“…it still surprises me that I’m supposed to be an important person. I don’t see things that way at all…Things may appear big and important at times but I realize they are small when I consider the fact that we’re all subject to the law of anicca [impermanence]. To put it in more blunt terms, I do contemplate my death…If you contemplate your own death, in a sense it means that you accept how unimportant you are…And yet, you are essential in your place, even if you may not be of great importance. Everybody is essential.” ~Aung San Suu Kyi, 1995
Aung San Suu Kyi has been and continues to be essential to her country and to the world. How and why is she such an essential global citizen? Why is she sometimes called the ‘Gandhi’ of Burma? let's see...
Father: General Aung San, considered the father of Burma's independence. assassinated when Suu Kyi was 2 years old.
Mother: Daw Khin Kyi, nurse-turned-Burmese diplomat after her husband's assassination. dedicated Buddhist, advocate for women and children, ambassador to India.
Her name means "Strange Collection of Bright Victories".
She studied politics, philosophy, and economics first in Delhi and then at Oxford, then worked for the UN in New York.
Husband: Michael Aris, from England, who worked for the royal family in Bhutan while they were engaged.
Sons: Alexander and Kim.
Work of her hands: in the midst of riots against the repressive military regime, she helped found the National League for Democracy (NLD). she campaigned across the country for the presidency of Burma and gained a landslide victory, but the military government, called SLORC, denied them control. she was placed under house arrest but continued to speak out against SLORC. she won the Nobel Peace Prize of 1991 but was unable to receive it in person because of her imprisonment. she continues to press and pray for peace.
Wisdom of her head: her knowledge of both English and Burmese literature, history, and cultural heritage has made her an ideal bridge between the two worlds. she has been a prolific writer and articulate interview subject.Well of her heart: her Buddhist faith. her strength in facing the losses of her father, brother, mother, and husband, and in the long separation from her sons. in the face of outright hatred from SLORC members, she seems to have an incredible capacity for forgiveness, for non-hatred, for humility, for non-violent peace-making.
Aung San Suu Kyi’s essential dream for her country is summed up in her own poetic words:
“A free bird…
which is just freed
used to be caged
now flying with an olive branch
for the place it loves
A free bird towards a free Burma.”
which is just freed
used to be caged
now flying with an olive branch
for the place it loves
A free bird towards a free Burma.”
[for a good read about her, i really recommend Voice of Hope, which records a series of conversations she had with journalist Alan Clements who visited her in Burma in 1995. it's a fascinating, sometimes funny, in-depth dialogue on a huge range of topics and reveals a lot of interesting things about her philosophy of life, of her Buddhist faith, and of her commitment to nonviolent resistance, and gives a synopsis of her current circumstances as well as a meandering through some of her memories of the past several decades. i wished i had time to read the whole thing when i was writing a paper about her for my class on the History and Geography of South and Southeast Asia. but then i would have never gotten the paper done.
so FREE BURMA FREE AUNG SAN SUU KYI]
