During
his historic six-hour visit to Rangoon, Burma, newly re-elected U.S. President
Barack Obama mispronounced Aung San Suu Kyi’s name twice, calling her “Aung
Yann Suu Kyi” – one almost saw Suu Kyi hiding her wince.
Yann means “reckless.”
Her
real name is:
Aung
San — from her famous father — the
George Washington of Burma.
Aung
= victory or victorious.
San=
strange, glorious or unique, rare or scarce.
Suu
— her own given name, based on the day of the week on which she was born, and
the name of Aung San’s mother, whose father was hanged by the British during
the Saya San uprising of 1920.
Kyi
– based on her mother’s Monday-born name.
Kyi in Burmese means “clear”.
As
Jack Healey, the former director of Amnesty International said, “We should
learn how to pronounce her name correctly.”
Be
that as it may, on Nov 13, 2010, a week after the rigged election, the Junta
released her from her third bout of house arrest, which had started from a
roadside ambush — and is now known as the Depayin Massacre.
Daw
Suu was truly between a rock and a hard place.
She cannot be blamed for having sent out feelers that she could help get
sanctions lifted in exchange for being treated better by the Junta, now hiding
behind its front man, the so-called “moderate” PM turned President.
Thein
Sein went to see her and for the
first time in junta history, complimented her in a public space saying, "As
a Myanmar citizen, I would like to congratulate her for the honors she has
received in this country in recognition of her efforts for democracy.".
When
Obama called her by phone this
time last year, she had only to say “I trust him (Thein Sein). I think I can work with him,” for the U.S. President
to send Secretary of State Mrs. Hilary Clinton to meet with Aung San Suu Kyi.
This
unleashed an unreasonable euphoria which has only now started to wear a bit
thin.
Just
this morning, Nov 29, at 3 AM in the dawn, the junta used deadly force to quell
workers and miners demonstrating against the Chinese-owned Wampau copper mine in
Letpadaung Township near Monywa. Presdt.
Thein Sein’s office says it (only) used tear gas and water hoses “in line with
international standards” but Radio Free Asia reported that an expert said,
“there is no way tear gas can start fires”and also others have noted the
strange nature of the burns, which might denote some kind of chemical weapon. Later, samples analyzed overseas confirmed it
was white phosphorus that was used.
Eighty monk demonstrators were reported wounded and thirty
hospitalized. http://www.rfa.org/burmese/
Aung
San Suu Kyi went to Monywa and gave a speech in which she swore to help resolve
the issue peacefully.
Earlier,
BBC 4 uncovered mass graves in Western Burma, where a genocide against the
Muslim Rohingya community has been going on since June, even as Suu Kyi travelled
internationally and gave impeccable speeches.
In the northeast of Burma, the Junta, now in civilian dress, broke a 17
year ceasefire.
What
are the Lady’s prospects in this boiling situation?
One
should note, she did not win a majority in the April 1 “April Fools’ Day”
by-elections — she won the majority of
the few seats she and her party were allowed to contest. Nevertheless, she campaigned all over the
country and won once again — demonstrating her immense popularity.
But
it is not about popularity, is it?
It
is about what the Junta allows to
happen in Burma.
What
seems to have happened is due to a coincidence of wants and needs by major
actors: Suu Kyi’s situation was a no-win one.
The
Junta itself was said to have been scared of what happened in the Middle East,
and wanted an exit and an out.
The
USA and Europe are in the throes of a major recession — the United States
itself hugely indebted to China, which is holding the bulk of its national debt
or treasury bills. The foreign media and
the Burmese exile media are compromised as they have apparently traded access for “doing PR for the Junta.”
In
November 2012, the Lady was losing patience again — she said, “Nothing will
happen if the constitution is not changed.” She also said two days ago —
“The military is already the most powerful entity in the country. We in the parliament [hluttaw] should not make decisions that increase its power.”
Her
prospects over-all are not good.
One
can argue that they never were. I used to think she has a martyr
complex.
She
can surely win in 2015. But then, what?
Every
day on Burmese language news from VOA [Voice of America] and RFA [Radio Free
Asia], we see tearful farmers whose land has been taken by the thousands of
acres by the junta cronies. We see
miners in equal desperation. We see
workers, each one a Fantine out of Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables, who sold her hair, her teeth and her body to stay
alive.
Maybe
the junta will let Suu Kyi win, and then let her “handle” these deep-seated
structural and systemic (to do
with the system) changes.
Then
everyone will hate her. Already there’s
a growing chorus of those who think she did not speak up forcibly enough about
the plight of the Rohingya.
Like
all politicians, she will, when she comes to power, have to pay off supporters. Then she can easily be accused of corruption as
Benazir Bhutto was.
I
don’t wish to sound flippant or disrespectful — she is one of my greatest
heroes.
But some days I think she should leave and carve out a life for
herself as an international figure who is deeply respected.
There are speculations
about the current government and Aung San Suu Kyi’s equation with it. The
Irrawaddy highlighted the protest demonstrations against a Chinese-owned copper
mine in Kyaukpadaung, Burma, quelled with the junta's old style pre-dawn raid –
Is this "democracy?"
Aung San Suu Kyi
declined to condemn the junta’s use of force.
One commentator says
she is now in a zone of half-truths and there are attempts at co-opting her
further.
For
her safety, I think perhaps she should leave for other engagements; there are
opportunities in heading a Burma Foundation overseas like the NCGUB (National
Coalition Government of the Union of Burma – dissolved in late 2012) which had
its own think tank division, or in academia, where there is a Chair of
Democracy in her honour at the University of Kentucky in Louisville.
She
should live and work overseas, even teach sometimes – as His Holiness the Dalai
Lama or A. K. Sen (Amartya Sen) does – or head a foundation like former
Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter.
This will
be controversial. There will be a lot of people who want Daw Suu to do it all: Take all the risks and do all the heavy
lifting.
I may
be criticized for my views but I say it from the perspective of an exiled
dissenter, and for the sake of her hopefully long life.
*
Kyi May Kaung is a US-based poet, visual artist and novelist,
with a doctorate in Political Economy from the University of
Pennsylvania.
For Burma, she hopes that the change will happen with full
protection of everyone's rights, especially those of farmers and workers.
