In the foreground, bodies wrapped in thick coats are strewn on the ground. For some, face against tar. Also in the background. One of the victims did not have time to get off his bike, struck down. A few pedestrians silently step over the inanimate, almost invisible figures. As if the violence that gripped Boutcha on April 2 was now part of the daily life of Ukrainians.
However, outside the conflict zone, this shot of a few seconds, broadcast on all the news channels, seized public opinion. We are talking about “unsustainable” images or “unprecedented violence”. Human Rights Watch denounces crimes “of unspeakable cruelty and violence”. Several Western leaders even qualify them as “war crimes”, and call for an investigation by the International Criminal Court.
It is true that by attacking Ukraine in this way, Russia violates at least one fundamental principle of the law of war: to spare civilians. But previous conflicts, for example in Syria, have also had their share of images of violence “of similar intensity”, tempers André Gunthert, historian specializing in the history of photography and teacher-researcher at the School of Advanced Studies in Social Sciences (EHESS). So how do we explain that the images of the war in Ukraine seem unprecedented to us?
european theater
2688 kilometers away. Unlike conflicts outside Europe, images of the current war convey a feeling of closeness to the Ukrainian people, as historian André Gunthert explains. Indeed, the confrontation takes place on the European theater. Worse: only three countries separate France from Ukraine. Not to mention the specter of a “nuclear threat”. According to a CSA Institute survey for CNews carried out in March, 76% of French people would be worried about it.
Each image documenting the war is therefore an all the more cruel reminder that Europe has not known war since the Second World War. Did we forget? Certainly, if we are to believe Charles Villa, reporter for the Brut media, who published the following message on April 13 on Twitter: “The number of people who ask me […] if the bodies of Ukrainian civilians killed that I film are real. Far too many people have completely forgotten what the reality of war is.”
Same analysis on the side of the philosopher and professor emeritus of philosophy at the ENS Francis Wolff, for whom “the young Europeans of Western Europe no longer know what war is”. And for good reason: according to the 2021 Global Peace Index, the Old Continent remains the most peaceful region in the world. Eight of the top ten countries are included.
Remembrance of a war “without violence”
But Europeans do not live cut off from the rest of the world. Even without war on our doorstep, in an ultra-connected world, it therefore seems difficult not to have been confronted with such images in other regions of the world. Historian André Gunthert recalls, for example, the violence of the Syrian conflict, in which Russia was also a protagonist. Destruction, extreme violence, numerous civilian casualties… Only here, “the images that reached us were quantitatively less numerous, because many media considered that this conflict was of less interest to the public”.
In addition, since the 1990s, most of the armed conflicts that have taken place in the world have been “asymmetric wars”, i.e. a State against armed groups, according to Edouard Jolly, researcher in theory of armed conflicts and philosophy of war at the Strategic Research Institute of the Military School. Today, Europeans therefore discover with horror “war” as in history textbooks, with high-intensity violence that affects both soldiers and civilians.
The first Gulf War (1991), highly publicized and broadcast live on television, would it have failed to prepare us for it? However, there is no doubt that most Europeans have followed the many newspapers of TF1’s 20 Hours, hosted by Patrick Poivre d’Arvor, and reporting day after day on the continuation of the conflict. But as Arnaud Mercier, doctor of political science from the IEP in Paris and professor of information and communication at the University of Panthéon-Assas, wrote in his article entitled “Media and Violence during the Gulf War” (2005), most of the images painted the portrait of a “war without violence”.
After public outrage over images of the Vietnam War – like the famous photo of the little girl in Napalm – the military wanted to avoid a similar scenario. Thus they had organized a system of “pools” to contain the activity of journalists. “The only images of destruction broadcast were those of video images of Allied planes sending missiles on a ‘strategic objective’, writes Arnaud Mercier. If, however, civilians were there, the soldiers spoke of “collateral damage”.
Stories of victims
A story that contrasts with the current profusion of reports “humanizing and individualizing destinies”, in the words of historian André Gunthert, who adds that “unlike Syria, Libya and Iraq, this conflict is truly the object of a journalistic narration”. However, the fact of showing people, almost “characters” would, according to him, increase our capacity for projection and therefore the perceived violence.
Thus, certain clichés become “stories”. One of the photos taken after the Boutcha “massacre” – an inert hand with varnished fingernails soiled with dirt – has gone around the world and social networks: who owns this ring finger whose fingernail is decorated with a heart-shaped pattern? “It’s my mom’s hand, dead, in this photo,” replied a Ukrainian refugee, recognizing the fingernails of her mother, Irina Filkina, 52.
According to the philosopher Francis Wolff, these feelings of horror and indignation would be all the stronger since the distinction between “aggressor” – Russia – and “victim” – the whole of the Ukrainian people – is very clear. A rather rare factor in previous wars, according to the philosopher, who cites the conflict in the former Yugoslavia where “responsibilities could be discussed”. The surprise aroused by the outbreak of the war at the end of February did not help matters.
Admittedly, most observers had already identified a risk of open conflict for several months. But for its part, public opinion had perhaps not anticipated it, if we are to believe the Elabe Institute survey carried out on March 1, 2022: 88% of French people then said they were shocked by the bombardments and the entry of Russian troops into Ukrainian territory, including 66% who were very shocked. “Amazement, indignation and surprise, adding up, reinforce this feeling, unfortunately illusory, that the violence of this conflict is ‘unprecedented'”, concludes the philosopher.
Social networks
Not to mention that in 2022, the profusion of communication technologies causes “an acceleration of transmission which produces an avalanche of images” and therefore a form of amazement, according to Edouard Jolly. Previously, the media acted as a filter – warning in particular of the violent nature of the photo to come. But today, how to escape the flood of images from the front on Telegram messaging or affected civilians on the TikTok social network ?
Unwittingly, the Ukrainians compete with the media by being the first broadcasters of images. But as Arnaud Mercier explains, “if the media does not broadcast certain violent images, people will look for them on the Internet”. However, “not showing the images of Boutcha would amount to clearing the way for the Russian discourse which is working to minimize its responsibilities by denying the existence of civilian deaths”.
For his part, the photoreporter Adrien Vautier tempers. He, who spent three weeks in the kyiv region at the start of the conflict, claims not to have “found in the media the violence he saw on the ground” or on social networks. Wars, he does not want to compare them. But from the experience of the Ukrainian field, he will retain all the same “a larger front, which implies more destruction, more deaths”. So more violence? No, “the violence remains the same” from one war to another. “Perhaps this is what is so violent: to think that our societies are evolving but that war remains barbaric.”