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Admin
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 Posted - 03/05/2003 : 11:42:17 AM
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smh.com.au March 6, 2003
Angry? Try a quick flash, the whole world's doing it
Getting naked to get a cause noticed is not new, but its increased popularity could see us all cop a skinful, writes Karen Jackson.
Grace Knight's nude anti-war protests in Byron Bay and Sydney have made headlines around the world, as have the earlier efforts of a small group of Californian women, who started the whole thing.
Now it seems that everyone wants to do it. Just the other day in Chile, 300 people got nude in a city park for the same reason, before getting a little emotional and running naked towards the Parliament with police in hot pursuit. Those South Americans can't help but be exhibitionists, can they?
Taking your clothes off for a cause is not new. It seems that people have been protesting through nudity for quite some time. Of course, nude equals news. Widespread media coverage is the best way to get your point across, even if you have to show the whole world your naughty bits in the process.
Thus, in the past few years, we have seen three women strip and cover themselves with fake blood outside the Sydney meeting of the World Trade Organisation, a group of pagans cavorting topless at a G8 meeting in Calgary, Canada, a couple of anti-fur protesters going nude in Beijing, and animal liberationists marching naked during the running of the bulls in Pamplona.
Interestingly, African women have a tradition of protesting through nudity. In Nigeria last year 600 women invaded the headquarters of oil multinational Texaco to demand jobs for their sons and better facilities in their communities. To get their point across they threatened to strip naked. In Nigeria and other African nations, public female nudity is seen as ill-omened, and a source of shame for the men who see it. After 10 days, the oil company agreed to help out and the women emerged victorious (and clothed).
In Zambia, women paraded topless to protest against the Government's new rules outlawing miniskirts and tight pants. Baring one's breasts has a history in that country, where 40 years earlier it was used as a protest against the British colonists, and became a badge of freedom and independence. Faced with so many bare bosoms in 1964, the straitlaced Brits bailed out.
In Kenya in 2001, a team of scientists were driven away from a nature reserve by a band of 300 naked women who ran into their research camp. The women were using their nudity to invoke a curse on the men, and thus prevent them from extending the nature reserve onto tribal land. The poor blokes were just trying to research colobus monkeys, but they ran for the hills quick smart.
That same year in Johannesburg, eight women squatters stripped in front of police who were preventing them from returning to their shacks and removing their belongings. This sort of nude action also had a history in apartheid South Africa, when government removal of squatters was common. While there were a few red faces among the police officers, a number of them could be seen enjoying the spectacle, a witness commented.
Then there are those who protest naked in public for the right to be naked in public. A group called Freedom to be Human regularly appears nude in London (but only in summer), determined to repeal indecent exposure laws. In 1999 Vincent Bethell, the founder of the group, was arrested for scaling a lamp-post outside the Royal Courts of Justice. That campaign is about being alive, being human, Bethell has said. Why do people have such a strange reaction to the human form? His protests also draw attention to body image issues and what he sees as the sexualisation of the human body. He says people are rarely offended by his actions, more often offering encouragement.
All this leads one to wonder what new forms of nude protest we'll see. Will unions opt for a mass streak rat
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balataf
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Posted - 06/04/2006 : 09:55:28 AM
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During the 1600s, there were several mass nude marches by the German Mennonites and Anabaptists to protest oppression from both Catholics and Lutherans.
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Article about the history of nude protests
