A portrait of one of the most charismatic, but unknown, world
leaders
Aung San Suu Kyi, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and crusader for democracy
in Myanmar, is once again behind bars. Her resounding victory at the
polls, and re-election to office as civilian head of state, was
overturned by the February 2021 military coup - a move with ruinous
consequences. Myanmar today is a country in extremis, war-torn and
seemingly without salvation for the multitudes seeking an end to
military rule.
Aung San Suu Kyi has been here before. The first half of her political
career was spent under house arrest. But this time she awaits sentencing
for a variety of charges clearly calculated to keep her out of politics,
and almost certainly in prison, for the rest of her life. This time she
is caught in a zero sum game.
The jury is still out on Aung San Suu Kyi in other respects. Once
deified for her advocacy of democracy and human rights, later vilified
for her denial, if not defence of, the Burmese military's genocidal
campaign against the Rohingya, she is nevertheless referred to as Amay
Suu (Mother Suu) within Myanmar, where her image survives untarnished.
Sole heir to the political and spiritual legacy of General Aung San,
independence hero and martyr, she remains the lodestar of nationalist
aspirations, matriarch of a nation in distress.
This book encapsulates Aung San Suu Kyi's transformation from daughter
of a national hero to materfamilias of a nation, especially with regard
to Burmese Buddhist notions of nationhood and motherhood. The result is
a unique portrait of a living legend, rendered by a compatriot and
contemporary, the novelist Wendy Law-Yone.
