Crafts, China & Capitalism

So, the last few days I’ve been at Alexandra Palace in Wood Green for the Knitting & Stitching Show. It’s a huge thing that happens every year and all the crafty people go to it, and if you’re like me, you see things you’ve never seen before. Like Luceting, which I learned, and can now do – gratuitous photo warning – and I’m making some cord with that at the moment:

Getting the hang of the lucet

…But that’s by the by, I didn’t start this blog to bang on about crafting. What intrigued me was that my dad explained that there was this really weird way of dyeing fabric – fabric that this lady was selling at the fair. It sounded interesting so I went to check it out. The stall was totally blue, and actually I found that really off-putting in the beginning, which is why I didn’t originally have a closer look at it.

It’s called Shibori, and it’s very similar to tie-dyeing – like many of us used to do as children – but instead of random knots, there are intricate ties in the fabric to create very specific patterns. There are some particularly stunning examples around, but these may give you an idea:

        

So, it can be beautiful, right? Tying the material takes *so* long, it pretty much wouldn’t be worthwhile to pay someone to do it. She gets the stuff from China. So, what struck me was that this lady is clearly capitalising on very cheap labour, and making a lot of money out of it. I wouldn’t imagine she pays that much for the material itself, and just imports it.

My conundrum was whether this is ethical or not (from her point of view) – but also as a country, what about China? I have noticed that Chinese goods are saturating different markets and undercutting other businesses a ridiculous amount. A quick look on eBay will show you that the Chinese can afford to sell for a pittance – and if you go to places like Camden Market, the older British-owned businesses are being driven out by rising rent and Chinese stalls selling cheap goods. Of course, the cheaper an item, the less of a guarantee you have of quality. But I don’t think people are really concerned about quality in Western society. Just look at Primark and all those other cheap shops. We love to feel like we have a bargain. Especially in the middle of an incredibly deep and long-lasting financial crisis.

On one hand, the people making the Shibori can get money – they are in a job (albeit low paid) and the lady selling the material clearly makes a profit too. Something just seems really odd about it to me, and I couldn’t help but feel uncomfortable about it, as I was standing there acknowledging that the people who make the material live in poverty while the lady in front probably has much more in her life, in terms of materialistic things, than they might do. I don’t for one second equate happiness with materialism or ownership of goods and perhaps I am assuming too much but I would imagine their quality of life is less than hers? Yet they are the ones who make it and put all those hours of work in…

And I don’t think it is limited to this precise art or industry. I don’t think she should not be able to make money from it. Good on her for seeing a gap in the market and seizing the opportunity. I wish her all the best (we live in a capitalist society so I suppose in a way it is good to have made your peace with society and to embrace it). I just question the ethics of buying it (personally – as a consumer … I can appreciate that it is pretty but could I buy it knowing the circumstances of the production? No) and more generally, the ethics of a world that seems to be dependent upon goods from China made with cheap labour, yet one that will eventually suffer more because of it.

Disclaimer: I’m not interested in demonising individuals. I’m not interested in naming the company or the lady, or putting people off of buying Shibori. I hope I haven’t given that impression – I think some of the patterns were lovely and I can see why people would buy it, it just made me question how the world works.

What is the point of Europe?

I seem to have unintentionally started a debate. Twitter friends Daniel and Jon have both posted blogs about it – here and here, respectively. It was started off by my tweet yesterday:

“To be fair, what is the point of Europe (other than to amalgamate countries into a bigger area of land-thus more people-to rival the US?)”

I can’t even remember what I was reading that prompted it but I suppose what I was looking for was actually what made us define this collection of countries as Europe as a continent – firstly – and then what made us make all these groups and sub groups and alliances etc. But I was mainly interested in the boundary of what constitutes Europe as a continent – so what makes Asia … Asian? What makes Africa African? In terms of continents. Is it to do with climate? Shared histories? You would imagine perhaps Europe is united but it’s not – centuries of wars and invasions testify to quite the opposite, and even now there are frictions between member countries.

In terms of being a citizen, what makes somebody European? I don’t consider myself to be. I am, first, a global citizen, then a British one, then English. European doesn’t even come into it – but we are in the EU. I’ve always had a sense that ‘they’ are European, ‘we’ are British. But then in the same way I always forget that Ireland is a republic. Because it’s a near land mass it seems kind of logical that it would be part of the United Kingdom, so actually I have to remind myself that it is an entirely different country.

We think of Europe as generally one thing, I mean, I think we can all agree that it is vaguely this part of the world, these countries, and has something to do with membership of the EU. But actually it’s much more complicated than that (what is the EU, for starters? Why are some countries in the EU and not the Eurozone?). There are several labels or titles that allude to the idea of belonging to or being a part of Europe, and actually there are different kinds of zones or memberships within Europe and also partially outside of it. (This is why I generally stay away from Europe – because I always get it wrong and it just confuses me!) I wrote about European trade agreements a while ago here – that briefly discusses the history of the EU and new free trade agreements that involve Europe. You could argue that these are all – to varying degrees – definitions of Europe.

So, what with FTAs, Europe probably isn’t even a wholly economic venture – it is not necessary to be part of Europe to be able to have free trade with those countries within it. Should we leave Europe (not for one second saying we should), we would still be able to trade as freely as we do currently, surely? Nor is Europe designed to be political – though some believe the EU has too much political control over the UK. So why is it so important that we are part of it?

I get the feeling that actually, maybe it’s not as complicated as it seems. Perhaps I am looking for an explanation where there is none, or it really is as simple as attaching ourselves to some kind of super-state that could rival the US.