Drop em in the name of peace

OK, women, whip off your panties and do your duty!

I know, I know. Some of you are already scraveling for pen and paper to protest this totally unwarranted and unnecessary beginning to an obviously sexist and sexual column.

I don't blame you. If I had your minds I'd be doing exactly the same thing. Fortunately, however, my mind does not inhabit the same strictly Puritan background as your own. I see a somewhat different meaning to the first line above.

Now you're wondering what else can it possibly mean other than what it says, or seems to say. What indeed? You have to agree that when you first read it your mind leaped to a conclusion that left me inhabiting the lowest level of the St. John's and Corner Brook sewer systems.

Thank God, you're saying, probably out loud. Thank God I was up before the kids and confiscated this garbage before they had a chance to read it. I'm writing a letter right away to the publishers, owners and editors of the Telegram, The Western Star, The Norwester, The Northern Pen, Downhome magazine and The Gulf News and protesting this kind of pornographic material.

This man Smith no longer writes material decent folk like me want to read. That, you're saying, should put a stop to it.

OK, Sir and Madame, that's fine if you want to do that on behalf of decent folk like yourself. I have only one question: who represents the indecent people of the province? Who will write to the editor demanding that I be allowed to move them in mysterious ways?

No one, is who. As usual the majority of citizens who love to be and need to be titillated in this way will have no one to speak for them. Sad, really, were it not for the fact that in this case it isn't necessary. The beginning to this column is as pure as the driven slush.

You've heard of Myanmar? I hadn't, not in school. In school we learned about Burma, although not much. We were too busy learning about the little African boy, whose name I've forgotten, who used to run from place to place with a letter in a forked stick.

Seems he was the African equivalent of the pony express, carrying the mail through sleet and snow and Indian attacks. Of course they don't have sleet or snow in Africa, except on Mount Kilimanjaro. Not many Indians on horseback, either.

Back to Myanmar. Thing is, if you go back to Myanmar you'll find yourself in Burma and vice versa. As I'm sure you do know, that area was ravaged by a vicious cyclone not long ago. A cyclone is the equivalent of a hurricane in our world and this one killed a lot of people. The last number I heard was 50,000, but it may have increased since then.

At that point, of course, numbers become meaningless. The scale of human suffering is immense, just as it is in China where that killer earthquake destroyed whole towns and wiped out tens of thousands, 250,000 were injured. An estimated 5 million are homeless.

The difference between Myanmar and China, again as you probably know, is that the military junta which rules Myanmar has not been allowing aid into the country. In the face of protests from all over the world, the generals have staged little events where they give out food and clothing to the starving and the homeless, and invite selected international journalists to film what they're doing.

We're not such bad guys after all, is what they were proclaiming to the world. However, when the journalists left, the generals and their goons hurriedly took back the food and clothing. Lovely people.

Women don't fare very well in Myanmar. In addition to being systematically raped and otherwise savaged sexually, they are thought by men to be so inferior that they should not be touched. I respect the right of human beings everywhere to have their own beliefs.
I cannot, however, always respect those beliefs, especially in this particular case. I've run up against that one directly myself and have to admit to having a rather low tolerance for it.

There's a great story relating to those attitudes toward women. Evidently 10 years ago an American journalist interviewed an Afghani woman who was walking 10 feet behind her husband. When asked why, the woman replied, "That is my place".

A couple of years ago the journalist went back to Afghanistan, sought out the same woman and was deeply saddened, after all the efforts to free and educate women in that country, to find her walking 20 feet behind her husband.

When she was asked why, the woman said, "Landmines."

The military rulers of Myanmar are as superstitious as their beliefs are ancient. They believe that any contact with women's undergarments will drain them of their physical power. Because of the regime's sexual violence against women for 20 years, and because of the incredible suffering of the population brought on by the cyclone and the junta's refusal to let in aid, a remarkable and unique action has been undertaken by the women of the world.

It's called "Panties for Peace." The idea is that millions of women will mail their panties to Myanmar embassies around the world and/or directly to the ruling regime itself. In this way, it is hoped that enough international pressure will be placed on them to force them into relaxing their tyrannical laws and allow aid to enter where it's so badly needed. Canada, too, has gotten involved in the movement.

You think it's stupid? You think there's no way such a weird campaign could possibly have any effect on those idiots over there? Got a better idea? No?
Then drop 'em.

Readers can contact Ed Smith by e-mail at edsmith@persona.ca or by mail at 4 Brinex Ave., Springdale, NL, AOJ ITO.