East Timor and the politics of bodily pain: a problematic complicity

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Notes

Anthony McCosker teaches in the Department of English with Cultural Studies at the University of Melbourne. Correspondence to: [email protected]

For example, Walter Benjamin's (1992 [1969]) essay ‘The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction’ has been influential in working through the issues of reproduction, authenticity and proximity. In the field of film theory, Williams (1989, p. 184) draws on the work of André Bazin (1967), who formulated a realist theory of cinema though his attention to the ‘automatic registration’ of the object world onto film through a chemical rather than human process. In the context of documentary cinema, see, for example, Nichols (1991) and Guynn (1990). Roland Barthes' book Camera Lucida has been influential in extending the issue of authenticity in photography, particularly in his use of the term punctum to describe the impact of certain images as an ‘accident which pricks me (but also bruises me, is poignant to me)’ (Barthes, 2000 [1980], p. 27).

See also Tiffen (2001); Gorjao (2001).

Jefferson Lee's chapter on the Dili massacre and its media coverage appears in Gunn (1994). Although Lee's name does not appear at the beginning of Chapter 7, or on the contents page, Gunn notes his authorship of this chapter in the book's acknowledgements. For this reason, Lee appears here and in the bibliography as author.

Jefferson Lee (1994, p. 201, n. 2) lists 10 international journalists present at the incident. These journalists reported the incident through eyewitness accounts, interviews with East Timorese present at the massacre and in photography and video footage.

See, for example, Pilger (1998); Dunn (1996); Cox & Carey (1995). With an extended historico‐political introduction, Steve Cox and Peter Carey's book of photographic images documents some of the incidents of human rights violations in East Timor, including the Dili massacre. In the introduction, Carey applauds the efforts of photographers such as Cox and others in being able to provide first‐hand documents of the suffering of the East Timorese: ‘had it not been for the courage and persistence of photographers like Steve Cox and film‐makers like Max Stahl, who captured the horror of the November 1991 Santa Cruz massacre, would we today have any true sense of the reality of existence in what was once Timor Leste?’ (Cox & Carey, 1995, p. 9).

Gorjao (2001, p. 106) argues that ‘Following the massacre, Indonesia felt compelled to accept real bilateral negotiations with Portugal under the auspices of the United Nations Secretary General.’

A copy of this presentation is available from the APTN Film and Video Library, 27 October 1998, with a transcript available in their database (http://www.aptnlibrary.com/ ). Also submitted to the UN Commission regarding human rights abuses in East Timor was a report by Aditjondro (1997) on violence against women.

For a report of this incident, see Louise Williams (1997, p. 8) and Walters (1997, p. 15).

See, for example, www.dsp.org.au/etimor/04_others.htm or www.etan.org/etanphoto/

A number of the images were printed in the exhibition's accompanying publication, published as a booklet by the East Timor International Support Centre (n.d.), under the title Human Rights Violations in East Timor.

The only contested factor was the number of East Timorese who died. Most Western reports say between 200 and 300, others say up to 500; the Indonesian government claims only about 50 deaths.

See, for example, John Tagg (1988).

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Notes on contributors

Anthony Mccosker

Anthony McCosker teaches in the Department of English with Cultural Studies at the University of Melbourne. Correspondence to: [email protected]