The pro-democracy leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, examines what drives people to dissent in the second of the 2011 Reith Lecture series. 'Securing Freedom'.
Reflecting on the history of her own party, the National League for Democracy, Aung San Suu Kyi, examines the meaning of opposition and dissident. She also explains her reasons for following the path of non-violence.
Pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi may be reluctant to take a trip out of Burma for fear of not being let back in, but that has not stopped her from headlining a popular arts festival in Britain.
Suu Kyi is the ‘guest director’ of the Brighton Festival 2011 to be held in this British coastal resort from May 7 to 29.
This year the organizers of the popular event chose Suu Kyi and the themes of freedom of speech, human rights and freedom for political prisoners. The festival helps tell of the issues concerning Burma through the arts.
According to Burma Campaign UK director Anna Roberts, ‘It’s fantastic that a festival of this calibre can celebrate Aung San Suu Kyi and keep Burma’s cause and the fight for human rights in the public eye at such a critical time’.
The festival provides a mix of music, film, drama and talks, including a debate on ‘The Future of Burma’ with Sue Lloyd Roberts, Burmese activist Zoya Phan and Robert Gordon, British ambassador to Burma 1995-99. The documentaries ‘Burma Soldier’ and ‘Burma VJ’ will also be shown.
Music and the arts are said to have been important to Suu Kyi during her life, split between Burma, Britain, the United States, Bhutan and India.
Suu Kyi will not attend this major arts festival. But in a message she appealed to the participants ‘to use your freedom of expression to let the world know what it is like in our country, what it is like to not be able to say what you want to say’.
The pro-democracy leader is conscious that she has to remain in Burma. If she traveled abroad, there is fear that the authorities might not allow her to return.
Suu Kyi says in her video message that the artists taking part should show Burma’s leaders how it was ‘not to hurt people, not to accuse anybody of anything, but simply to express what we would wish to see in our country, what our aspirations are, what our hopes are, what our beliefs are and we are not able to do this.
‘But you who have so much creativity and who have understood that variety is the very spice of life and would be able to help us to make the world understand’.
Suu Kyi, an avid piano player, says she loves Western classical music but in a recent interview with the Guardian newspaper of London, she admitted to also being a fan of the rock band Grateful Dead, a group one of her sons encouraged her to listen to. She said she also likes Bob Marley’s ‘Get Up, Stand Up’, that includes the lyrics, ‘get up, stand up, stand up for your rights’.
It seems fitting that the festival will begin with Ludwig van Beethoven’s ‘Fidelio’, an opera that tells how Leonore, disguised as a prison guard named Fideleo, rescues her husband from death in a political prison. Suu Kyi has spent time in prison and lengthy periods under house arrest.
As she says in her video, if Burma’s rulers could only ‘understand how much we have to gain by more freedom of expression, I think we will make substantial steps towards the direction of democratization’.
The Nobel Peace Prize laureate said: ‘We all think of the Brighton Festival as an occasion, a time for festivity, for diversity, for creativity, for expression, for freedom of expression. This is especially important to us in Burma who have been deprived of this right of freedom for very many years’.
...Message from Daw Aung San Suu Kyi to the International Burmese Democratic
Forces Conference, Fort Wayne, Indiana...
It is according to personal principle as well as with party policy, that
I'll try as much as possible to address gatherings of peoples from Burma. I
understand that in this gathering there are also friends of Burma committed
to our movement for democracy through a belief in democratic values and
human rights.
Although many people here have taken up, residence, abroad either
temporarily or permanently, I know that majority of them are still bound to
our country by ties of love and loyalty. It is these ties of love and
loyalty which I'm urging them to commit themselves to this movement for
democracy.
I would like to focus on the concept of commitment. Commitment means an
undertaking, a pledge, and how genuine a commitment is. It depends on how
strong it is, how binding it is. There are many of us who have bound
themselves to the movement of democracy for life, everything that they do,
all their thoughts, all their efforts are bound to the movement for
democracy. I know that it is too much to ask that everybody should be so
totally committed but I would like everybody to be committed to the extent
that they can forge unity from out of many diverse views.
That is inevitable and in any gathering. In Burma today, we are at across
road. There are many who would like to believe that the path to democracy
has opened up and there are others who believe that this path is a false one
that it is meant to deceive and to stop a genuine path from being opened.
So, we must all look at the situation with care. We must all commit
ourselves to seeing the truth. We must all examine what is really happening
in Burma today and to do this we need commitment. We need unity. If we
cannot be united in our efforts then victory will be further away than we
wish it to be.
The more united we are, the sooner we will achieve our goal. This is not
something. That is new. That is something that people have known for ages
past. Unity is strength. Unity lies at the basis of all victories. So,
addressing all of you today, I would like to urge as I have been urging time
and again that out of diversity you should be able to forge unity that you
should be able to understand that although your views may not always to
coincide, your desire for genuine democracy in Burma is one and the same for
every one of us.
If we can be committed to this one idea of unity, strength out of unity and
using this strength is to gain genuine democracy for Burma. Then I think we
will be able to do a great service to all the people of our country who have
been longing for change in the right direction. So change in the right
direction is what we must all work towards, what we must all call for. We do
not want change, for the sake of change. We want change for the sake of
progress and if there is no progress, what ever superficial change there
might be, it's of no use to our people at all. I would like to take the
opportunity to thank all those friends of Burma who have stood by us
staunchly throughout the years.
The years that have grown into decades and yet their commitment have not
wavered with such friends as these, we are obliged to be stronger in our own
commitment. So may I take the opportunity to say that all of us who wish
Burma to see a happier day, when we are all united in our commitment to
genuine democratic values should be united in small matters as far as
possible that we need to achieve our great ends as quickly as possible. And
may I also take the opportunity to wish all of you well in all that you are
doing to help us. Thank you very much.
Suu Kyi is the ‘guest director’ of the Brighton Festival 2011 to be held in this British coastal resort from May 7 to 29. 