1990: Aung San Suu Kyi

1990

Aung San Suu Kyi - Myanmar (Burma)

House arrest

Aung San Suu Kyi was born in June 1945 in Rangoon, Myanmar. She is the daughter of the Aung San, who formed Burma's first army and negotiated independence from Britain in 1947 only to be assassinated the same year. He is considered a national hero. Aung San Suu Kyi graduated from Oxford in 1969 and returned to Myanmar in 1988 to care for her sick mother. Upon her return she became involved in the setting up of the National League for Democracy and was appointed to the post of general secretary of the party.

On 20 July 1989 Aung San Suu Kyi was placed under house arrest without trial after Burma was placed under martial law. The following year the National League for Democracy won national elections, despite the incarceration of many of its leaders. However the result was ignored by the ruling regime.

Ever since, Aung San Suu Kyi has been in and out of prison or under house arrest. Of the past 21 years, she has been detained for over fourteen, mostly in her home in Yangon from where she has addressed her supporters, standing on a platform that enables her to be seen above the wall that surrounds her home.

1n 1990 she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in absentia and in December of the same year her book Freedom from Fear and Other Writings was published in London. She has written a number of books, most notable among them is Freedom From Fear, published in 1991, in which Aung San Suu Kyi directly addresses government and politics in Burma.

In July 1995, she was released from house arrest and promptly re-appointed to the position of general secretary of the National League for Democracy.

Aung San Suu Kyi was again arrested in September 2000 and placed under house arrest. She was released for a year in May 2002 before being returned to detention in her Rangoon house. On 14 May 2009 she was charged with breaking the terms of her house arrest after an American, John Yettaw stayed at her house for a brief period as an uninvited guest.

On 11 August 2009 Aung San Suu Kyi was found guilty and sentenced to a further 18 months detention where she remains to this day. Her fellow Nobel laureates have issued joint protests calling for her release and she has gained iconic international status as one of the world's best known political prisoners.

Writing Sample:

Fearlessness may be a gift but perhaps more precious is the courage acquired through endeavour, courage that comes from cultivating the habit of refusing to let fear dictate one's actions, courage that could be described as ‘grace under pressure' - grace which is renewed repeatedly in the face of harsh, unremitting pressure.

Within a system which denies the existence of basic human rights, fear tends to be the order of the day. Fear of imprisonment, fear of torture, fear of death, fear of losing friends, family, property or means of livelihood, fear of poverty, fear of isolation, fear of failure. A most insidious form of fear is that which masquerades as common sense or even wisdom, condemning as foolish, reckless, insignificant or futile the small, daily acts of courage which help to preserve man's self-respect and inherent human dignity. It is not easy for a people conditioned by fear under the iron rule of the principle that might is right to free themselves from the enervating miasma of fear. Yet even under the most crushing state machinery courage rises up again and again, for fear is not the natural state of civilised man.

The wellspring of courage and endurance in the face of unbridled power is generally a firm belief in the sanctity of ethical principles combined with a historical sense that despite all setbacks the condition of man is set on an ultimate course for both spiritual and material advancement. It is his capacity for self-improvement and self-redemption which most distinguishes man from the mere brute. At the root of human responsibility is the concept of perfection, the urge to achieve it, the intelligence to find a path towards it, and the will to follow that path if not to the end at least the distance needed to rise above individual limitations and environmental impediments. It is man's vision of a world fit for rational, civilised humanity which leads him to dare and to suffer to build societies free from want and fear. Concepts such as truth, justice and compassion cannot be dismissed as trite when these are often the only bulwarks which stand against ruthless power.

From ‘Freedom from Fear' in Freedom from Fear and other writings ed. Michael Aris (London: Viking, 1991) ISBN: 0-670-84562-0