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May 1998 Review Editorial By Martin Rowe

 

The Voice of Hope Aung San Suu Kyi in conversations with Alan Clements. Seven Stories Press: New York (1997). $24.95 hbd. 304 pages

Aung San Suu Kyi is the unofficial leader of the National League for Democracy (NLD), which for ten years has been leading opposition to the oppressive military junta in Burma called (uneuphoniously) the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC). Born in 1945, Suu Kyi is the daughter of Aung San, who expelled the British and the Japanese from Burma at the end of World War II, and was assassinated in 1947. In 1962, General Ne Win seized power and adopted one-party socialist rule which became increasingly repressive. In 1988, students took to the streets of Rangoon demanding democracy. Extraordinarily, Ne Win resigned as leader of his party and called for a referendum. It so happened that Aung San Suu Kyi, who had lived for 23 years abroad, had married Oxford professor Michael Aris and had had two sons with him, was back in Burma nursing her dying mother. She was a witness to the increasing democratic fervor, and on 26 August 1988 made a speech before half a million people committing herself to the campaign for democracy.

The military council surrounding Ne Win, however, refused to accept his abdication as an abdication of their own power and instituted martial law. Suu Kyi was put under house arrest in July 1989. Hoping to dampen outrage at their abuses, SLORC called for elections in 1990, which the NLD won with over 81 percent of the vote. SLORC annulled the election results, rounded up opposition members of Parliament, and began systematically to destroy or co-opt all opponents of their regime. Suu Kyi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 and released from house arrest in July 1995. In 1996, a United Nations Commission on Human Rights confirmed torture and forced labor in the renamed Myanmar, which did not stop the country from joining the Association of East Asian Nations (ASEAN) the following year or taking its seat in the United Nations. Recent reports have confirmed that Suu Kyi and other opposition leaders remain under constant threat of re-arrest, imprisonment or assassination.

The Voice of Hope is a collection of conversations Suu Kyi had with Alan Clements, a former Buddhist monk who had studied Theravada Buddhism in Burma for seven years and who since this book was written has been banned from the country. I have been interested in Aung San Suu Kyi for several years--substantially because like, Nelson Mandela, she has probity and integrity, combining rigorous discipline with unfailing politeness. Like Mandela, she possesses a well-developed sense of humor, stunning good looks and a radiant smile. But, like Mandela, she is unforthcoming about her interior or personal life--and in this book does not provide a clue to the effects such a forced separation from her husband and children has had on her relationships with them. In some ways, several of her answers to the questions posed by a searching and passionate Clements seem unreflective and perhaps a little platitutidinous.

This is partly a problem with the format of the book. The conversations in The Voice of Hope were recorded in secret between October 1995 and June 1996. Because, Suu Kyi's position then, as now, was so perilous, Clements says his original attempt to make the conversations chronological had to be abandoned. "Each of our conversations took place," he writes, "with the full knowledge that it might be the last. With that in mind I chose to cover a range of topics in each session rather than concentrate on any single topic. So what you read is what occurred." Although there is an air of immediacy, as a book The Voice of Hope needs editing and more background on Burma and SLORC's activities.

Nevertheless, there are powerful themes running through the book that are of interest to all those who seek to create social change. As a Buddhist, Suu Kyi emphasizes metta, or loving-kindness, as the ground of all her action. Having lived for so many years in the free world, she says, she does not have the kind of fear that afflicts the Burmese people. Her task, therefore, is to educate the people in compassion and to create a democracy that provides people with security. "What we are struggling for is not some distant goal or ideal," she says. "What we are struggling for is a change in our everyday lives. We want freedom from fear and want."

She acknowledges that this will not happen overnight. Burma's endemic corruption (a product partially of a resurgent trade in heroin), the internecine struggles of its ethnic groups, and the network of fear caused by nearly four decades of dictatorship have created a situation that will need time to heal. But, neither she, nor the other leaders of the NLD--about whom she speaks with fondness and respect--seek vengeance or retribution against SLORC. Indeed, her Buddhist training, which was greatly enhanced during her house arrest, has left her with neither fear nor hatred of SLORC. The NLD is willing to talk at any time and listen to SLORC's complaints, she says. Why are they so angry?

Suu Kyi is particularly insistent on the effectiveness of non-violence, in spite of much pointed questioning by Clements. While she feels in no position to blame those Burmese who resort to violence to bring about democracy, neither she nor the leaders of the NLD feel that violence is ultimately efficacious. Her reasons, she says, have nothing to do with Gandhi, but simply that if violence is begun: "We will be perpetuating a cycle of violence that will never come to an end." Despite Clements' attempts to get her to consider herself extraordinary (either as the daughter of the founder of modern Burma or as Asia's Mandela), Suu Kyi refuses to see herself as braver or more brilliant than anyone else. She glosses over the incident (made famous by John Boorman's film Beyond Rangoon) where she walked in front of soldiers pointing their loaded guns at her. It was, she insists, merely an example of her being the sort of person who doesn't run away. She points out how late she arrived to the democracy movement and how little she has suffered in comparison with those who have experienced the torture chambers of Insein prison. Her highest aspiration is not political office, but purity of mind--to develop more and more awareness. But it does not involve passivity or withdrawal from the world; instead it entails what she calls "active compassion," where love for others is a motivating force against the group of men whom she refuses to regard as evil, merely "stupid."

While the conversations with Aung San Suu Kyi ultimately leave both her and the situation in Burma still slightly opaque and mysterious, the interviews Clements has included with her colleagues, former general U Tin U and longtime pro-democracy leader U Kyi Maung, are more revealing. Both experienced prison, although neither were tortured. U Kyi Maung finds SLORC amusing and baffling, while U Tin U talks about how Buddhist practice helped him control his rage when the military of which he was a member turned against him as he turned towards democracy. U Kyi Maung is specific on how exhausting oppression is--how futile, absurd, and wasteful; founded on and exercised through fear. "The seriousness of the situation is balanced by the absurdity of it," he says. "I defend myself with irony and humor.... Now imagine the mind of a hunter, always looking, suspicious of every sound. Always at odds with his environment. He wants to conquer and kill. That is a very, very sad state of mind. It's pathetic. I'm in no hurry. My freedom is not tomorrow, it's today."

For all of us who are too hasty to write off those who do not agree with us, or who seem willfully not to see the abuses and cruelties beneath their noses, or who knowingly hurt or harm other living beings or the natural world, what Aung San Suu Kyi and her fellow members of the NLD offer is not only an inspiration but also a challenge. It demands that we maintain our principles and act upon them, but that when we meet with resistance, disbelief, ridicule or worse we neither lose hope, patience nor a sense of humor. We are to respond not with hate but with loving-kindness, not with vilification but with compassion and respect. U Tin U talks about how he changed from a man who carried out repression for Ne Win in the 1970s to a passionate believer in nonviolence and democracy. "I have come to realize that loving-kindness and compassion can be developed. If I can do it, it gives me great hope that others can do it too. Since I was blinded by a deeply unrecognized level of ignorance, I feel more sympathy when I see others that are so deluded."

Contact:

National Coalition Government of Union of Burma 815 15th Street NW, Suite 609, Washington, DC 20005. Tel.: 202-393-7342, Fax: 202-393-7343.

Free Burma Coalition: c/o Department of Curriculum and Instruction, U. Wisconsin, 225 N. Mills St., Madison, WI 53706. Tel.: 608-827-7734, Fax: 608-263-9992. Website: http://danenet.wicip.org/fbc/ominous.html

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