Aung San Suu Kyi
Aung San Suu Kyi
Aung San Suu Kyi,is a Burmese social democratic stateswoman, politician, diplomat and author who serves as the First and incumbent State Counsellor and Leader of the National League for Democracy. She is also the first female Minister of Foreign Affairs of Myanmar and the Minister of President's Office in President Htin Kyaw's Cabinet, and from 2012 to 2016 was a Pyithu Hluttaw MP for Kawhmu Township...
NationalityBurmese
ProfessionActivist
Date of Birth19 June 1945
CountryMyanmar
I was surprised by the response of young people because there is a perception that those younger than the 1988 generation are not interested in politics.
Fearlessness may be a gift, but perhaps most precious is courage from cultivating the habit of refusing to let fear dictate one's actions.
Calamities that are not the result of purely natural phenomena usually have their origins, distant and obscure though they may be, in common human failings.
It is man's vision of a world fit for rational, civilized 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.
Weak logic, inconsistencies and alienation from the people are common features of authoritarianism. The relentless attempts of totalitarian regimes to prevent free thought and new ideas and the persistent assertion of their own lightness bring on them an intellectual stasis which they project on to the nation at large. Intimidation and propaganda work in a duet of oppression, while the people, lapped in fear and distrust, learn to dissemble and to keep silent.
If you want to bring an end to long-standing conflict, you have to be prepared to compromise.
The French say that to part is to die a little. To be forgotten too is to die a little. It is to lose some of the links that anchor us to the rest of humanity.
One prisoner of conscience is one too many.
There is no intrinsic virtue to law and order unless "law" is equated with justice and "order" with the discipline of a people satisfied that justice has been done.
I worry that even those who want to reform are not quite sure how to go about it. There is so much to be done.
The last six years afforded me much time and food for thought. I came to the conclusion that the human race is not divided into two opposing camps of good and evil. It is made up of those who are capable of learning and those who are incapable of doing so.
The root of a nation's misfortunes has to be sought in the moral failings of the government.
Democracy, like liberty, justice and other social and political rights, is not "given", it is earned through courage, resolution and sacrifice.
Investment that only goes to enrich an already wealthy elite bent on monopolizing both economic and political power cannot contribute toward egalite and justice -- the foundation stones for a sound democracy.