Oiii! Is the money from BERSIH t-shirts actually going to BERSIH?

So some of you may have seen pictures of these bad boys on Facebook.

Quite nice right? We’re quite sure some of you are going “Woah, damn cool! Let’s buy!” Right, right? Well we were like that also. Yeap, Bersih t-shirts, available at bersih.com.my, and price also not bad la.

But then ah, we know that BERSIH’s page is bersih.org, and NOT bersih.com.my, so we called BERSIH, and sure enough, they told us that… the t-shirts were not by them!

 

Chup. If it’s not BERSIH making the t-shirts then WHO!?

After BERSIH confirmed with us that the people selling these t-shirts not same geng with them, we started to get curious. Who are these people who are selling them, and what’s their intention for selling BERSIH t-shirts?

And honestly, before we even began to look into who they were, we already had some preconceived notions about them. Let’s list them down.

1. They are harping on the BERSIH brand to make money for themselves!
2. They are not from BERSIH itself and thus would probably not want to be interviewed!
3. To get to talk to them we would probably need to employ more…unorthodox methods of gathering information!!

So we went about trying to get in touch with them la. Here’s what we did. Even though we thought they weren’t gonna respond to our emails, we still sent them one. But just in case that didn’t work, we contacted them via FB to enquire about their t-shirts (secret-agent-infiltrate-ranks kind of thing).

So imagine our surprise when they actually replied our email and said yes to the interview! So of course we go interview them la! So yea, no sneaky-sneaky.

 

Apparently they’re just 3 guys wanting to design better t-shirts?

So yea, we arranged to meet the main guy, Ian, at Artisan Cafe, PJ. After ordering our drinks we got down to business. This was more or less how the first 5 minutes went.

“We’re not affiliated to BERSIH. They themselves are selling their own t-shirts.  There’s no company behind this. Just 3 guys doing this for fun.” – Ian

Our story gone di la omgbbqptptn…….Nvm, we still heard Ian out la.

Short story long, he was on his computer when he saw the announcement for BERSIH 4, and the thought occurred to him that this was probably going to be the most massive rally of all time and that people are gonna be needing shirts! 

But then we were all like “Be honest with us, you saw a business opportunity didn’t you?” And he answered us with this.

“I am an entrepreneur at heart, and I did think of it as a business opportunity. At the same time, I realised the stigma towards it. Making money of the name BERSIH is not really a good thing.”  – Ian

Yeap, they still went ahead with it. But here’s why.

“Me and my designers enjoy design, and looking at the BERSIH t-shirt….it’s quite an….eyesore maybe?” – Ian

And we gotta clarify that we wanted them to be frank with us. He genuinely thinks that the current designs for BERSIH 4 are not nice to see la. They felt that they could do better but at the same time didn’t want to take advantage of BERSIH to make money.

“So the challenge for us was to make shirts of the Pestle & Mortar kind, at the price that BERSIH is selling them” – Ian

Well almost la, BERSIH sells theirs at RM20 while Ian & friends sell theirs between RM25-27.

 

 

But why they don’t wanna work with BERSIH?

Even if they dun like the designs from BERSIH, they could have worked with BERSIH instead of doing it on their own right? Well, Ian told us that they did offer to help BERSIH with their designs.

It’s also worth mentioning that they’re not the only ones who have been designing BERSIH 4 t-shirts. Since BERSIH 4 was announced there have been other BERSIH 4 t-shirts not by BERSIH going around also. They just decided to sell more patriotic t-shirts instead of just BERSIH themed t-shirts!

But then we also asked why didn’t they just give some t-shirts to BERSIH so they can sell? Well, they did. BERSIH said nevermind, they’ll stick to their designs.

So it’s not like they didn’t want to work WITH BERSIH. They just didn’t want to work UNDER BERSIH, which is really not the same as working with someone.

 

As long as their hearts are in the right place?

First off: You remember the part where they outright said that they’re not affiliated with BERSIH? They were actually open about it all along. Check out their ‘About‘ page on their website.

Secondly: Back to the point about money. Ian mentioned that it wasn’t good to be making money of BERSIH even if they are. But what if we told you that they aren’t making much anyway?

Initially, they sold their t-shirts for about slightly above RM30 but when they saw no one else (BERSIH and other unofficial t-shirt sellers) selling above RM25, they too decided to lower their prices to RM25.

According to Ian, they earn RM4 per t-shirt, RM2 if you pick up the t-shirt yourself. Since they started a bit over a week ago, they’ve sold about 500 t-shirts. So even if you do the math, the profit split between 3 people isn’t a lot la, even if they continued doing it for the rest of the month.

We don’t really plan to earn much, we just want to keep the price as low as possible and give people something cool & nice to wear la. – Ian

And in line with what BERSIH stands for, they were even willing to be transparent about where your t-shirt money goes to. They even made a chart for it!

Third: Ian also told us about how they’ve been asked to sell their t-shirts at the MPPJ hall on 12/8/15 (which is probably over by the time you read this) to help DAP raise funds for Impian Sarawak (for every t-shirt sold, they gonna donate RM5).

And because they knew BERSIH was going to be there, they said that they weren’t gonna bring along their t-shirts that were outright about BERSIH.

4th: They actually wanted to help BERSIH financially.

“We were thinking about putting some money aside to donate to BERSIH but we weren’t sure what the money would be used for, and if we were to donate something, we wanted to see it being used for something.” – Ian

Which is fair, because honestly, how many of us know what BERSIH does when it’s not organising huge, national rallies?

 

But maybe we don’t always have to wait for BERSIH to do everything

We really don’t have to rely on BERSIH to provide everything for us to show our support. Just like every other organisation fighting for a cause, BERSIH is not perfect la. You don’t think so? Here’s what our Editor-in-Chief has to say about working with them.

“I can tell you it can sometimes be a frustrating experience. One of the cases I recall was their name – BERSIH 2.0. A lot of people don’t know that’s OFFICIALLY BERSIH’s name! 

Unfortunately, their 2nd event was ALSO called BERSIH 2.0, so when the 3rd BERSIH event came about, everyone was wondering why BERSIH 2.0 is promoting BERSIH 3.0. Confusing right?” – Chak, Editor-in-Chief of CILISOS.

So yea, BERSIH’s official name is actually BERSIH 2.0, and it has been for the longest time. And that’s besides many other things la. 2 more examples.

1. Ian mentioned how the domain name bersih.com.my was available when he first had the idea to sell t-shirts, so he buy and use la! Like no one even thought of buying that website???? C’mon!!
2. BERSIH 2.0 has not made a FB event page for the BERSIH 4 rally!

But please do note, even if we’re pointing out BERSIH 2.0’s flaws, our point isn’t that BERSIH 2.0 is bad. As our Editor-in-chief goes on to say.

“Of course, their hearts are in the right place, but with limited resources, it’s understandably hard for BERSIH to get professional level help. That’s where people like Ian can come in and fill the gaps.” – Chak

Because if there’s one thing we’re starting to realise, it’s this – BERSIH is no longer just a rag-tag bunch of good-hearted volunteers operating out of a small house in PJ – it’s a movement to clean up a house that’s been falling apart for years. The house that all of us Malaysians live in.

And that’s something every Malaysian should be able to get behind.