“FCK ISIS” t-shirt seen here at a vendor’s stall in downtown Yangon. PHOTO/COCONUTS MEDIA
Expressing a sentiment shared by much of the world but rarely uttered with such unadorned clarity, a group of Myanmar punk musicians have designed “FCK ISIS” t-shirts and are selling them in the city center near to Trader’s Hotel.
Yes, that ISIS. And yes, the message of the shirts is: fuck those guys. For $4, you can tell the the ultraviolent Islamic State fighters wreaking havoc across Iraq and Syria through crucifixions, videotaped beheadings and the targeting of religious minorities what you really think of them.
One of the rockers said this week that they came up with the idea because they wanted to send the message of “fuck ISIS, fuck Nazis.” The shirts have been on sale for three months, he said, but for reasons that are confounding, at least to us, have not sold that well.
The stand, right next to a main bus depot and a stone’s throw from Trader’s, also sells a variety of garb promoting bands in the local punk scene, punk fashion accessories and, somewhat inconsistently, a wooden dildo bottle opener.
