The Perseverance of Hope

On Friday, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese Opposition leader jailed or under house arrest almost continuously since 1989, announced the intention of her party to register and take part in new elections. In 1990 her party, the National League for Democracy, won 80% of the legislative seats in free and fair elections, the results of which were nullified by the military which has held power ever since.

The advances towards democracy in Burma are fragile and tentative. President Obama had called for Suu Kyi’s release, and in an announcement that seemed time to coordinate with the announcement from Burma the administration said Secretary of State Clinton will visit Burma in an effort to encourage the efforts towards reconciliation so far and to encourage further progress. Clinton on Friday called for the release of all political prisoners in Burma as one requirement for the full normalization of relations.

Suu Kyi received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991. With the prize money she established a health and education trust in Burma. She also won the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought in 1990, and many other international awards but she spent most of the time since 1989 either confined to her home or imprisoned.

Suu Kyi was married to Michael Aris and has two children. Her husband whom she married in 1972, died in 1999. Suu Kyi saw her husband just five times after her arrest. As an inducement to abandon her campaign for democratic rule the Burmese military offered Suu Kyi the opportunity to leave to visit Aris when he was dying of cancer. Believing that she would not be allowed to reenter the country after departing, she refused.  She did not see him before he passed.

In a near Kafkaesque regimen of release and detention Suu Kyi participated in small flowerings of democracy in Burma over the years only to see her followers beaten, jailed, and killed after which Suu Kyi would be detained again without trial or charges.  In 2003 during one of the periods when some movement was tolerated the government precipitated a massacre at Depayin. Suu Kyi and her followers were on their way to a political rally, when they were set upon by paramilitary associates of the government. At least 70 were killed and the government used the violence that they precipitated as cover for further detention of Suu Kyi.

Nelson Mandela was confined for 27 years, 18 on Robben Island. When he walked free in 1990 Mandela led the African National Congress to victory in free and fair elections in the Republic of South Africa. In 1985 Mandela was offered his freedom in exchange for renouncing violence as a tactic in the overthrow of the South African white ruled government. Stating that, “Only free men can negotiate. A prisoner cannot enter into contracts”, Mandela refused.

Nelson Mandela had Robben Island. Suu Kyi had the house on Inya Lake. She was forbidden visitors, and the home itself was allowed to deteriorate with little repair during her confinement. In 2009 an American attempted to meet with her, by swimming across the Lake. He was detained and later released after intervention by Senator Jim Webb, but the Burmese givernement penalized Suu Kyi by extending her house arrest by 18 months. Still Suu Kyi persevered, taking every opportunity to speak to the cause of freedom and democracy through peaceful and democratic means. As with Mandela she neither turned to the darkness of the soul, nor abandoned the non-violent, Buddhist, principles from which she sprung and through which she advocated political reform.

Meanwhile Burma, now Myanmar, has spiraled into ever deeper isolation and depravation. As is so often the case, a small minority lives as kings while the vast majority suffers. Child labor, forced labor, human and drug trafficking have been repeatedly sighted by the UN and human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights watch. Ethnic divisions, so common at the end of colonial rule across Asia and Africa where the colonial powers often aggravated tensions for their own purposes are a constant thread in Burmese society.  During the long reign of dictatorial rule the Military has used these tensions, much as we have recently seen with despots have in the Middle East, to justify their grip on power. Despite the stratospheric growth of other economies across Southeast Asia and a wealth of natural resources, Burma’s economy has stagnated, ranking 163 in GDP per capita at $1,250 per year. By example, neighboring Thailand has an average GDP of nearly $5,000 per capita.

I have recently been studying the Progressive Era in American history with my son. In this period from roughly 1890 to 1920, the US constitution was amended to provide for the direct election of Senators who had formally been elected by notoriously corrupt state legislatures. Anti-Trust legislation was passed.  After a period where it was exclusively used to rein in labor unions fighting at the time for the most basic reforms, it was eventually turned towards the oligopolies chewing up the transportation, coal and oil, and other heavy industries. Initiatives were passed at the State level to create legislation, overturn legislation on referendum, and recall elected officials.  Congress also created the Interstate Commerce Commission to regulate rail costs. The ICC s now a bedrock of business regulation across many industries in the US and essentially regulates any commerce that crosses state lines.  Women were finally given the right to vote.

Today six banks control assets equal to 60% of the US GDP. That sort of power and consolidated control of resources was a banker’s wet dream in 1910. Just 30 years ago, in 1990, that figure was 20%. Most Americans know how few companies control the oil and energy industries today, but few would guess how deeply engrained these companies are becoming in the emerging green energy market. That involvement seems mostly designed to divert the effort for green energy rather than to encourage it, but the oil companies are investing billions. Most dangerously, gilded politicians of both parties have been corrupted by the torrent of cash washing through the electoral process.

Our times call out for a new progressive area. But there are those that look at those in OWS, or Occupy Oakland, or DC or whatever and cannot see the urgency of the situation. There are those that say they understand their motives, but cannot agree with people being inconvenienced on their way to work or in their apartments at the edge of the financial district. Despite the monstrous crimes that have damaged literally millions of American households there are those that long for prettier more well—groomed protesters, and less confrontational tactics. Americans it seems have no taste for the discomfort of obviously needed change.  

But on the other side of the world despite the destitution of her people and the deprivation of her own existence Suu Kyi continues the fight. In 1990 she gave a speech entitled Freedom from Fear. In it she said, “It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it.”

Today Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is on the verge of realizing aspirations which she has fought and sacrificed for over decades. To those that believe as Martin Luther King did that “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere” we can only hope there are great days ahead for Burma. We applaud Suu Kyi’s perseverance, courage, passion and commitment. At the same time we pray that America will awaken to the corruption at her soul, corruption that threatens what it is to be an American. There seems to be a growing sense both for those opposed and those in favor that once the OWS go home for the winter or whatever we can just move on and that will have been that. We are so short of attention span as a nation with distractions and toys in abundance. But when we recall the greatness of Americans who came before that made this country what it is, let us remember the Greatest Generation of WW II, but let us also remember those that insisted on change for the better despite the long odds. In their name, and that of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi let us vow to fight on.