La biografia del Nobel Aung San Suu Kyi è legata con la storia dei genitori e del Myanmar (già Birmania). Fra nazionalismo, influenze occidentali e compromessi con l'esercito.
“The biography of Aung San Suu Kyi (also known by her initials, ASSK) is closely tied with the history of her family, and with the history of Myanmar (formerly Burma). Her path has been one of light and shadow, sometimes falling into darkness, influenced by nationalism, Western influence, and devotion to the Army that her father founded. Her idea of democracy, although it was supported by Western forces for about twenty years, is rooted in Asian tradition, where the military has often played a prevailing role. Even her vision of a nation, which has never been fully realised since Myanmar gained independence from Britain in 1948, is not separate from the country’s main religion, Theravada Buddhism. These facts make it easier to understand why the leader in Myanmar’s fight for democracy doesn’t entirely correspond with the activist image popularised in Western media, an image which ASSK recently rejected.
Myanmar is perhaps the final frontier for foreign businesses in Asia, and it benefits from its strategic location between India and China. The latter is Myanmar’s main economic partner. International politics often come into play here. Aung San Suu Kyi knows this well: she was permanently freed from house arrest precisely when the military leadership changed into civilian clothes and opened the country’s doors to neoliberalism. Since then, “The Lady” has stopped opposing the generals, even when they ordered the ethnic cleansing of Rohingya Muslims, forcing hundreds of thousands of people to flee to Bangladesh. To appease the Bamar Buddhist electorate and avoid compromising the civilian part of the government, Aung San Suu Kyi has denied what the UN has called war crimes and crimes against humanity. For many of the country’s citizens – belonging to the Bamar majority or other minorities – ASSK remains the only thing standing between them and absolute dictatorship. However, can a politician who repeatedly accommodates those who violate basic human rights really be said to be a champion of those rights?
Aung San Suu Kyi‘s life begins on 19th June 1945 in Rangoon (now Yangon), the capital of Burma when it was a British colony (1824-1948) and from independence until 2006. A month before her birth, the British wrested control of the city back from the Japanese, who had invaded in January 1942. Yangon – founded in the 11th century and ruled over for centuries by ancient dynasties – has infrastructure and public services comparable to those in London. In Europe, Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler has surrendered, while in Asia the end of World War II will come on 2nd September, with the defeat of the Japanese Empire.
ASSK takes her first steps alongside her country, which is heading toward becoming a republic, independent from the British empire. Her father, Aung San, is leading this process, and she will inherit not only his name but also the inspiration and ideology that will mark her political future. Aung San is assassinated when Suu Kyi is only two years old. However, her story is like that of an heir apparent.
It’s probably her mother, Khin Kyi, who passes on to ASSK the art and science of politics and keeps alive the memory of her father until she is an adult. Khin Kyi is a former nurse, who had met her future husband in a hospital during World War II. She is a strong-willed, educated woman. Against her family’s wishes, she leaves her village and moves to Rangoon to work at the General Hospital. In 1942, aged 30, she marries Aung San, whose war wounds she had nursed. Their union is strong. They will have four children, and Khin Kyi will go on to take her husband’s seat – left vacant after his assassination – in Burma’s first independent parliament.
Khin Kyi, after losing her husband and two children, has a brilliant political career. In 1953, she becomes Burma’s social welfare minister. In 1960, she becomes her country’s first woman at the head of a diplomatic mission: she is appointed to be the Burmese Ambassador in New Delhi when Jawaharlal Nehru is India’s Prime Minister. She brings her fifteen-year-old daughter Aung San Suu Kyi with her to India, while her older son, Aung San Oo, goes to England to study. Nehru arranges for them to live at “Burma House”, which is now the headquarters of the Indian National Congress.
Let’s go back to Aung San. He’s a complex, quasi-mythical figure in Myanmar, where he’s still seen as the “father of the nation”. He died without seeing his dreams of independence fully come to pass. Born in February 1915, he could be described as a “pragmatic and shape-shifting revolutionary”, who can change his political stance and allies but maintains a strong nationalist belief and the goal of independence from the British. Burma still doesn’t exist as a country for him, being divided among kingdoms, feuding dynasties, and regions inhabited by many different ethnic groups.
Aung San grows up in a family of revolutionaries. In 1886, his grandfather had been decapitated by the British while fighting in the last of the three Anglo-Burmese wars. Even his parents were part of a movement of anticolonial resistance. In the 1930s, he becomes the most renowned student leader at Rangoon University, organising many anti-imperial strikes. In 1938, he abandons his legal studies to dedicate all of his energy to politics. In 1939, he is among the founders of the nationalist wing of the Burmese Communist Party. In 1940, however, he takes refuge in Nazi-allied Japan, where he is offered military training alongside 29 other compatriots. The Thirty Comrades, as they will later become known, also include Ne Win, the man who, in 1962, will overturn the fragile Burmese democracy and establish a military dictatorship. The very system Aung San Suu Kyi will end up fighting half a century later.
Drawn by the promise of independence, Aung San collaborates with the Japanese for almost the entirety of World War II. Thanks to their support, he is able to create the Burma Independence Army while in Bangkok, Thailand. The BIA will one day become the current Tatmadaw. In 1942, he takes part in the “Burma Campaign”, through which the Japanese invaders take the place of the British. Aung San is appointed to the position of War Minister but in 1944 he realises that Burma, in Emperor Hirohito’s eyes, is just another colony to tyrannise. Time for Aung San to change course once more. ASSK’s father starts to restore old connections with British authorities and his old communist comrades. On 27th March 1945, he turns the Burmese Army against the Japanese and helps the Allies defeat them.
It’s a delicate time. The new anti-fascist front, of which he is the leader, splits. Communists are expelled. The negotiations with Britain are complicated. In exchange for Burma’s independence, Britain requires it to become a member of the Commonwealth. Aung San firmly opposes this, wanting complete independence. Winston Churchill calls him a “rebel traitor”. But the General doesn’t change his goal. At the historic Panglong Conference, on 12th February 1947, Aung San brings together the leaders of the most populous ethnic groups, convincing many of them to join a united independent Burma. However, rivalries and divisions run deep. Karen delegates don’t recognise the new state as theirs, and they get ready to fight.
In April, the Anti-Fascist People’s Freedom League (AFPFL), purged of its radical left-wing, wins the elections. The government Aung San is setting up, however, will never be a reality. On 19th July 1947, a group of paramilitaries – likely under orders from former Prime Minister U Saw – kill Aung San, seven ministers, a secretary, and a guard. U Saw, a representative of the pro-British past, had the support of former Governor Sir Reginald Dorman-Smith. Aung San, on the other hand, was favoured by Governor Sir Hubert Hance and by Lord Mountbatten, the last Viceroy of India. His assassination is still shrouded in mystery. “I hoped for the best, but was prepared for the worst”, Aung San had said some time prior.
Aung San Suu Kyi grows up in a context where the private sphere is, sometimes tragically, intertwined with international history. After the death of her 8-year-old brother in a drowning accident, she moves with her mother and older brother to a colonial-style residence on Inya Lake, in Rangoon, where she still lives. ASSK attends the English Methodist school, exhibiting a talent for foreign languages. In addition to Burmese, she speaks English, French, and Japanese. While her mother is an ambassador in India, between 1960 and 1967, Aung San Suu Kyi attains a political science degree from New Delhi University. She then departs for England, where she studies Politics, Philosophy and Economics at St Hugh’s College, Oxford. Here she meets Michael Aris, her future husband, who also comes from a family of diplomats and representatives of the British Crown. Aris is about to become a private tutor to the children of the King of Bhutan, and one of the most esteemed experts of Buddhist, Himalayan, and Tibetan history.
Before getting married, however, ASSK takes a job at the United Nations headquarters in New York. Ma Than E, a family friend and expert intelligence officer, convinces her to do this. Aung San Suu Kyi refers to her as “Auntie Dora”, which was the stage name that Ma Than E took during her youth when she was one of the most famous Burmese singers. She went on to lead an adventurous life, with influential political friendships.
In the 1960s, at the apex of the Cold War, Burma is an unstable country, but it isn’t isolated. Far from it. While Suu Kyi is working at Turtle Bay, U Thant is General Secretary. The Burmese diplomat – one of the founders of the Non-Aligned Movement, made up of countries that did not side with either bloc in the cold war – symbolised a cultured and dynamic elite, crucial to forging ties between Asia and the rest of the world. His extraordinary diplomatic skills even led him to mediate between US President John F. Kennedy and USSR leader Nikita Khruschev during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Meanwhile, in Burma, U Nu has been Prime Minister for three consecutive terms since independence. He is a former student leader and co-founder of the AFPFL alongside Aung San. The country is racked by conflicts and infighting within the Anti-Fascist League (Aung San’s coalition). Some armed communist groups and several separatist armies start to emerge. The Kuomintang – China’s nationalist party, which has retreated to Taiwan – stations its troops in the north of Myanmar, near the border with China. This puts Burmese authorities in a tough spot, teetering between aid from the pro-Kuomintang USA and neighbouring communist China, led by Mao Tse Tung. The Burmese army is weak and fragmented. Ethnic Karen factions are increasingly marginalised. Military Commander Ne Win is gaining more and more power, having formed a personal militia with U Nu’s approval.
The Prime Minister is playing a dangerous game with his old fighting partner. Alongside Aung San, U Nu and Ne Win had been trained by the Japanese as part of the ‘Thirty Comrades’, and together they founded the AFPFL. U Nu makes certain decisions that threaten the Republic’s unity. In 1961, he makes Buddhism the official state religion, showing favouritism towards Buddhist fundamentalism and alienating Christian, animist, Muslim, and Hindu minorities. In fact, this sets the stage for dictatorship. In 1962, Ne Win upends the unstable republic with a coup d’état.
Burma succumbs to military dictatorship, becoming a single-party socialist and isolationist country. It’s the “Burmese Way to Socialism”, uniting Soviet-Style state planning with local beliefs and Theravada Buddhist tradition. A country with vast natural resources and promising opportunities for growth collapses into economic meltdown. Ne Win nationalises all commercial and agricultural activities. He breaks with China, which since Burmese independence has supported Communist insurgencies. He leads a xenophobic campaign against immigrants from China, from southern Asia, and against Sino-Burmese citizens, exacerbating ethnic conflicts. The trade embargo with China ends up causing an increase in illegal trafficking. When inflation rises, everyone is forced towards the black market. In Shan state, the fight between the Burmese Communist Party and the Tatmadaw intensifies. Ethnic nationalism favouring the Bamar majority is forcibly imposed. Ne Win rules over a corrupt system that doesn’t provide governance but simply aggravates existing problems. His rule marks the end of the dream of a republican unity, for which Aung San and so many others gave their lives.
What will ASSK have thought about the state of her country while studying in England? In 1967, her mother Khin Kyi returned to Burma from India. ASSK would visit her at least three times a year. What will they have discussed in their ancient mansion, which so many times had been the stage for political and intellectual debates? Following ASSK’s time at the UN, we know very little about the two women’s lives over the next twenty years. There’s no evidence of activism against the military leadership. In the 1970s, ASSK marries Aris and has two children. Over the next decade, she returns to England to study Philosophy and Literature at SOAS (the School of Oriental and African Studies) in London. At this time, Aung San Suu Kyi seems to be primarily devoted to her work as a mother and researcher. We know, through her own words, that she was told about the 1985 insurrections in Burma. This is the first real uprising against Ne Win’s regime. Students in Rangoon and workers and monks in Mandalay (Burma’s second city) protest against the monetary policy and immense public debt. Back in 1971, Burma had been classed among the least-developed countries by the UN. When universities are allowed to reopen, two years after the protests, dissenters had organised into underground groups. Burma is in turmoil. Even farmers are rebelling. Not only has the dictatorship made them poorer, but it also betrayed the feeling of national pride