AK 47 Icon of fashion : London-Moscow-Ndjamena

International women's day :  AK 47 carrying women gendarmes

London August 2013 ; Fashion :  David Bowie was making  a comeback ,  with a retrospective exhibition of his clothing and posters at the Victoria and Albert Museum ,the release  of a critically acclaimed  new album,  and perhaps a world tour? Well no, not aged 66. The iconoclast, who stood up and  sang 'We can be heroes just for one day'  has simply kept reinventing himself and now  risks becoming a national treasure. Did the change come  when  he took  on the  job of introducing  Raymond Briggs  'The Snowman.' ?

Yesterday we travelled 500  km to Koutou just outside Mondou in Southern Chad for a five day stay during  half term .It's our first visit to 'Tchad Utile 'as the French liked to call it, and we can begin to see why. As we sit on our guest house veranda look at the green surroundings , the abundance of guavas lemons and grapefruit on the trees and the bird song  is overwhelming.  Competing with the birds is 'Heroes', a digitally remastered  MP3 download on my lap top. When it first came out (in 1977) it was as a 7''single spinning at  45 rpm giving a  mono- aural sound. My first copy  was on a cassette, either copied from the radio or a friend.  Now 40 years later my two recent MP3  purchases from Amazon are  in English and slightly stilted French ( On peut être héros pour jusqu'une  journée) . Technology changes  good music remains.

Music on the move is a great thing which we now take for granted. It really all began with the Sony Walkman.  That  icon of 1980's design went out of production last year, obsolete. Now if you want one you will have to bid against the likes of V&A who are no doubt planning  to do an exhibition about them. Even cassettes  are hard to find these days.
 

I wish it was the same for the AK 47 assault rifle. Like David Bowie it also had an exhibition in London, on  the South Bank, just beside Tate Modern.  Decommissioned Kalashnikovs were painted with flowers, gold plated, painted with stripes so as to blend in with the background etc. Designed in the mid 1940's just after the atom bomb,  it is small in comparison but  it has proved far more deadly than Oppenheimers creation. A  magazine of 30 rounds  can be fired at 40 to 100  per minute, accurate at 400m.  Imagine if each of the 100 million AK47 manufactured has killed just one person.  Ashes to ashes.

 

In Chad it would seem that they are the ultimate fashion accessory. Soldiers on guard outside the palace and ministries carry them as do the gendarmes and the police . I must have seen 30 or more as I drove through Ndjamena yesterday morning.  They are ubiquitous even appearing on peaceful parades like International Women's Day.  Manufactured in Moscow, worn legitimately in Ndjamena , fired in the air to celebrate weddings and national holidays, the AK 47  is now  on display in London. Sixty  years after it was first made it is still by far the commonest weapon on the planet , carried by armies, gangs and poachers everywhere in Africa. There is never any  difficulty getting hold of the 7.62 mm ammunition. It is robust, cheap, easy to use and  simple to maintain.  An icon of Soviet utilitarian design,  long after  the union itself  has ceased to exist

In the London exhibition there was one unmounted rifle with a sign inviting you to pick it up. I hesitated, discussed it with Andrea Ruth and Rebecca, and decided 'Yes'. I was amazed how light it  was in my hands , 3.9 kg ( without ammunition),  it didn't seem right put it on my shoulder and squint down the barrel so I quickly put it down. It would be frighteningly  easy to carry and use even for the girls, they declined to try.
I have seen too many people dead and injured by this icon of the 20th century. The year of the millennium I lost a Guinean friend and colleague plus all his family to its deadly efficiency. The world would be a better place if it could go the way of the Sony Walkman, let us all work and pray for that day.

PS:  The exhibition 'History Interrupted' by Carl MCcrow was at the OXO Tower. You can read more about it and his campaign on his website.