Panties for Peace

With a knack for satire and a penchant for transgression, the Lanna Action for Burma Committee might seem ill- equipped to enter into diplomatic negotiations with Myanmar’s military junta. Yet, this transnational activist network aims precisely to strike the old generals where it hurts: below the belt. With an arsenal of panties, this international coalition of women uses the mail as a medium to enact a war on the military’s superstitious nerves. According to Burmese cultural assumptions, men’s hpoun—a concept of superior masculine power and honor—can be destroyed if they come into contact with women’s sarongs or underwear.

Between the years 2007 and 2010, the Lanna Action network inundated the mailboxes of Burmese embassies in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Thailand, and other allied countries with packages
of panties addressed to Myanmar’s top officials. The committee also produced a blog with video clips featuring their iconic G-string logo, bragging about the benefits of voting for their party in the 2010 elections. With lines such as “With our sarongs flying high as flags, we will enjoy wind-powered electricity. Vote for our party, the Lanna Panty Party. We will bring light to everyone!” the committee members leave little doubt about the spoofy nature of the pranks—and their badass words(wo)manship.

Yet, these self-described witches hark back to a time-honed carnivalesque register of transgression around what Russian semiotician Mikhail Bakhtin termed “the lower bodily stratum.” By referring to Junta members’ appalling reputations as abusers, and attempting to degrade their male ego precisely where they have hurt their sisters-in-arms, the members of the Lanna Action group demonstrate their fearless command on a battlefield of their own: derision and humor.

Text: Claire Tancons