The Lady and the Peacock (71 page)

20
. She could be very critical and very disapproving—to me and certainly to Michael: interview with author.

21
. It was Suu who gave the copy-book parties with all the traditional party games: Pasternak Slater in Aung San Suu Kyi,
Freedom from Fear
, p.297.

22
. For the first fifteen years of the marriage it was all Michael: Carey quoted in documentary
Aung San Suu Kyi—Lady of No Fear
.

23
. I think Suu thought that he could actually have pushed his way a bit more: interview with author.

24
. “She was very much casting around for a role for herself,” remembered Carey. “She said, is this my destiny to be a housewife, the partner of an Oxford don?”: quoted in documentary
Aung San Suu Kyi—Lady of No Fear
.

25
. Ann Pasternak Slater said, “She was becoming more serious, more focused, more determined, more ambitious”: ibid.

26
. a volume of essays:
Tibetan Studies in honor of Hugh Richardson
, edited by Michael Aris and Aung San Suu Kyi, published by Serindia Publications.

27
. All those years spent as a full-time mother were most enjoyable: Suu TV interview, included in documentary
Aung San Suu Ky—Lady of No Fear
.

28
. description of himself as a sickly, unwashed, gluttonous, thoroughly unprepossessing child: “My Father” in Aung San Suu Kyi,
Freedom from Fear
, p.4.

29
. not so much to extremists as to the great majority of ordinary citizens: ibid., p.37.

30
. It was on one of these visits that she struck up a friendship that was to prove important to her later on: Ko Myint Swe was wrongly identified by Justin Wintle in
Perfect Hostage
as U Tin Moe. The latter, a poet, is much older than Ko Myint Swe, who was a writer and member of the staff of Rangoon University Library. Ko Myint Swe was jailed in July 1989 with other NLD activists. I am indebted to Ma Thanegi for this information.

31
. “We read several novels together,” said Allott: interview with author.

32
. In an interview years later, Suu said, “When I was young I could never separate my country from my father, because I was very small when he died and I'd always thought of him in connection with the country”: Suu TV interview, included in
Aung San Suu Kyi—Lady of No Fear
.

33
. a first
kikkake
: Japanese for a chance, an opportunity, a start, a beginning, a clue.

34
. In Japan she had her first encounter with Burmese students: Yoshikazu Mikami,
Aung San Suu Kyi: Toraware no Kujaku
, translated by Junko Nakayama and the author, 1990. The title means “Captive Peacock.”

PART FOUR, CHAPTER 1: ALONE

1
. Suu told an American journalist: quoted in Edward Klein, “The Lady Triumphs,”
Vanity Fair
, October 1995.

2
. As the plane taxied to a halt: Michael Aris, Introduction to
Freedom from Fear
, p.xxiii.

3
. The gates were opened and we drove in: ibid., p.xxiv.

4
. A military officer came to give her his personal assurance: ibid., p.xxiv.

5
. Suu recovered her weight and strength: ibid., p.xxv.

6
. “As a mother,” she told Alan Clements, “the greater sacrifice was giving up my sons”: Alan Clements, Aung San Suu Kyi,
The Voice of Hope
, pp.140–1.

7
. a declassified American embassy cable revealed that the torture of political prisoners included burns to the flesh by cigarettes: Lintner,
Outrage
, p.175.

8
. He was a lovely man. Before 1988 he would travel around the country and give lectures on literature: interview with author, Chiang Mai, November 2010.

9
. At the time he entered Insein Jail he was already suffering from a chronic disease: Aung San Suu Kyi,
Letters from Burma
, no. 39, Death in Custody (2).

10
. When a little spark turns into a big flame, it will burn away all the dirt that exists in this world: many thanks to Khin Myint for this translation.

11
. translates into Burmese as
nyein-wut-pi-pyar
; literally, “silent-crouched-crushed-flattened”: in Houtman,
Mental Culture
. . ., p.377.

12
. “Glass splinters,” Suu wrote: “Freedom from Fear” in Aung San Suu Kyi,
Freedom from Fear
, p.182.

13
. The effort necessary to remain uncorrupted in an environment where fear is an integral part of everyday existence: ibid., p.182.

14
. It is his capacity for self-improvement and self-redemption which most distinguishes man from the mere brute: ibid., p.183.

15
. I had not even thought of doing this: Michael Aris, Introduction,
Freedom from Fear
, p.xxv.

16
. “I did not have a teacher,” she wrote some years later, “and my early attempts were more than a little frustrating”: Aung San Suu Kyi,
Letters from Burma
, no. 40, Teachers.

17
. much value is attached to liberality or generosity: quoted in Houtman,
Mental Culture
. . . , p.355.

18
. Even before her release in November 2010 some correspondents were speculating on her perhaps imminent retirement: CNN reporter, November 13, 2010.

19
. A reader's letter published by the
Financial Times
in 2011: letter from Dr. Frank Peel,
Financial Times
, February 5, 2011. As quoted by the paper, he wrote that she would “soon have a position akin to a queen mother in the UK.”

20
. to quote Burma authority Robert Taylor, could now be “on the cusp of normality”: Robert Taylor, “Myanmar in 2009: On the Cusp of Normality?” in
Southeast Asian Affairs
, 2010.

21
. “In India,” she wrote, “political and intellectual leadership had often coincided: “Intellectual Life in Burma and India under Colonialism” in Aung San Suu Kyi,
Freedom from Fear
, p.128.

22
. We were looking for the human Burma: quoted in ibid., pp.119–20.

23
. When people have been stripped of all their material supports: “Towards a True Refuge” in Aung San Suu Kyi,
Freedom from Fear
, p.247.

PART FOUR, CHAPTER 2: LANDSLIDE VICTORY

1
. More than a quarter-century of narrow authoritarianism under which they had been fed a pabulum of shallow, negative dogma: “In Quest of Democracy” in ibid., page 168.

2
. But at least they had a manifesto to work from: my thanks to Tom White, late of the British Council in Rangoon, for a copy of this document.

3
. At the last minute the regime had allowed the foreign media in: interview with author.

4
. But the military has so far refused to be drawn: Terry McCarthy and Yuli Ismartono, “Opposition Vote Leaves Burma's Rulers Stunned” in
Independent
, June 15, 1990.

5
. We don't know who is our enemy and who is not: ibid.

6
. The army is indicating that the elected body will not be a national assembly: Terry McCarthy, “EC to End Boycott of Burmese Junta” in
Independent
, June 15, 1990.

7
. Khin Nyunt, the ambitious heir apparent, the man “who breathes through Ne Win's nostrils”: epithet quoted by Roger Matthews in “A Beaten, Tortured People” in
Financial Times
, May 19, 1990.

8
. It is our duty to hold an election so that a government can be formed: Saw Maung addresses meeting on “regional consolidation,” BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, June 12, 1990.

9
. Virtually every credible scholar of Burma has demonstrated: Michael Aung-Thwin, “Reality in Burma differs from myths” in
Honolulu Star-Advertiser
, February 4, 2011.

10
. The election was held to elect the
Pyitthu Hluttaw
, the national assembly: interview with author. In a review of
Perfect Hostage
published by the
Far Eastern Economic Review
in June 2007, Bertil Lintner elaborated as follows: “In fact Khin Nyunt had said before foreign military attachés in Rangoon on September 22, 1988, ‘Elections will be held as soon as law and order has been restored and the Defense Services would then systematically hand over power to the party which wins.' He didn't say a word about the need for a new constitution. And on May 31, 1989—a year before the election—the junta promulgated a
pyitthu hluttaw
election law. A
pyitthu hluttaw
in Burmese is a “people's assembly,” i.e. a parliament, not a constituent assembly, which is a
thaing pyi pyitthu hluttaw
—a term never used before the 1990 election.”

11
. We have been very lenient [towards her]: Khin Nyunt responds to claims about the transfer of power, BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, July 16, 1990.

12
. [SLORC] seemed to think they were doing me a tremendous favor by letting me communicate with my family: Aung San Suu Kyi,
The Voice of Hope
, p.146.

PART FOUR, CHAPTER 3: LONG LIVE HOLINESS

1
. The only practicable way for a foreigner to approach Manerplaw was from the Thai side: my account of Manerplaw appeared in the
Independent
Magazine on May 25, 1991 under the headline “The Road to Manerplaw.”

2
. The first thing colonial rule denies a people is their history: Martin Smith,
Burma: Insurgency and the Politics of Ethnicity
, p.31.

3
. the natural routes of migration: ibid., p.31.

4
. “When Yuwa [God] created the world he took three handfuls of earth and threw them round about him,” goes the Karen creation myth: Shway Yoe,
The Burman, His Life and Notions
, p.443.

5
. How could anyone expect the Karen people to trust the Burmans: Martin Smith,
Burma: Insurgency and the Politics of Ethnicity
, p.62.

6
. During independence negotiations the Karen held out for their own homeland: The fact that wars between the ethnic groups on Burma's borders and the Burmese Army have continued ever since independence enables the Burmese regime to claim that military rule has been the only way to keep Burma from breaking up. With the exception of the Karen, whose grievances are explained in this chapter, the truth is the opposite: As during long periods of military rule in Pakistan, it is the nation's alleged peril that justifies the army clinging to power—and thus prompts them to ensure that the embers of war never go out. Yet the Panglong Agreement prefigured a very different national arrangement. As Dr. Maung Zarni wrote in
Irrawaddy
in June 2011:

While there are “natural” ethnic prejudices among Burma's “communities of difference” (in terms of religion, ethnicity, and ideology), these prejudices don't automatically evolve and deepen themselves into ethnic hatred and intractable conflicts. After all, Aung San Suu Kyi's father . . . was able to work out a multi-ethnic treaty on the eve of the country's independence.

On the basis of ethnic and political equality, the country's minorities, with legitimate historical claims over their own ancestral regions, agreed to join the post-independent Union of Burma.

This was no small achievement in the face of various attempts to mobilize ethnic grievances by local minorities and majority political elites . . .

The country's conflicts regarding different ethnic communities are political because they are fundamentally rooted in the minorities' demands for, and the Burmese ruling classes' rejection of, the recognition that modern, post-independence Burma was the result of
the voluntary coming together of different ethnic groups which were all equally indigenous to the land
. “Ethnic Conflicts are the Generals' Golden Goose,” (
Irrawaddy
, June 21, 2011 [italics added]).

A new Panglong Conference has been one of Aung San Suu Kyi's and the NLD's principal goals since her release from detention—one the regime seems determined to thwart.

7
. They welcomed us and took care of us like their own children: quoted in Peter Popham, “The Road to Manerplaw” in
Independent Magazine
, May 25, 1991.

8
.
bodhisattva
: in Burmese “bodhisatta” is “one who has vowed to become a Buddha” according to Sayadaw U Pandita. The term is more commonly used in Mahayana Buddhism than in the Theravada school found in Burma. “In Mahayana Buddhism, a bodhisattva is a being who seeks buddhahood . . . but renounces complete entry into nirvana until all beings are saved . . . A bodhisattva provides active help, is ready to take upon himself the suffering of all other beings, and to transfer his own karmic merit to other beings”:
Entering the Stream: an Introduction to the Buddha and his Teachings
, eds. Samuel Bercholz and Sherab Chödzin, Rider, 1994, Glossary. But there is an analogous teaching in Theravada Buddhism, as Suu pointed out in
Letters from Burma
, no. 40, Teachers: “In Prome, a holy teacher told me to keep in mind the hermit Sumedha, who sacrificed the possibility of early liberation for himself alone and underwent many lives of striving that he might save others from suffering.”

While Suu's admirers compare her to such figures, her detractors writing for Burma's state
media often refer to her as a
nat
or spirit such as “Anauk Medaw,” the Queen or Mother of the West. As Houtman points out, the interesting thing is that her enemies do not deny that she has supernatural characteristics, but claim that they are malignant ones. (cf. Houtman, “Sacralising or Demonising Democracy?” in
Burma at the Turn of the 21st Century
, pp.140–3.)