Inured to being placed under house arrest intermittently and giving up her freedom to challenge the ruthless army generals who have been calling all the shots in Burma, better known as Myanmar now, are just among a battery of reasons why the Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Aung San Suu Kyi's achievements are awe-inspiring.
In 1991, while still under house arrest, the Nobel Peace Prize was bestowed upon her, with other renowned advocates of democracy lauding her as among the cream of democratic activists across every nook and cranny of the world.
Back in 2015, at the NLD's apogee, her political party broke out in applause with a landslide victory in what's termed Myanmar's first openly contested election in 25 years.
Notwithstanding the constitution stipulating that she is barred from becoming president due to her children being foreign nationals, she admitted that wouldn't bother her since she would be dictating the newly-elected President's every move.
Much to her chagrin, the military was bound and determined to depose her. And so it was, back in February last year, her government was ousted, rendering Suu Kyi incommunicado and under house arrest once again. An arrest critics called an effort to get rid of anti-government forces once and for all.
Even a welter of conflicting evidence contributed to her arrest and fall from grace, sending Myanmar's fight for democracy in limbo.
It was ignominy.
It's been almost a year since her government was overthrown. And now, while struggling for democracy remains Suu Kyi's province, her arrest has engendered controversy over whether contending with dictatorship still goes against the grain. This, evidenced by a new generation of Myanmar's future pillars and more progressive politicians clutching at straws.
What's unbeknownst to many, when Myanmar's military junta handed down her first sentences, the military-backed government was indeed telling the indomitable Suu Kyi, the game was up. Worse yet, the sentences cannot be appealed, provided that officials of the military-backed government are all for Suu Kyi's arrest, constituting a black eye for her.
It must have been a bitter pill to swallow for democracy advocates, who truly consider Suu Kyi their leader and an irreplaceable icon.
Although Suu Kyi said she will never back down, new pro-democracy forces declared the National Unity Government, or NUG, formed, opposing the military junta. Not to be outdone, they brought issues pertaining to ethnic cleansing to the fore, inviting them to work in unison to fight against the military dictatorship.
Speaking of which, Suu Kyi was reprimanded for failing to champion human rights of her compatriots in that Rohingya genocide of 2017.
What's more mind-boggling, the NUG went back to the drawing board, announcing a new vision for Myanmar's crusade against dictatorship, a future that is predicated not only on the Burmese people, but groups that are traduced and relegated as well. This is immensely different from what the NLD has been lavishing their attention on.
The NUG's disparate approach aims at doing away with the notorious the-tail-wagging-the-dog situation in which the military holds all the cards for the around 54 million Burmese.
Despite the February 2021 military coup putting paid to the valiant efforts to pursue democracy in Myanmar, the partly shrouded crystal ball somehow signals that if democracy is to have an enviable future in Myanmar, it is this new generation of democratic leaders that will bring it to the country, and it is they who will go down in the annals of Burmese history as the architects of the fabric of a democratic society.
This, while Aung San Suu Kyi's fight against tyranny will go down in history as an experiment that failed to make the dictators come to grief.
Acknowledgments -- works cited:
Aung San Suu Kyi: Myanmar democracy icon who fell from grace (BBC news) https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-11685977
Op-ed: Aung San Suu Kyi's part in the struggle for democracy is over (Washington post)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/12/08/aung-san-suu-kyis-part-struggle-democracy-is-over/
News analysis: Aung San Suu Kyi Falls, but Myanmar's Democratic Hopes Move On (The New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/06/world/asia/myanmar-aung-san-suu-kyi.html
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