept after being 'ethnically cleansed' from their homes in Kosovo in 1999. Macedonia, 1999.
A Kurdish mother arrives at a refugee camp in the mountains near Isikveren, Turkey carrying all her belongings and baby in a plastic bowl. Isikveren, Turkey, 1991.
A Rohingya girl comforts her baby brother as they and their family wait to be given aid by the International Organisation for MIgration after arriving at Kutupalong refugee camp at Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. Over 655,000 Rohingya arrived in the area since fleeing persecution in neighbouring Myanmar. Bangladesh, 2018.
A smiling girl collects plastic bags and bottles on a rubbish dump near Lusaka. Many of Zambia's poor scrape a living by collecting and selling discarded items from city dumps. Zambia, 2002.
Her Majesty Queen Noor of Jordan has been a long term campaigner to ban anti-personnel landmines. Her commitment to the cause increased after marrying King Hussein of Jordan and moving to the Middle East where she saw first hand the misery that the weapons brought to innocent civilians caught up in conflicts. In 1998 she took over Princess Diana’s role as patron and champion of the Washington based Landmine Survivors Network, later to become Survivor Corps. London, 1998.
Film director and U.N Refugee Agency Special Envoy Angelina Jolie listens to a 90-year-old woman at Mai Kaung Baptist refugee camp at Myitkyina. The elderly lady has been displaced by conflict 10 times during her lifetime. Northern Myanmar, 2015.