Today’s Heroine – Aung San Suu Kyi

Some days I think I am so smart and know so much when suddenly I realize I truly know very little of the world outside of America or even New York City. I think it has a lot to do with being raised on American televised news and in American schools that didn’t teach me much about the world outside of these great states. Don’t get me wrong, I love America and am sure she was only trying to protect me from the big, bad, scary world out there…or was she? I digress, this is not the point of this entry.

The point is, until today I don’t think I ever heard of Aung San Suu Kyi of Myanmar (Burma). Aung San Suu Kyi is the daughter of Burma’s liberation leader Aung San, who negotiated Burma’s independence from the United Kingdom in 1947, and was assassinated by his rivals in the same year. Aung San Suu Kyi showed an early interest in Gandhi’s philosophy of non-violent protest. After receiving her education in Rangoon, Delhi and at Oxford University, Aung San Suu Kyi then worked at the United Nations in New York and Bhutan. For most of the following twenty years she was occupied raising a family in England (her husband is British), before returning to Burma in 1988 to care for her dying mother.

After having long refrained from political activity, she got involved in the “second struggle for national independence” in Myanmar in 1988. She became the leader of the National League for Democracy on September 27th, 1988, and subsequently was put under house arrest on July 20, 1989. She also emphasizes the need for conciliation between the sharply divided regions and ethnic groups in her country. She was offered freedom if she left the country, but she refused. The election held in May 1990 resulted in a conclusive victory for the opposition. The regime ignored the election results. Suu Kyi refused to leave the country and since then, she has been kept under strict house arrest.

One of her most famous speeches is the “Freedom From Fear” speech, which begins:

“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.”

The whole reason I found out about her is I think at times Sarah Silverman is hilarious and she participated in this website, www.fanista.com. It is a program where each day in May celebrities do a P.S.A. to spread awareness about Aung San Suu Kyi and Burma.

Here is Sarah Silverman’s for your viewing pleasure.

Aung San Suu Kyi is super fresh!

-Cara