Daily Times

“It is not the strength but the duration of great sentiments that makes great men” — Friedrich Nietzsche.

Nietzsche’s quote always reminds me of Aung San Suu Kyi and Nelson Mandela for their persistent uncompromising struggle for rights and human dignity. In case of Daw Suu, as she is respectfully addressed, because of her frailty in comparison to the monstrous strength of the brutal Burmese ruling junta it touches the heart even more. She has steadfastly struggled for the Burmese people’s rights since 1988 and spent 15 years in jail, survived murderous attacks, been held incommunicado, been put under tremendous emotional stress, seen friends and supporters suffer immensely at the hands of an unforgiving junta and yet persists and this is what makes her a truly great person, a beacon and symbol for all struggling people.

Daw Suu, still facing restrictions, secretly recorded lectures on ‘Liberty’ and ‘Dissent’ for Reith Lectures series, which were recently podcast on BBC Radio and through them I want to present Daw Suu and her thoughts hoping that these will guide all those who struggle against tyranny. She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 and had she been awarded it repeatedly all the years since, these would not have sufficiently acknowledged her contribution to the fight for human dignity.

She, as a 13-year-old, had read the book Seven Years Solitary by the Hungarian Edith Hajós Bone, a resilient person, who “was able to keep her mind sharp and her spirit unbroken through the years when her only human contact was with men whose everyday preoccupation was to try to break her”. She says it influenced her immensely and helped her survive tribulations. She says “in the business of dissent” the primary task is to remain “unbroken” and to persevere; this defeats the tyrants’ goals. She mentions how her supporter U Win Tin who authored, Is This a Human Hell? after 20 years in jail was sustained through the ordeal by Ernest Henley’s poem ‘Invictus’ of “struggle and suffering, the bloody unbowed head, and even death, all for the sake of freedom”; incidentally, Invictus had inspired her father too.

Quoting Max Weber she says, “Three qualities of decisive importance for politicians as passion, a sense of responsibility, and a sense of proportion” are required. Passion — passionate dedication to a cause “has to be at the core of each and every person who makes the decision, declared or undeclared, to live in a world apart from the rest of their fellow citizens; a precarious world with its own unwritten rules and regulations. The world of dissidence.”

Praising the young who have chosen the difficult path of dissidence she says, “Their weapons are their faith; their armour is their passion — our passion. What is this passion? What is the cause to which we are so passionately dedicated as to forego the comforts of a conventional existence? Going back to Vaclav Havel’s definition of the basic job of dissidents, we are dedicated to the defence of the right of individuals to free and truthful life. In other words, our passion is liberty.” And adds, “It is not a decision made lightly — we do not enjoy suffering; we are not masochists. It is because of the high value we put on the object of our passion that we are able, sometimes in spite of ourselves, to choose suffering.” She admits that “our most passionate dissidents are not overly concerned with academic theories of freedom” but have their own simple reasons of commitment to rights of people.

On May 30, 2003, her motorcade was attacked in Dabayin by hooligans of the junta and though her driver managed to take her to safety but 70 of her supporters were beaten to death and she was again put under house arrest; she tells how Anna Akhmatova’s words, “No, this is not me. This is somebody else that suffers. I could never face that and all that happened,” sustained her.

She informs that, “Whenever I was asked at the end of each stretch of house arrest how it felt to be free, I would answer that I felt no different because my mind had always been free” but adds that “there is certainly a danger that the acceptance of spiritual freedom as a satisfactory substitute for all other freedoms could lead to passivity and resignation. But an inner sense of freedom can reinforce a practical drive for the more fundamental freedoms in the form of human rights and rule of law.” She remains aware of the pitfalls that dot the paths of struggle.

She emphasises that, “A basic human right, which I value highly, is freedom from fear. Since the very beginning of the democracy movement in Burma, we have had to contend with the debilitating sense of fear that permeates our whole society.” This so true of Balochistan as well. She adds, “Fear is the first adversary we have to get past when we set out to battle for freedom, and often it is the one that remains until the very end. But freedom from fear does not have to be complete. It only has to be sufficient to enable us to carry on; and to carry on in spite of fear requires tremendous courage.” She asks not for super human beings but ordinary human beings.

Sue Lawley, the moderator, during the question session said, “But you are pushing hard at the moment — you have given these lectures to the BBC, you addressed the US Congress, intending to tour Burma. The generals have been patient so far. How much do you fear that their patience may run out?” She replied, “I am not sure that patience is a word that you should apply to them. After all, we have been patient for 23 years. And when you say that they are patient, what do you mean? After all, it is my right as a citizen to travel around this country if I wish to and it is my right as a citizen of this country to say whatever I believe to those who ask me what I think.” This reminded me of Safar Khan Zarakzai who when surrounded by the Pakistan Army and asked to surrender, had replied, “You are the aggressors and do not have the right to ask me to surrender because this is my land” and died fighting on August 9, 1976.

(To be continued)

The writer has an association with the Baloch rights movement going back to the early 1970s. He can be contacted at mmatalpur@gmail.com