The Honor Of God

Top Ten People of 2007 - #6

Inside the Vatican has again chosen 10 men and women as its “Top Ten People of the Year.” Profiles of each of the 10 will be published in the upcoming January issue of Inside the Vatican. Meanwhile, we will publish the profiles day by day in these email newsflashes, and on our Web site.

#1 - Francis Beckwith

#2 - Immacolata Solaro del Borgo

#3 - Sir Martin Gilbert

#4 - Brian Boyle

#5 - Fr. Bernardo Cervellera

#6 - Aung San Suu Kyi

By Maurizio Di Giacomo

Aung San Suu Kyi’s struggle is one of the most extraordinary examples of civil courage in the world in recent decades. At age 62, she has become an important symbol in the struggle against political and also spiritual oppression.

She became involved in “the second struggle for national independence” which began in Myanmar (formerly Burma) in 1988. She became the leader of the democratic opposition which employs non-violent means to resist a regime characterized by considerable brutality.

She was born on June 19, 1945, in Rangoon, Burma, and she is the daughter of the country’s independence hero General Aung San, assassinated during the transition period in July 1947, just six months before independence. She attended Oxford University in the UK, where she studied philosophy, politics and economic. In 1972 she married Michael Aris, and they have two sons, Alexander and Kim.

She returned to Burma in 1988 to look after her sick mother.

In 1989, the Burmese Armed Forces seized power with a coup d’état. In the 1990 political election, the main opposition party, the National League for Democracy, which Aung San Suu Kyi headed, got an overwhelming victory, 82% of the votes, i.e., 392 seats out of 495 in the Burmese Parliament. But the military junta did not accept this political verdict and invited her to go into exile. Having refused, she was jailed, or put under house arrest, watched by squads of soldiers all day long. It was even dangerous to mention her name in Burma. She was released for the first time in 1995. That year she published her first book of testimony and reflection, Letters from Burma, which was soon translated into the world’s most important languages. She was allowed to travel within her country, though under close watch. In 1991, Suu Kyi was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace, the eighth woman so far to receive that honor.

Being unable to be in Stockholm to receive the prize, Aung San Suu Kyi was represented by her husband and two children, who gave a black-and-white picture of her to the foundation in charge of the Nobel Prize.

In 1992, Suu Kyi announced that she would use her $1.3 million prize money to establish a health and education trust for the Burmese people.

Internationally, her voice has been heard not infrequently. Using video cassettes, she has sent out statements, including a keynote address to the NGO Forum at the U.N. International Women’s Conference in Beijing in August 1995.

Suu Kyi discourages tourists from visiting Burma and businessmen from investing in the country until it is free. She finds a hearing for such pleas among Western nations, and the United States has applied economic sanctions against Burma.

In March 1999, she suffered a major personal tragedy when her husband died of cancer. The military authorities offered to allow her to travel to the UK to see him on his deathbed, but she felt compelled to refuse for fear she would not be allowed back into the country.

A group of officers related to the junta in power tried to murder her in 2003. She was miraculously saved; 70 of her supporters, both men and women, were killed.

Her popularity began to grow all over the world. Since the revolt and the repression of August 29, 2007, she has become a household name everywhere.

The revolt, headed by Buddhist monks, and the ensuing repression have turned this woman’s face into an ever more universal symbol.

She can in fact play a key role in preventing her country from going through further suffering and bloodshed. During this year’s Perugia-Assisi Peace March, which takes place annually in Umbria, St. Francis’ country, and which was started in the middle of the Cold War by a non-violent intellectual, Aldo Capitini, many participants wore a red band around their arm as a reminder of the Buddhist monks and the determination of Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been so courageous as to give a political dimension to tenderness and truth (metta and thyssà in Burmese).

In Italy, Catholic media like the daily Avvenire and the magazine Famiglia Cristiana have criticized the Burmese junta. These have nevertheless sold advertising space to firms like Oviesse, which runs a chain of supermarkets, Foppa Pedretti, which produces furniture, and Poste Italiane SPA. All of these trade with the Burmese military regime, which continues to oppress the people, Suu Kyi included.

She is the winner of numerous international awards (the Nobel Peace Prize, Sakharov Prize, United States Presidential Medal of Freedom, and Jawaharlal Nehru Award), and has called on people around the world to join the struggle for freedom in Burma, saying, “Please use your liberty to promote ours.”

One of her most famous speeches is the “Freedom From Fear” speech from the late 1980s, 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.”

Special Offer for New Subscribers! Subscribe to Inside the Vatican Magazine for Only $34.95! Buy Now and Save $15.00! Click on the banner ad above!

Talks by Dr. Robert Moynihan on CD!

Note: This is an automated mailing list. Replies to this email will NOT be seen by Inside the Vatican staff. To contact Inside the Vatican, please click here

Blogged with Flock