Why Did the Saigon Photograph Shake the World, but Images from Iran Did Not?
S. Rouzbeh
۲۰۲۶/۰۶/۱۴

Comparing Eddie Adams’s iconic photograph from Saigon with images of those killed during protests in Iran, S. Rouzbeh asks whether the difference lay not in the truth itself, but in whether it was allowed to be seen.

S. Rouzbeh — Special to Gooya Newsletter

On 1 February 1968, a photograph was taken that would later become one of the most enduring images of the twentieth century. On a street in Saigon, General Nguyễn Ngọc Loan, chief of South Vietnam’s national police, placed a gun to the temple of a Viet Cong prisoner and pulled the trigger. Just a few seconds were enough for Eddie Adams’s camera to capture a moment that shook the conscience of millions around the world. The photograph became a symbol of the violence of the Vietnam War and remains in the world’s historical memory to this day.

But now, nearly six decades later, another question confronts us. In the age of mobile phones, social media and the constant recording of images, why were dozens and hundreds of photographs and videos of those killed during protests in Iran unable to provoke the same reaction in world public opinion?

If the government had no role in the killing of its own citizens, why was the internet shut down nationwide? Why were telephone communications disrupted? Why were independent journalists unable to be present and cover events freely? Why was only the official account allowed to circulate widely? Why were families put under pressure? Why did the funerals and fortieth-day memorials of the victims become matters of security? Why were some families barred from speaking to the media? And why did the mourning of bereaved mothers and fathers itself become an issue for the security agencies?

The difference between Saigon and Iran is not simply a difference between two governments or two historical periods. It lies in how the truth is seen. In Vietnam, the camera captured the moment of death; the person who fired, the victim, the gun and the time of the incident were all brought together in a single frame, and free media transmitted it to the world without mediation.

In Iran, by contrast, images often made their way out only after the events had taken place: short, shaky videos, bloodied streets, eyewitness accounts, hospital images, bodies handed over to families, and testimonies given in silence and fear. Each told part of the truth, but none was able to become that single, undeniable image that would bring world public opinion to a halt in an instant.

Perhaps the issue is not that there was less truth. Perhaps there was more truth, but it was more scattered. In Saigon, one photograph spoke; in Iran, thousands of pieces of a puzzle emerged, but they were never given the chance to come together as a complete picture before the eyes of the world.

In Khamenei’s remarks, it was also suggested that there might have been “passers-by” among those killed. Yet, at the same time, the dead were described as having “gone to hell”. Whatever one’s political judgement, this ethical question remains: if there was a possibility that innocent people had been killed, why did the language of compassion give way to the language of contempt? If the government was not responsible for these deaths, why was there such an effort to control the narrative and restrict the free flow of information?

Perhaps the main difference between Saigon and Iran is not the number of victims or the severity of the violence. Perhaps it is that in Saigon, the world was allowed to see the truth at that very moment and judge it without mediation. In Iran, however, amid disrupted communications, a monopoly on the narrative, pressure on families and fear of public mourning spreading, the truth made its way out piecemeal and incompletely.

If Eddie Adams’s camera had not been there on that street in 1968, if the photographer had not been allowed to take and publish the image, and if only the official account of the incident had survived, would the world still remember Saigon today?

Perhaps the greatest question in history is this: was Iran’s problem the absence of truth, or the fact that the truth was not seen?

The task of journalism is not to pass judgement. A journalist’s job is to keep alive the questions that those in power evade answering. For a society that does not question loses the truth; and a truth that is not given the chance to be seen will sooner or later give way to oblivion.

History will judge not only what happened; it will also remember who asked questions, who remained silent, and who refused to let those questions be buried with the victims.

Source: https://srouzbeh.com/en/posts/archive-095521b7-cf81-325c-62c0-1fd648c7f5b5
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