lonely-planet-myanmar-burma-11-edition

352According to localcustom, AungSan Suu Kyi’sname, like thatof all Burmese,should be spelledout in full. It’salso commonlypreceded by thehonorific titleDaw. Through thischapter we followthe internationalconvention ofshortening hername to Suu Kyi.Aung San Suu KyiSince her release from house arrest in November 2010, Aung San SuuKyi has been busy. She has been on the cover of Time and been profiledin countless other publications; met with ambassadors and addressedglobal movers and shakers at Davos (www.tinyurl.com/5wfxzbn); andeven guest-directed the 2011 Brighton Arts Festival (www.brightonfestival.org) in the UK. The Lady – as she is known as in Myanmar and by hermillions of supporters around the world – appears as poised, eloquentand media-savvy as any politician in the digital age.The daughter of a national hero, Aung San (see p 299 ), the 66-year-oldNobel Peace Prize winner has spent 15 out of the 21 years since 1989 shutaway from the public as a prisoner of conscience. At the time of research,while at liberty in Yangon, she is highly unlikely to leave the country,since the current regime would certainly not allow her to return.Before circumstances thrust her onto the global stage in 1988, SuuKyi was primarily a wife, mother and academic. In 1990 the NationalLeague for Democracy (NLD), the party that she continues to lead, wonthe general election by a landslide, yet was denied power by a militaryjunta that before, and ever since, has sought to demonise, imprison andsideline Suu Kyi. She is easily the most famous Burmese person alive andhas been compared to Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi for herAUNG SAN SUU KYI: BOOKS, MOVIES & THE INTERNETThere are many sources of information on Aung San Suu Kyi. On the internet there arethe Daw Aung San Suu Kyi Pages (www.dassk.org) and the site of the NLD (www.nldburma.org).Suu Kyi’s interviews in 1995 and 1996 with journalist and former Buddhist monk AlanClements, described in The Voice of Hope (1997), often intermingle politics and Buddhism;it’s available as an audio book from www.useyourliberty.org.Freedom from Fear (1991) is a collection of Suu Kyi’s writings and those of supporterson topics ranging from her father to the Nobel Prize acceptance speech delivered by herson Alexander. Letters from Burma (1997) features a year’s worth of weekly essays SuuKyi wrote on Burmese culture, politics and incidents from her daily life for the Japanesenewspaper Mainichi Shimbun.The best biography of several is Justin Wintle’s The Perfect Hostage (2007), an impressivelyresearched account of her life and times, and of modern Burmese history,which paints a very believable, likeable ‘warts and all’ portrait of Suu Kyi.On the cinematic front, Luc Bresson’s The Lady is a bio-pic released in 2011 basedon Suu Kyi’s life between 1988 and 1999 when her husband Michael Aris died; it starsMalaysian actress Michelle Yeo as Suu Kyi.Covering similar ground, but in documentary format, is Lady of No Fear, directed byAnne Gyrithe Bonne, which was finished before Suu Kyi’s release in 2010 and includesinterviews with close friends and colleagues about the famously private woman.