What the "Best Picture of 2020" teaches us

TOBIAS BAUMGAERTNER/OCEAN PHOTOGRAPHY AWARDS

"Flipper in flipper, watching the sparkling lights of the skyline and ocean..." - www.joe.co.uk

Introduction

Amidst the chaos of 2020, a German photographer Tobias Baumgartner captured the most heart-touching photograph (shown above). The photo shows two widowed Fairy penguins comforting each other while standing on a rock and overlooking the Melbourne skyline in Australia. The photograph went on to win the "Community Choice Award" in Oceanographic magazine's Ocean Photography Awards.

Interpretation

Such photos makes us think- Where are we, as humans, heading?

On one side we have humans, the most intelligent species, fighting endlessly for every bit of power and land that's available out there, and on the other side, we have such photos of animals comforting each other through their pain. Is this the future we want?

When our kids misbehave, we usually say, "Stop behaving like animals!". But photos like such, where animals show more humanity than humans themselves, makes us question the correctness of the above statement. Have we reached a point where we need to instead start saying "Stop behaving like humans!"?

A very peculiar example of our inhumane activities is the situation in Syria. It's already been 11 years for the Syrian war. Half a million people have died and twelve million people have been displaced, and yet, there seems to be no end to the inhumane activities there. The UN called it the worst man-made disaster since World War-2. In November 2020, the UN stated that urgent aid was required for three million people as many didn’t have adequate shelter, heating fuel or even blankets to help them survive the cold winters ahead. About nine million Syrians are suffering from food insecurity compared to one and a half million last year. Is this the future we want?

Conclusion

We, as a human race, need to rethink about our actions and our intentions otherwise we will be heading to a future where the word "humanity" will have a meaning that will be completely opposite to how we understand it today, where we will be living under constant threat for our lives; and I am sure we don't want this and the situation hasn't gone all South yet. It is in our hands though, and through conscious effort, I am sure we can save the human race from the destructive future that we are currently heading towards.

Written by: Vatsalam Prashant

Edited by: Yash Jayesh Doshi

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