VOICELESS

TRIBUTES.

 
Fearless. Tireless. Generous. Funny.

"… a real life Katharine Hepburn heroine but braver and funnier."

"... courageous, dedicated and utterly determined to tell the world of atrocities committed by despotic regimes."

REMEMBRANCES.

She had been wounded in 2001 when a soldier purposely launched a grenade at her as she tried to leave rebel-controlled territory in Sri Lanka. She lost her hearing, and her left eye. “She got her hearing back,” her mother said. “She still had shrapnel in her brain they couldn’t remove.”

It was pointless to try to dissuade her from going to conflict zones. “… it would have been such a waste of words," her mother said. "She was determined, she was passionate about what she did, it was her life. There was no saying ‘Don’t do this.’ This is who she was, absolutely who she was and what she believed in: cover the story, not just have pictures of it, but bring it to life in the deepest way you could.”

"Her legacy is: be passionate and be involved in what you believe in. And do it as thoroughly and honestly and fearlessly as you can." Rosemarie Colvin

HOMAGE.

“She had an absolute compulsion to go to where bad things were happening, and tell the world about it. ‘They're doing terrible things there,’ she told me. ‘We have to be there.’ And she was. 

If there is a scale of courage, Marie was at the top of it. Because she knew the reality of war, and that there are no guardian angels.

So her courage was not the bravado of the foolhardy who imagine themselves invulnerable.  It was the quiet determination of someone who had to do what she believed she was for, knowing the risks and possible consequences. To tell the story and give a voice to the voiceless.” BBC Correspondent Jim Muir.

SACRIFICE.

Journalist Marie Colvin was killed from shelling by the Syrian Army, just five short days after journalist Anthony Shadid died while attempting to leave Syria. Colvin had reported from war zones on three continents in her 26-year career with The Sunday Times. A witness to history like Shadid, she repeatedly risked her life to give voice to ordinary people, particularly women and children whose lives were torn apart by war.

The night before she died, Colvin was interviewed by Anderson Cooper. She described the heartbreaking death of a toddler as emblematic of the atrocities happening in Syria: “These are twenty-eight thousand civilians, men, women and children, hiding, being shelled, defenseless. That little baby is one of two children who died today, one of the children being injured every day. That baby probably will move more people to think, ‘What is going on, and why is no one stopping this murder in Homs that is happening every day?...  It’s a complete and utter lie they’re only going after terrorists. The Syrian Army is simply shelling a city of cold, starving civilians.’”

MISSION.

In November 2010, Colvin gave a speech honoring journalists who had died in war zones.

Her words bear repeating. And internalizing.

“… I have been a war correspondent for most of my professional life. It has always been a hard calling. But the need for frontline, objective reporting has never been more compelling.
 
Covering a war means going to places torn by chaos, destruction, and death, and trying to bear witness. It means trying to find the truth in a sandstorm of propaganda when armies, tribes or terrorists clash. And yes, it means taking risks, not just for yourself but often for the people who work closely with you.

Despite all the videos you see from the Ministry of Defense or the Pentagon, and all the sanitized language describing smart bombs and pinpoint strikes, the scene on the ground has remained remarkably the same for hundreds of years. Craters. Burned houses. Mutilated bodies. Women weeping for children and husbands. Men for their wives, mothers, children.

Our mission is to report these horrors of war with accuracy and without prejudice...

We go to remote war zones to report what is happening. The public have a right to know what our government, and our armed forces, are doing in our name. Our mission is to speak the truth to power. We send home that first rough draft of history. We can and do make a difference in exposing the horrors of war and especially the atrocities that befall civilians….

In an age of 24/7 rolling news, blogs and twitters, we are on constant call wherever we are. But war reporting is still essentially the same - someone has to go there and see what is happening. You can't get that information without going to places where people are being shot at, and others are shooting at you. The real difficulty is having enough faith in humanity to believe that enough people be they government, military or the man on the street, will care when your file reaches the printed page, the website or the TV screen.

We do have that faith because we believe we do make a difference.”

Marie Colvin made a difference.

Justice demands that we, the people on the street, care.