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Two children posing for photographers during an Anti-Bush event on the occasion of the President's visit in Vienna. I love how the older one looks like a little hero fighting for something (although I doubt he grasps the full extent of the issue) while the little one just seems confused and just does what he was told to do. I wonder about their background... they enjoyed the attention!

I'm indetermined here.
We shouldn't make the mistake to underestimate kids.

I think it totally possible that the older one knows what he was doing. Of course he can't grasp the full consequence of a complicated political issue like this protest against Bush's way of handlings topics like the Kioto-Protocoll or Guantanamo. But I think that he's able to understand, esp. with a liberal upbringing, that some things are important and that this "most powerful person in the world" is working against them.

When I was 9, it was the ending of cold war. I didn't totally understand it, of course, but I knew that something important was happening in world history... and that it was a good thing.

I think the Anti-Bush protest today was a good sign that we're not ok with the USA's politics. However, one wonders if even half of the people there really know what they're fighting against. Some young students burned American flags on the street and our "beloved" TV station ORF showed these pictures over and over again... it's so besides the point of peaceful protest against brutality.

It's kinda disturbing that we Europeans define ourselves over our opinion on America and anti-americanism. Maybe because we don't have our own identity yet.

I think it's good to teach kids about politics as early as possible. It's weird though to see them in poses like this. It seems unreal. This picture is probably another example of how pictures are not automatically the reality. Curse or blessing for us photographers?


Vienna, 2006
Photo by Sandra Keplinger