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The historic moment we are living, the so-called “years of Terror”, began in the late eighties when the United States used the mujahideen to fight the Red Army in Afghanistan. It was the first of a long series of “humanitarian wars” presented by all the mainstream media as “peacekeeping operations”: Afghanistan in 2001, Iraq in 2003, Libya in 2011, Syria in 2012. But behind great proclamations on exportation of democracy were intertwined geopolitical calculations and much deeper economic causes. The war, for centuries considered an art with its deeply engrained ethics , has turned into a total event that wants to destroy the other in the name of a supposed superiority of the Western model. To carry it out, air blitzes on the territory are made, attacks by remotely operated drones or financing mercenary groups on the field payed to destroy all the vital infrastructure of a country. The consequences are traumatic for the people who suddenly find themselves thrown into a ruthless, infamous and painful everyday reality. Too often it tells the story of those who run away, forgetting the courage of those who decide to stay, to defend, on the front line or behind the lines, their land. The photographic project “A shameless life” by Luca Catalano Gonzaga describes the anxieties and hopes of men, women, children, who still live in these affected countries of modern warfare. (text by Sebastiano Caputo).
