A Virtual Prayer Flag for a Free Tibet?
March 19th, 2008, 7 Comments »
Today I was riding around Victoria, and I spotted some Tibetan prayer flags in the front window of a house. They reminded me of the recent unrest in Tibet, and China’s fifty year control of the region.
With the upcoming Olympics in Beijing, advocates for Tibetan independence rightfully see this year as crucial in their struggle. The cause simply doesn’t get enough visibility in the West.
I thought it would be cool to start a little corner banner viral campaign, which would enable bloggers and other site publishers to fly the flag for Tibetan independence. You’ve probably seen these–they’re a little chunk of javascript that, when added to your site, displays a clickable banner in the corner of the page (I’ve written about them before). It could run through the Olympics in August of this year, and click through to some actionable cause.
I hacked together an ugly example of what I’m thinking of (thanks to Burt Youngsters for the source photo):
Those are too big, and awful looking, but you get the general idea.
Designers, Make It Beautiful
If there’s a designer or designers who can make a more attractive version, go to it. I’ll provide the hosting, and try to promote it around a little. The banner has to be beautiful, though–really aesthetically appealing. People will be temporarily messing with their site design, so we’d have to make it worthwhile. Likewise, I’d expect to produce a few colour schemes, including a black and white version.
I suppose we also ought to check with a Tibetan about the appropriateness of using a prayer flag as a symbol of protest and advocacy. Er, any Tibetan readers out there? That’s a bit of a longshot.
Anyhow, I just thought I’d float this idea. Or rather, throw it at the wall and see if it sticks.