Aung San Suu Kyi: the hero we wanted, the failure we got
Her Nobel Peace Prize says more about the world’s hopes than her good deeds
What was it about Aung San Suu Kyi that fooled us so?
Until recently, she was a global icon, an implacable champion of Burmese democracy and a universal symbol of defiance against tyranny. “Asia’s Mandela,” she was called.
Now, Suu Kyi is a tarnished icon with a reputation totally in tatters.
As de facto civilian leader of Burma (also known as Myanmar), she is associated with a campaign of ethnic cleansing and perhaps even genocide by Burma’s military of the Rohingya Muslim minority in her country.
And as recently as Tuesday, in the face of overwhelming international uproar, she stubbornly defended the military’s actions. How could this be so? How did we — both public and journalists alike — get her so wrong?
Looking back, it is striking that Suu Kyi was honoured with the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize in the months following Nelson Mandela’s dramatic emergence from his South African prison cell. Those were momentous times. The Cold War was ending, Germany had just reunited and the Soviet Union was collapsing. To an exhausted world, Mandela seemed to defy the lessons of history to show us that one solitary individual, uniquely imbued with moral strength and unimaginable courage, could single-handedly make the planet a better place.
To many at the time, with the world seemingly so full of promise, Suu Kyi appeared to be another such exceptional individual.
But as recent events have shown, she wasn’t — as sadly as that has turned out to be — and we would be wise to try to understand why.
Suu Kyi is the daughter of a legendary leader of Burma’s liberation movement who was assassinated. Until 1988, she largely lived abroad with her family, but returned home as her mother was dying. Inheriting her late father’s legacy, Suu Kyi soon plunged into the ferocious battle against Burma’s brutal military dictatorship.
But in 1989 she was arrested and remained under house arrest for almost 15 of the next 21 years until her release in 2010.
Her years in custody were very difficult.
They not only involved privations such as malnutrition, but she was even prevented from visiting her husband as he was dying of cancer in Britain.
But Burma’s military rulers miscalculated if they believed she would crack under the pressure. Instead, the story of Suu Kyi — portrayed as dignified, courageous and beautiful — created a legend that made her perhaps the most famous political prisoner in the world at the time.
But that is in the past. In recent weeks, Burma’s military has slaughtered hundreds of civilians from the Rohingya Muslim minority. More than 300,000 have been forced to flee to neighbouring Bangladesh. International observers describe the process as “ethnic cleansing.”
Suu Kyi has a history of indifference toward the Rohingya of Burma, and her recent defence of her country’s actions are consistent with that. That has prompted a wave of international criticism given her once-iconic reputation.
So what happened? In hindsight, it may be that she became a “saint” because many people in Europe and North America — including those of us who are journalists — wanted her to be.
The language used in her narrative was soaring and powerful. Her defiance of military tyranny seemed to be a metaphor for a world that was reimagining itself.
In an era of Mandela’s luminous presence, it seemed like a legitimate way to understand a complex part of the world, and Suu Kyi seemed like a worthy inheritor of Mandela’s legacy.
But that was wrong. We know that now. The sectarian and religious rivalries in Burma are too intricate and deeply rooted to be told through the story of one individual. And in Suu Kyi’s case — with a history of indifference to the Rohingya minority — there was never any genuine prospect that Burma’s Muslims would be treated fairly.
However, in the end, it is not Suu Kyi’s story that matters anymore. That has been the overwhelming focus for too long.
Who really cares if “The Lady,” as she is known in Burma, is disgraced as a Nobel Peace Prize laureate?
What matters now more than ever is the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya Muslim minority.