The Reuters photo of Senators Pauline Hanson and Fatima Payman in the Australian Senate this week not only symbolises Hanson’s renewed attempt to ban the burka, but carries the resultant controversy into a much wider, more nuanced universe.
Yes, it shows the One Nation senator shrouded in black in front of an actual Muslim (Payman) in her modest hijab, illustrating two sides of the proposed ban. But it does far more.
The expression on Payman’s face is what? Resignation? Sorrow? Boredom?
Is Payman hurting from the crude racist attack by her Senate colleague? Is she resigned to having to expend energy on the pointless charade yet again, eight years after Hanson first pulled the stunt in the Australian Senate?
Is she bored at Hanson’s boorishness in a forum Payman herself worked so hard to enter, as a Muslim woman?
Shrouded in black, Hanson becomes merely a symbol of her dark argument whereas Payman, by comparison, is almost serene, sombre and immobile in her thoughts, like a Renaissance Pieta, Mary grieving her crucified son.
If any of those great artists had been alive today, the juxtaposition of evil and innocence is just the kind of image Hieronymus Bosch or his peers might have painted.
In all probability, the Reuters photo is destined for inclusion in the traditional end-of-year media photo album of the main events of 2025 – the 21st Century equivalent of the ancient Uffizi gallery in Florence or the Prada in Madrid.
Readers will pause in their clicking forward, even if only for a moment, caught by the complex questions the image asks.
Among them not “What was Hanson thinking of?” She is the faceless malevolence in black.
Maybe “When will this all end? When will Muslim women like Payman ever be free of this unwarranted hatred?”
Hanson’s hurtful grandstanding will, of course, appeal to a certain sector of Australian society who already harbour ill-feelings towards Muslims, but not many more.
Most people – including those unfamiliar with the history of such images – will probably still see it for what it is – the classic meme of malevolence against innocence.
It has taken me 350 words to describe the basic meanings behind the Reuters photo that most viewers will draw instinctively in a few seconds.
Pictures really ARE worth a thousand words, something simple-minded tormenters such as Hanson might want to remember before she tries this stunt for a third time.
