Why Mister, Why?

Iraq 2003-2004

Photographs by Geert Van Kesteren. Essays by Michael Hirsh. Introduction by Michael Hirsh.

Artimo, Amsterdam, 2005. 544 pp., 245 color illustrations, 6½x9".

Featuring more than 250 images, Why Mister, Why? is a compelling account from photojournalist Geert van Kesteren. For the most part of 2003 and into 2004, van Kesteren made these images in a struggling Iraq, intertwining them with his personal experience of the situation in diary-like notes. In that way, this body of work resonates with an honesty found only when the narrator and photographer of a story are one and the same. The situation in Iraq, following the declaration of "mission accomplished," represented a culture clash of rare proportions, and van Kesteren was witness to what went wrong. He saw clouds of sadness coming from the mass graves created by the Saddam regime, while Shi'ites enjoyed their awakening freedom. Embedded within the ranks of US troops, he witnessed disgraceful raids on Iraqi citizens. And these accounts are presented here for the reader to see, feel, and try to understand. In a clear photojournalistic way, van Kesteren outlines why it will take a long time before the Iraqi people can enjoy the semblance of peace. Accompanying the images is an introduction by Newsweek senior editor Michael Hirsh, with whom Van Kesteren shared several tense moments in Iraq.
Dutch photojournalist Geert van Kesteren made these harrowing images while embedded with American troops between 2003 and 2004, starting just after President Bush declared “Mission Accomplished” in Iraq. Presented as a kind of anti-coffee table book, Why Mister Why, with over 250 photos printed on magazine stock with perforated edging, makes for a curious object from the start. In it, van Kesteren’s layered documentary aesthetic produces a complex portrait of Iraq during the U.S. occupation. Van Kesteren covers interrogations at Abu Ghraib, excavation of mass graves, U.S. soldiers on patrol, and daily life in Iraq as families struggle to regain some sense of normalcy amidst rubble. Make no mistake, though, these photographs are decidedly unsympathetic to the U.S. war effort. In fact, many of them depict terrified Iraqi civilians cowering at the mercy of U.S. soldiers, who look massive and menacing in comparison. It’s not that van Kesteren denigrates the soldiers surrounding him; he steers shy of portraying them as shameful, but he deftly reveals them to be utterly unprepared for the chaotic instability of post-“Mission Accomplished”-Iraq. These photographs are painful to see, but show a fascinating and in-depth European perspective. The texts—the photographer’s diary entries along with an introduction by Michael Hirsh—are in Dutch, Arabic, and English. - Denise Wolff

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