18 June 2012

A legacy needing more than just a prize

Aung San Suu Kyi

Daw Suu is perhaps one of the most important figures in post-independence Burma.  In spite of her family’s chequered past as collaborators with the Japanese military government during WWII, she herself has been a relentless populist agitator for human dignity and representative government against the current military government in her own country, and she has made tremendous personal sacrifices to see that her activism bore fruit.  She has also (unlike many other ‘democracy’ advocates in Asia) not been particularly shy about treading on Western toes to speak her mind.  She has been close to the left-wing populists of Thailand’s (unfairly-reviled for daring to provide rural debt relief, cheap credit and universal healthcare to Thailand’s poorest) Shinawatra family; indeed, her first state visit outside Burma was to current Thai PM Yingluck Shinawatra.  In addition, her comments at the World Economic Forum meeting in Thailand suggest that she is healthily sceptical of the neoliberal prescriptions by the IMF for her country, and particularly what they would do to low-wage earners in Burma.  Not only has her advocacy of human rights and democracy in Burma been wholehearted, sincere and just, but so has her clear-sighted vision for what comes after:  an independent Burma that treats its own poorest with compassion.  The fact that Daw Suu is now a free woman is absolutely a cause for celebration.  Remembrance of her Nobel Peace Prize, perhaps a bit less so.

Of course she accepted the prize; indeed, what else could she do?  Having been recognised for her efforts by the Nobel Peace Prize Committee in 1991 obviously meant a great deal to her, as it might to anyone in her position.  But, in this observer’s opinion, Daw Suu deserves much, much better than the indignity of being cast by the Norwegian government, by means of a politically-tarnished prize, into the same dubious company as notorious proponents of international aggression such as Henry Kissinger, Barack Obama and Liu Xiaobo.

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