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Progressive Christian

Last updated on: June 12, 2008 at 3:15 pm by Cathleen Falsani

2008-06-12T15:15:00-07:00 Cathleen Falsani

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Panties for Peace

No, seriously.
This may be one of the best acts of civil disobedience/covert peacemaking I’ve ever heard.

From CANADA.COM:
“UNDERWEAR A POWERFUL PROTEST”

Fighting injustice and oppression is as easy as dropping a pair of panties into an envelope and mailing it to the Burmese Embassy in Ottawa.

It’s all part of a campaign called Panties for Peace which was started among Burmese women in exile in Thailand last October in response to violence aimed at monks and civilians engaged in a peaceful protest in Yangon.

“From a western perspective, this seems silly and strange, but for the Burmese this is a very powerful act,” said Patricia Elliott, who volunteers with Saskatchewan Friends of Burma.

She describes Burmese military and government leaders as highly superstitious, paranoid and fearful of western influence, which is why receiving mail riddled with panties would be a very unsettling experience.

Military leaders in Burma, more recently known as Myanmar, closely follow advisers who practise an ancient form of magic that holds that any contact with women’s undergarments from below the waist will sap all power.

Packages containing panties decorated with anti-regime slogans have been arriving at Burmese embassies from around the world.

“This idea gave the women not only a chance to laugh again, but to let them feel they had some power in the faces of such an oppressive regime,” said Elliott.

Elliott said the country, devastated by a cyclone on May 2, has been ruled by a military regime that is brutally violent against its own people.

“The cyclone drew a lot of media attention, but what people aren’t seeing is there has been a human rights disaster in that country that has been ongoing since 1962. Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed or forced into exile,” she said.

She described the country as a police state, where basic human rights such as religion, travel, communication, and education are regulated and restricted.

She pointed out that foreign aid for disaster relief has been tightly controlled and even withheld.

“They are setting up roadblocks to keep out aid agencies, kicking people out of storm shelters and sending people home with 20 bamboo poles and a sheet of plastic and saying, ‘That’s it, disaster over,’ ” Elliott said.

On their official Web site organizers of Panties for Peace encourage protesters around the world to “post, deliver or fling your panties at your closest Burmese Embassy.”

FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THE PANTIES FOR PEACE CAMPAIGN, CLICK HERE

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