Pinkwashing

Pinkwashing was a new term for me, though I’ve photographed events about ‘greenwashing‘ before (for example Rev Billy’s protest against BP sponsorship of Tate Modern), and both are forms of deception practiced by the public relations industry, trying to cover up the real situation. In this case it was the Israeli Tourist Board who were promoting Israel as a great place for gay holidays,

It perhaps attracted more attention than might otherwise have been the case because they were doing so on the same day as several protests were taking place against Israel on the 5th anniversary of the ending of the Gaza Massacre, Operation Cast Lead. The protesters outside the arcade where the Gay Star Beach Party LGBT tourism event was being held hoped to persuade those intending to visit the party to boycott Israel until it ends human rights abuses and recognises the Palestinians’ right to self-determination and complies with international law.

I like this picture because it seems to encapsulate what the event was about as well as having some visual interest. It wasn’t set up in any way, and took quite a few frames to get what I wanted. It would have been a short cut to have directed the person holding the Palestinian flag to hold it in the correct place, but this was definitely one of those ‘images snatched on the run’ (perhaps a possible translation of  ‘Images a la Sauvette‘) although I had to make several snatches before I got what I wanted.

The person holding the flag was talking with someone else and facing away from me, holding the flag on a fairly long pole back over the right shoulder. The flag was fluttering a little in the breeze and also moving fairly dramatically, and I was trying to catch a moment when I could read the text of the banner, see the flag properly, seethe person speaking and read the message on her poster, ‘Queers opppose Israel’s Occupation of Palestine‘. And all of this would be nothing if it didn’t make a decent picture.

Most of the rest of the work was more straight-forward people doing the kind of things that people do at protests – speaking, holding placards, banners etc. One or two of the pictures stand out for various reasons, perhaps a memorable face or a slightly unusual pose or a gesture. I like this one because the woman is very obviously reading the poster she is holding up, which is perhaps a little odd, and the man on her right is looking at it too, and again I’ve been able to move to a position to get a Palestinian flag in the background.

Later in the protest was a rather unusual incident, in which someone who appeared to be drunk came up and started shouting and contradicting the man who was speaking. As he became more agitated and moved towards the speaker in an aggressive manner I felt that perhaps I should actually physically intervene, but decided that I needed to take pictures in case there was to be a need for evidence of what had occurred. Fortunately others did intervene, in particular the woman in this picture and the following three or four frames show something of how the situation developed.

I continued to photograph him, mainly from fairly close with the 16-35mm lens, but working calmly and trying hard not to be confrontational. Another photographer, a woman, made a point of ensuring he knew she was photographing his threatening behaviour, and he started to chase after her until another of the protesters got between them and started talking to him.

It was probably a coincidence that although the police had come to take a look at the protest earlier there were none to be seen when this man was threatening the protesters and the photographer, though there have been occasions when the police have deliberately gone away on similar occasions. One of the protesters did phone for the police but it was probably a coincidence that he left a few minutes later, well before they arrived.

You can see more pictures in Israeli Gay Tourism Pinkwashing.



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All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.

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