AK-47: The Peace Brand
Reflexions on the discursive tactics of war design
This text is an excerpt from the introduction of my master’s degree thesis on design “AK-47: a marca da paz. Reflexões sobre as táticas discursivas do design da guerra” (AK-47: the Brand of Peace. Reflections on the Discursive Tactics of War Design).
At the end of 2014, Creative Review, an English design blog, published the article “Rebranding Kalashnikov: Would you?” in which they introduced the new Kalashnikov gun branding project while asking the design community: what would you do if this briefing came up at your table? Would you take the job?
The reputation of the AK-47 was born from the hands of Mikhail Kalashnikov, a young Russian tank operator, shortly after World War II. Inspired by the German Sturmgewehr 44 assault rifle, the AK-47 became the most manufactured weapon of all time, reaching 100 million copies in use — i.e. one for every 70 people — according to the Dutch design magazine Works That Work.
Besides its extensive history, it has widely spread outside the battlefields and in a paradoxical way. In pop culture, it can be seen printed on posters and t-shirts alongside the revolutionary Che Guevara and the biggest U.S. enemy, Osama Bin Laden. In music, American rapper Ice Cube devotes some of his verses to it — “It Was a Good Day (…) Today I didn’t even have to use my AK” — while singer Rihanna adorns her teeth with a solid piece of gold in the shape of the weapon. In the movies, actor Samuel L. Jackson, playing a black-market gunrunner in Jackie Brown, is delighted to say that nothing beats an AK-47: “AK-47, the very best there is. When you absolutely, positively, got to kill every motherfucker in the room; accept no substitutes” (TARANTINO, 1997). In 2011, the London Design Museum acquired the gun for its permanent collection alongside the English magazine The Face and a Sony Walkman. The museum was the first in the world to compose its curatorship with a modern weapon. The designer Philippe Starck also dedicated a collection of lamps to it, marketing them at an average price of US$2,500 each. Its decomposed remains found in Africa also serve as the raw material for a luxury jewelery brand, the Fonderie 47. It is worth mentioning that each pair of earrings (US$ 50,000) or ring (US$ 16,000) carries the serial number of the weapon in its design (ELDREDGE, 2014), which indicates the trace of originality and quality of the product. (2014).
Its ease of production, use, and assembly was and still is the guarantee of success worldwide. In addition to the simplicity of its design, the weapon has become famous due to its great resistance, accuracy, and ease of acquisition on the black market. It is found in the hands of smugglers, street gangs, and terrorists from all continents. Known to Mexicans as “cuerno de chivo” (or goat horn in English) thanks to the unmistakable anatomy of its cartridge case, the AK-47 is still considered the most effective weapon in the world and makes around 250,000 victims a year.
AK-47 is also used as a symbol in the coats of arms of countries such as Zimbabwe and in terrorist groups around the world, like Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, the Communist Party of the Philippines and Hezbollah. In some regions in Africa, newborn males are given the name of “Kalash” in worship and honor to the weapon. It is part of the culture and part of education. In Afghanistan, for example, children used to learn the alphabet in this sequence: “ ‘I’ as in Israel — the enemy, ‘J’ as in Jihad — our purpose in the world, and ‘K’ as in Kalashnikov — ‘we shall win’”.
Kalashnikov Concern, the company responsible for the production of AK-47, displays on its institutional website: “In the minds of hundreds of million people around the world, AK-47 is closely tied with the struggle against imperialism and colonial exploitation, with democratic movements and the fight for freedom and independence” (KALASHNIKOV CONCERN, 2014). Its emergence has redesigned the conflicts of modern society.
PROTECTING PEACE
The AK-47 is considered the weapon of the battlefields of the twentieth century. In other words, it tells the story of the twentieth century, or at least about half of it. Created by the need for survival amidst the threats of war, it has enabled the empowerment of groups and communities in the greatest battles of recent times. In 2014, 68 years after its invention, the company announces a rebrand with a new approach to its identity and its brand narrative. A social and symbolical revolution.
The branding strategies of the Kalashnikov warfare firm provide a new perspective for the AK-47, in a paradox in which killing opposes surviving, and war is claimed as a necessity for freedom. When it comes to lethal weapons, could branding be considered in this sense as a tool in the service of the dissemination of an ideology of war? Would we thus be in the midst of a complex world, recognizing the weapons as the principal cause of death and violence? From a “pre- and post-gunpowder” point of view, it is possible to identify very similar reasons that led humans to exterminate each other.
As a vital part of the restructuring of the company and of its new commercial proposals, emphasis was placed on design. Kalashnikov Concern has redesigned the identity of its entire line of products, ranging from AK-47 to Baikal hunting guns and Izhmash sport guns. The brand states on its institutional website that branding is the key driver of its expansion into new markets and the increase in sales in the civil sector (KALASHNIKOV CONCERN, 2014). In the future, they intend to be as popular as Apple.
The company also states that the brand is a new version of the symbolic heritage of its product. The slogan “Protecting Peace”, in its Russian version, can also mean “Weapons of the World”. According to Kalashnikov Concern, this positioning suggests that guns are used to maintain the peaceful atmosphere around the world, allowing people to protect their sovereignty and their right to live in peace.
The simple and reliable AK was also in demand beyond the borders of the Soviet Union. It was not only a technological revolution, but also a social revolution. Liberation movements in Africa, Asia and Latin America could finally fight against colonial armies. The AK-47 gave them the opportunity to claim rights and justice. This is a weapon which helped people defend their families and futures, and demand the right to a peaceful future (WALKER, 2014).
Would the peacemaking slogan presented by the branding strategy for the marketing of a weapon be wrong? Or were we the wrong ones for not proposing such a discussion? Let us get right to the point. After all, as John Berger suggests in Ways of Seeing, seeing is an exercise of both knowing to see and of simply knowing. In War Porn, photographer Christoph Bangert warns: “Our brains try to protect us by preventing us from seeing. We’re scared to risk being scared.” But what would happen if we briefly disconnected our self-censorship? If we do not allow ourselves to look, how can we understand and remember?
The paradox of this approach is reflected in the maxim that an artifact by itself is not capable of anything. The use that individuals make of it is what shapes it as lethal, aggressive or even peaceful. Under this bias, would we see the AK-47 as an artifact of power, since its use for good or evil can coexist? How to explore such an analysis in the face of a complex symbolic relationship between the AK-47 and the world? How does it express meaning and why does it express it? What are its uses?
This research aims to understand the value proposition of the AK-47 weapon in the 21st century based on the design and branding tools used in its new identity. We will also investigate the meanings conceived around the AK-47 and their transience throughout its history.
In order to achieve the proposed research objectives, the investigative strategy of our path is presented as a kind of analytical compendium. The discourse follows through contemporary situations (distinct and analogous) seeking to promote reflections on the discursive uses of branding and design in the present day. Through a survey of subjects that are a part of the universe of the empirical object, the repertoire urges a multidimensional and complex dialogue in the present paper. In fact, the examples presented throughout the text illustrate the theory allied to practice and underpin our questionings. We intended to examine discourses in order to promote new ones: to point out divergences, paradoxes and points of view.
The theme becomes relevant to analysis and discussion, since it covers current issues of design practice — branding and identity creation — under a complex interpretive perspective. We also seek to understand the typical paradox of artifacts that directly interfere with the existence of the human being and the designer as the creator of these. If so, would it be possible to infer that the weapon’s use would promote violence and death, but, on the other hand, its possession would guarantee peace?
Full Portuguese version here.
#PEACE
