Photo: Reuters
Beauty pageants are notorious for contestants seemingly caring about nothing but 'world peace' and 'complete harmony'. Miss Grand Myanmar Han Lay's response at the Miss Grand pageant in Thailand last week was also — you guessed it — about world peace. But along with world peace, she also took the opportunity to bring attention to her home country's ongoing democratic struggle and the atrocities committed by the state's military.
"Today in my country Myanmar ... there are so many people dying," she said. "Please help Myanmar. We need your urgent international help right now."
Just a week prior, Lay was on the bloody streets of Yangon, Myanmar's largest city — where she's also a student at a university — protesting against the military and for a democratic revolution. Early in February 2021, when the Aung San Suu Kyi-led National League for Democracy party was in power — having won in the November 2020 general elections — the military seized control of the state, using "election fraud" as an illegitimate excuse. Bizarrely enough, part of this coup d'état was caught on tape, in the background of an oblivious fitness instructor performing her routine.