The People - Pictures of Palestine

As a photographer, I find shooting pics of people in Palestine to be far more interesting than in the West. I find Palestinians to be less buttoned-down than Westerners - they show their feelings and character, engaging with each other far more. It's as if the volume, colour and contrast settings on reality are switched up higher.

Many Palestinians like to be photographed - especially children, of whom there are far more in Palestine than in the West (the average age of Palestinians is around 22, while in Britain it is 45). As a walled-off and abandoned people, they want the world to see them.

Perceptions fed by the media encourage stereotyping - images of rioting young men, keening old women, aggrieved fathers carrying dead children, bombed-out buildings. This happens in Gaza today and in the West Bank mostly ten years ago, but it's not daily-life reality.

Palestinians are just like us - they worry about bills, cars and shopping, their kids' prospects, and they spend their time doing precisely the same things as we do. They're industrious and engaged, spending a lot of time looking after their families and community life. There's much more respect between the generations and the sexes.

Palestine is one of the most liberal and pluralistic societies of the Middle East, comparable with Lebanon, to a lesser extent with Jordan. They don't judge people by their nationality, looks or status, but by their manifest behaviour. Are you 'a good person'?

They distinguish between people from other countries and their governments - thus as a British person, they take me as I stand. They know that, by being here, I don't agree with the policies of the British government and its tendencies to bomb and disrespect Muslims.

They have their differences and disagreements but, as a society under occupation, they stand together and care for each other. They take in visitors who support Palestine and doubly appreciate people who return. Often you're told "Welcome to Falastin" - and they mean it.

They have survived not because of arms, money or politics but because of solidarity and sharing. For thirty years, from the 1967 occupation to the late-1990s, they had no government, keeping society going by building a shared consensus of holding firm and cooperation. This made for a strong society. The rest of the world has much to learn from it.

An argument could be made that, socially and spiritually, the Palestinians have won this conflict. But force of arms, administrative and legal oppression and social control still impact on them. It's a bizarre paradox.

© Text and pictures copyright Palden Jenkins 2011. This is online material supplementing the book Pictures of Palestine by Palden Jenkins. You may print it out in single copies for your own non-commercial use or forward it by e-mail as long as the piece is unaltered and properly attributed to the author. The book's website is at  www.palden.co.uk/pop

NEXT: The West Bank Landscape