So You Think You Know

In light of the recent success of the Egyptian protests, this edition of So You Think You Know will shed light on some of the weirder protests in recent memory. When one thinks of weird protests, the antics of PETA and their famous pie in the face protests are the first light bulbs to go off, or maybe the destructive Black Bloc tactics employed during the G20 Summit in Toronto. However, here are three odd protests you may not have heard of on the news.

Potholes

In 2006, residents of the small town of Leader, Saskatchewan became fed up with the deteriorating state of their town’s roads. So what to do about this problem? Get naked and stand in the giant potholes, of course! Town residents produced a calendar featuring pictures of nude residents standing in the town’s largest potholes in an effort to spur local government into taking action. The stunt apparently worked; funding to fill in the potholes was eventually provided in October 2008.

Butter bombs

Environmental protesters might be the leaders in oddball protesting methods. For instance, who could forget Greenpeace creating a giant toilet to protest dumping wastewater in the ocean? However, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society has been labeled one of the most extreme in their efforts against the whaling industry, going as far as boarding or even ramming “enemy” ships. One of their weirder tactics involved lobbing containers of rotten butter onto a Japanese whaling ship.

While it didn’t stop the Japanese whaling industry, the smell of 24-liters of rotten butter did cause three of the Japanese sailors to part ways with the contents of their stomachs.

Dirty laundry

In 2000, to protest the re-election campaign of a corrupt president, protesters in Peru came together to wash the country of its “dirty” politics. To do so, they gathered and publicly handwashed the country’s flag – a protest that went on for months. Eventually a video was aired showing the president bribing a legislator, and he was forced to flee the country.

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