Activist lingerie, again!
Cats: lingerie, the change it is a-comin'|Tiny Asian woman advances upon larger Asian man, some tiny confection of satin and lace in her raised fist. Man backs away, trembling, shivering. “No! Anything but that!” He shrinks visibly, cowers in the presence of … her panties?
There’s a lot wrong in the country of Myanmar (also called Burma). The military regime is powerful and brutal, quashing any and all objection to its presence without hesitation. It’s a regime that routinely uses rape as a weapon of war. On top of the political misery, Cyclone Nargis swept through early this month, caused huge damage, and again, the repressive government is only very slowly and reluctantly moving to assist its citizens. Three weeks later, foreign aid workers are finally being allowed in, but very few have yet managed to get to the people.
The people of Myanmar are suffering, and little seems to be happening to improve their lives. Their government doesn’t seem to care — either about its people, or about international opinion.
What can you do to help the people? How do you get through? How do you make an impact on someone who doesn’t give a rat’s ass what you think?
You look for their weak spot. You find that thing which gets under their skin, and you poke at it till they pay attention.
That’s the theory behind Panties for Peace, anyway.
It seems that in Burma, significant numbers of people, including the generals in the regime, hold to the superstition that if a man comes in contact with anything that covers a woman from the waist down, he will be weakened. Underwear is particularly potent. (This is clearly karmic payback for all those rapes. Too bad the supersition doesn’t protect the contents of the panties.)
So, contact with panties — clean, dirty, used, brand-spanking new, it doesn’t matter — is dangerous. Their manly strength, their bodily energies, will be drained away.
Not only are they potentially dangerous, but deliberately exposing a man to such nastiness is a purposeful and demeaning insult. (As demeaning as rape as a tool of war? One can only hope.)
It’s seems laughable, but it’s not. According to Burmese activist Thet Thet Tun, if you wave a pair of panties around in public, wilfully endangering the male population, you could be shot. (Dead. Seems it’s a capital crime, endangerment by panties.)
But, bizarre as this undeniably is, it’s also useful. You know your opponent’s achilles heel, you can exploit it. Once again, lingerie is taking a role in righting the wrongs of this sad old planet.
Find the address of the Burmese embassy in your country. Make a little care package of your lacy bits, and mail it off. Within weeks, the hierarchy (all of it male) will be so weakened that the forces of good will be able to roll right into the country.
Okay, so maybe it won’t be so easy. Maybe having a taboo appear in the mail, dozens upon dozens of them every day, all around the world, will speak to them in a way that diplomacy and bureaucracy haven’t yet managed to achieve? Each pair of panties is a shout for justice they can’t ignore? Perhaps the powers that be will be so totally skeeved out they’ll pay attention?
I like it. It can’t hurt, it might help. I’ll be sending some along.
But you can be damned sure they won’t be any of my nice ones. Fuckers don’t deserve that.
