CR Blog

How about one for Palestine people as well, and Chechens, and Kashmiris, and Thai Malayians, and Iraqis, and Afghanis … I think not … no one complained in West when Bosnians were ethnically cleansed.

Well said, AA.
I find this website unfairly politically biased and anti-China government. We should not forget that not so long ago, the BRITISH (and the Indians etc.) were also fighting over Tibet and much bloodshed from their sides too was borne upon the Tibetan citizens. Also, to say that the Tibetans were non-violent in their protests is a blatant lie; e.g. everybody knows that many Tibetans made violent attacks on simple Chinese citizens running their own private shop businesses (hence why the Chinese army was sent in) recently, NOT Chinese attacking Tibetans (like a few Western media sites are making out). What ever happened to boycotting businesses? In addition, their so-called King, the Dalai Lama, has received much US government financial backing and it is speculated that such finance will be used to buy weapons to help to destroy China. Yes, that is SO peaceful.
I’m not saying the Chinese government is perfect (on the contrary, it has a long, long way to go. Anyway, no government is perfect), but can we please stop telling lies and being complete hypocrites, especially in the Western world. With the Iraq war still in check, I feel that the Tibetan crisis is a lot less extreme in violence, oppression, starvation etc. etc. At least the Chinese government feed the Tibetan people, provide them with the usual amenities, haven’t blown up the Tibetan culture and treat them the same as they treat their own people. The Olympic Fuwa mascots are a symbol of this same-treatment, as not only is a separate mascot made for the Tibetans but it also on-a-par with Chinese regional mascots. In addition, who ever said Western “democracy” (or pretend democracy) was the best way to go about it? We should sort out our own problems before bashing other people.
I could go in to much, much further detail, but I fear I may write several pages of essay!
-Anon

AA: yea yea, there’s problems like this everywhere, so why bother? let’s just sit here and do nothing and criticize anyone who tries to start somewhere. Let’s just be skeptical of any change for the better, even though we can measure these. Let’s just sit comfortably watching news and reading about atrocities far away, on the other side of the wall.

I guess is just very easy to criticize on a project that tries to create something out of nothing, when you are far away from where the bombs are falling.

Everything counts and nothing is enough.

Initial thoughts for the rebels with a cause without a tangible effect:

Everything certainly does count and this is a penny for the collection box. That is not to belittle the effort but to put into perspective the value of the contribution versus the quasi-political posturing and dare I say, the PR value to the faded peacocks involved. Do such projects succeed? In this case I don’t think so.

“Remember Tibet asks artists and designers to make a STATEMENT [my emphasis] about the ongoing fight for Tibetan…”

“We also hope that the work put up will explain the situation simply without recourse to ranting or romanticising the subject.”

What strikes me as most disappointing is what the organisers consider to be ‘dialogue’. Making romantic and simplified statements on a complex issue is inevitable considering the media involved, the contributors targeted and that we’re not in possession of the full facts as Barnbrook readily admits. Furthermore as quoted above, said ’statements’ must conform with the opinion of the organisers, they must conform to a Tibet = good, China = bad, binary opposition. This site cannot be considered as engaging dialogue but rather as a series of validated opinions: one that ironically mimics the Chinese model with reference to the internet. To put it more strongly, a place where designers can kick off their rocks with a trite visual cue, feel good about themselves for half an hour before forgetting the issues at hand while theirs are squeezing pints and waving fags. Exaggeration? The addition of some kind of messageboard where *two-way* dialogue can take place and where people can *organise themselves* is sorely missing. As helpful as sensationalising short films and hysterical posters CAN be, nothing beats open conversation and an education of the facts that we DO know. I repeat that this site hucksterises an ideology of good versus evil in the case of China and Tibet AND sets up the organisers as some kind of moral arbiter. This is their own doing by taking centre stage on the site and on this blog. One appreciates the thought but not the way it has been gone about, particularly when people are sententiously told “It will provide a bit of a reality check for you.” Barnbrook and Pablito’s defensiveness only serves to identify the monist philosophy on show.

I personally fail to see how targeting China during the Olympic games is a particularly good time to strike? If anything it will be swept under the televisual carpet as reportage is saturated with swimming triumphs and badminton victories. Either way I had no idea injustice kept a clock-watch.

Pablito confuses skepticism and critique for misanthropy. Criticism exists to ameliorate. The organisers would do right to listen and consider their own mechanisms.

The aesthetics of the site and introductory video are painfully dated. This might seem unimportant in respect to the core message of protest but it is not. Barnbrook — who seems to be spokesperson for the collaboration — insists that “If design thinks it can have an effect and help sell ’stuff’ for a company, then equally it means that it has a power which can be used to influence other situations.” I would suggest that few graphic designers could sell a product based on such cheap, outmoded visuals. This alone constitutes a failure to engage the creative community, a failure to excite and entice contributions and logically, dialogue, however one way.

This is a big mix of ideas on Protests and Tibet.

The designers are the monkeys and money men are the organ grinders.

Why try and convert the converted?
(that’s point 1)

Ask the Chinese people and others why they support the actions of the Chinese GOV and how they understand it, and then ask the Tibet people the same. Neither of them can be wrong because they are both right in their own right. Only the Chinese people can make the real difference no one else. Their people against their Gov is the only way to make a real difference and is the only real time we should support or get involved is when the Chinese people not Gov ask for it.

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On a wider view.

No protest will work because everyone has their own view so no one has a point. Everyone has a voice and no one is heard. Everyone believes in themselves so no one believes in each other.

Real Changes have always started from the bottom up, not top down. Yet top down is always the same nothing new. Barnbrook for example?

In the end unless we forget ‘me’ and think ‘we’ no one not even Barnbrook or any other famous designer can make a difference. Barnbrook can keep himself in the public eye and in books and be seen to be being the good guy and Bush could be doing the same but not make a real difference. But what are his real aims or is it a Act?

We all know the truth and what we should do but “everyone acts alone and fails together”.

This could just be me but every time I see websites that claim to protest and make a difference they always seem like an advert for a company not a cause for example the Ad Posted by tenzinin. Is any of this real? (just a open view).

Why are there so many different individual Tibet websites and campaigns all claiming they are the ones and can make a difference, when they should all put their resources together and spread one message at everyone?

As I have stated before “everyone acts alone and fails together”.

Christ what a bunch of depressing negative comments. No wonder design is seen as mainly irrelevant by everybody outside graphics. It seems you lot are more keen to slag off the messenger and prove what they do is pointless than try and suggest something positive or applaud a bit of effort.

Some of you posting here…‘honest joe’ has obviously got some stylistic agenda against barnbrook and the stuff he does, and is trying to hide it in behind some kind of pompous intellectual claptrap. Raphael PJM, I am sorry mate you need to go on a basic history course and you might learn something, who gets stuff on the agenda of ‘the people’ in the first place? its pressure from different organisations all working in different areas, design can’t change the world on its own but probably design in the service of a number of different people can. And yeah,well you might be a monkey working for the organ grinder but some of us have got a bit more imagination about about what we think we can use our profession to do and so your limiting statement at the beginning, well that’s your problem.

Thank Christ I am no longer a student, because you are a bunch of the worst examples to follow if I felt I wanted to do something worthwhile in my profession when I leave college.

And as for the guy who wrote ‘What about Zimbabwe?’ etc. Yeah, we know, we know…but in this case we are talking about tibet so stick to the bloody topic eh?

Adam F

I do think my comment before on designers being monkeys is wrong and I now change my view, after a review of all the comments made. I think designers can make a difference but not alone. I withdraw my comment from before. Thank you for your statements.

I feel that Barnbrook should be credited for at least doing something, as one could look at it and say, what have I or you done?

So maybe its good that Barnbrook is actually doing something, which should be the focus of this blog rather than just random people (including myself) commenting about it if it’s good or bad or right or wrong.

The point is:

Its good that Barnbrook has actually done something he believes in and is making a difference and creating support. If you do or don’t agree with Tibet or Barnbrook or China, what have you actually done to support your views or your opposing views?

I think “actions” speak louder than “blogs”.

I think Jonathan Barnbrook should be applauded for at least trying to make the design community think about the situation in Tibet. And yes there are lots of other attrocities going on worldwide - but I think designers have - like the rest of popular culture become complacent, and safe, and too influenced by celeb adoration. Graphics in particular - once a real platform for communication of ideas - is another ‘bling’ artform of style without content. So good on you Jonathan for at least making a stand - regardless of the cause or what may seem like a drop in the ocean of global problems.

Having read some of the comments within this thread I have to say most of you have little or no idea of what you are talking about - with regards to Chinese history or, more importantly, Tibet’s.

Most interestingly though, you express these opinions with typical Western arrogance. How many in this thread know anyone that has had to escape across the Himalaya enduring frostbite because it was the better option than staying in one’s homeland? Who of you knows a Tibetan who had to endure imprisonment, torture and daily beatings because they wouldn’t denounce their spiritual leader? Who of you has seen their best friend shot in the back by Chinese guards because they had to try and escape the oppression and treatment enforced on them by China? Taken that decision to leave their families, maybe never to see them again, so they could attempt to make a better life in the west - indeed, have a life?

You speak out reciting extracts you have read in the media, spilling out propaganda to suit whatever cause that might be on the top of the agenda at that time - like the Olympics for example; however, it will always come back to basic human rights. Tibetan’s don’t have any.

Whether China’s occupation of Tibet is right or wrong, the truth of the matter is Tibet is a nation in its own right. It has its own unique language - not Chinese, not mongolian or Nepalese - Tibetan; and a land to which it originated - Tibet. They are a race of people who have had their lands invaded whilst the western world did nothing. Yes the English once occupied Tibet - we occupied most of the globe at some point, but it doesn’t make it right or justify China’s occupation today and the treatment of Tibetans.

With regards to Charles Frith comment, ‘Tibet was a piss poor theocracy when taken by the Chinese and will be an even poorer country if left to its own devices’… How dare you, you arrogant loser. I believe it is the right of the people of Tibet to make their own decisions as to how they conduct their lives and live it. It actually has nothing to do with the rest of the world. A remark like that can only come from a poorly read, uneducated individual born in the Western world. Aren’t you lucky to have had the opportunities so many could only dream about. Comments like that make me want to spit.

The world is full of wars at the moment. There is death and hardship everywhere. So, come on - do something about it. Don’t sit there expressing opinions from a position of fortune and freedom about people that have nothing in their lives- not even the right to speak freely or pray to their God. Pick a cause and make a difference. Its easy to bury your heads in the sand and carry on with your lives trying to ignore it, but as creative people I would have thought it was a prerequisite to absorb what was going on around us and reflect that into our work. Whether it be expressing the beneficial factors of a new washing powder or being political and using our skills to make a change for humanity.

You might agree with this effort to get behind Tibet or you may not. It really doesn’t matter. But at least someone out there is doing something. They have got off their backside and done something about it. Its positive action which should be applauded and encouraged.

Adam F

I do think my comment before on designers being monkeys is wrong and I now change my view, after a review of all the comments made. I think designers can make a difference but not alone. I withdraw my comment from before. Thank you for your statements.

I feel that Barnbrook should be credited for at least doing something, as one could look at it and say, what have I or you done?

So maybe its good that Barnbrook is actually doing something, which should be the focus of this blog rather than just random people (including myself) commenting about it if it’s good or bad or right or wrong.

The point is:

Its good that Barnbrook has actually done something he believes in and is making a difference and creating support. If you do or don’t agree with Tibet or Barnbrook or China, what have you actually done to support your views or your opposing views?

I think “actions” speak louder than “blogs”.

Historically we should ‘Remember to Forget’ or possibly ‘Forget to Remember’.
http://www.dayofforgetting.com

but

Presently we should ‘Remember to Remember’ or possibly ‘Forget to Forget’.
http://www.remembertibet.org

Do these two positions cancel each other out?