Panties for Peace: Get Empowered by Your Drawers!

Since Hillary Clinton threw her hat into the ring, women have felt a new sense of empowerment. Now, women everywhere can make a political statement by throwing another garment, their panties, onto the world stage in a new but growing movement called Panties for Peace. A grassroots network of women's organizations in Thailand, Canada, and the United States has united under the name Panties for Peace and come up with a simple, outrageous, but powerful way of protesting the ongoing abuses of the generals who are ruling and ruining Myanmar, as they renamed Burma.

Simply, send your panties to the generals. According to the Lanna Action for Burma, a group in Thailand that started Panties for Peace, superstitious Burmese men have a fear of women's clothes, so much so that they do not want their clothes washed together with women's clothing. As I learned in writing another article on the situation in Myanmar, the generals, especially the leader of the junta, General Than Shwe, follow superstition more than Buddhist teachings. They fear that women's underwear can rob their power. So, Panties for Peace, it is, and panties to empower women around the world.

The Panties for Peace campaign allows women to comment on, perhaps even hurt, the junta in a way that is lighthearted (do check the Panties for Peace logo logo) but serious at the same time. The seriousness of the junta's violent response to the pro-democracy protests in September 2007 should not be forgotten, neither should the deaths and the arrests.

In a sad perversion of Buddhist teaching, one Burmese woman reports that, "In Burmese Buddhist tradition, it is every woman's wish to become a man when reborn into a new life....Our clothes and towels are separated from men's. Our skirts are not allowed to touch any monk or any man, or they will lose their power." So, Panties for Peace, sent with the specific intention of stealing men's power, will be even more effective.

We men, alas, need not apply, so since my out of shape jockeys wield no power, I'll do my part by sharing with women readers a list of targets for Panties for Peace, I mean, Myanmar embassies. And, here are the addresses for the Myanmar embassy to the United States and the Myanmar mission to the United Nations, in case any of my female readers care to direct some Panties for Peace in their direction:

U Linn Myaing (Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary)
United States of America, Embassy of the Union of Myanmar
2300 S Street, N.W.
Washington, Dc 20008

U Kyaw Tint Swe (Permanent Representative)
Permanent Mission of the Union of Myanmar to the United Nations
10 East 77th Street
New York, NY 10021

There is even a Panties for Peace game. Although I don't want to spoil anyone's fun, we should not forget to check Amnesty International's report on Myanmar and the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma).

There are currently two websites for Panties for Peace: PantiesforPeace.info and Panties for Peace - Canada. There is a PantiesforPeace.com site under development. Panties for Peace is a movement similarly under development, and it is going to be around for as long as the generals make it necessary.

For now, women readers (sorry, guys) can send their Panties for Peace. Don't forget to register your panties. Women and men alike can all donate to help the still-suffering victims of the cyclone and the generals whom it is so easy to make fun of, but so hard to communicate with.