Activity p. 109

Terror’s

Purse Strings

DANA THOMAS

FIRST-HAND EVIDENCE

“There is a kind of an obsession with bags,” the designer Miuccia Prada told me. “It’s so easy to make money.”

v ETHOS: Dana Thomas employs this quote in her essay in order to establish ethos. Speaking one-on-one with a globally renowned designer lends great credibility to her piece, demonstrating one of the many sources of information she investigated in order to regard the issue of counterfeit purses from multiple perspectives. The quote further supports the claim Thomas makes about the high consumption of luxury bags.

Children are sometimes sold or sent off by their families to work in clandestine factories that produce counterfeit luxury goods. Many in the West consider this an urban myth. But I have seen it myself.

On a warm winter afternoon in Guangzhou, I accompanied Chinese police officers on a factory raid in a decrepit tenement. Inside, we found two dozen children, ages 8 to 13, gluing and sewing together fake luxury-brand handbags.

As we made our way back to the police vans, the children threw bottles and cans at us. They were now jobless and, because the factory housed them, homeless.

v PATHOS: Thomas uses her first-hand experience of witnessing children work in counterfeit factories to add a human element to her piece. The fact that she has witnessed the horrendous truth behind counterfeit purses adds sincerity to her emotions against the operation. Speaking of the children who suffer from this criminal activity further tugs on the reader’s heartstrings, making us sympathize with their plight. In exposing a horrendous consequence of counterfeit production, Thomas captures the audience’s understanding of why this is a critical issue.

SECOND-HAND EVIDENCE

To understand the importance of the handbag in fashion today consider this: According to consumer surveys conducted by Coach, the average American woman was buying two new handbags a year in 2000; by 2004, it was more than four. And the average luxury bag retails for 10 to 20 times its production cost.

According to a study by the British law firm Davenport Lyons, two-thirds of British consumers are “proud to tell their family and friends” that they bought fake luxury fashion items.

At least 11 percent of the world’s clothing is fake, according to 2000 figures from the Global Anti-Counterfeiting Group in Paris.

v ETHOS: Thomas uses this quantitative data to illustrate the importance of the handbag in society today. The trend of purchasing luxury bags is extensive and its ensuing consequences are even more far-reaching. In using factual information outside her own realm of knowledge, she lends credibility to her piece.

v LOGOS: Through these numbers, Thomas provides factual and objective information that allows the reader to use reason and logic to connect the statistic to the widespread appeal of luxury purses as well as the further appeal of counterfeit purses and its widespread consequences in the world.

Most people think that buying an imitation handbag or wallet is harmless, a victimless crime. But the counterfeiting rackets are run by crime syndicates that also deal in narcotics, weapons, child prostitution, human trafficking and terrorism.

v PATHOS: Thomas reveals one of the negative consequences of purchasing counterfeit bags – it directly funds other heinous criminal operations, such as human trafficking and terrorism, that people fear and shun. In connecting the seemingly innocent counterfeit purses to other issues that people do not hesitate to cast under a negative light, Thomas depicts the detrimental effects of purchasing counterfeit bags and makes people understand, on an emotional level, how destructive their uninformed decisions are.

Ronald K. Noble, the secretary general of Interpol, told the House of Representatives Committee on International Relations that profits from the sale of counterfeit goods have gone to groups associated with Hezbollah, the Shiite terrorist group.

“Profits from counterfeiting are one of the three main sources of income supporting international terrorism,” said Magnus Ranstorp, a terrorism expert at the University of St. Andrews, in Scotland.

v ETHOS: Thomas lends credibility to her statement that purchasing counterfeit bags funds terrorist groups by citing Ronald K. Noble, a secretary general of Interpol, and Magnus Ranstorp, a terrorism expert, as a legitimate and credible sources of information on the connection between counterfeit bags and terrorism.

Sales of counterfeit T-shirts may have helped finance the 1993 World Trade center bombing, according to the International AntiCounterfeiting Coalition.

v PATHOS: In exposing how profit from counterfeit bag sales funds terrorist groups, Thomas makes people who purchase these purses feel guilty, making them see destructive consequences of their actions. For Americans, who have been victims of terrorism in the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center, terrorism is a particularly sensitive topic.