Last February, I paddled out onto the still waters of Inya Lake, in Rangoon, Burma’s sleepy former capital. Aung San Suu Kyi, the country’s political heroine and a Nobel Peace Prize winner, lives along the shore, as do several of her former tormentors. She spent 15 years here under house arrest, and I was seeking some sense of proximity. I could hardly have imagined that, a few months later, I would meet Suu Kyi in person, when she spoke at a forum in Washington, D.C., co-sponsored by the United States Institute of Peace and the Asia Society (where I am a trustee). Hillary Clinton and other notables packed the room. The ovation that greeted Suu Kyi lasted for more than five minutes.
Aung San Suu Kyi’s heroism stems not from physical or military prowess but from moral power: her tireless work for democracy and human rights in the face of brutal opposition. She was an unlikely revolutionary. Modest, elegant, and almost saintly in appearance, Suu Kyi is the daughter of the national hero General Aung San, who negotiated the independence of Burma (now officially called Myanmar) from Britain, in 1947, and was assassinated shortly thereafter. She spent 28 years outside the country, returning in 1988 to visit her ailing mother. Burma was ruled by a military regime, and a pro-democracy movement was just beginning. Suu Kyi found her calling. That summer she held half a million people spellbound at a rally outside Rangoon’s Shwedagon Pagoda. She went on to found the National League of Democracy party and lead it to victory in the 1990 elections—only to have the results nullified by the generals. She spent 15 of the next 20 years in some form of detention, separated for most of that time from her family. In the solitary serenity of her conviction, she became a symbol.
Since her release, in 2010, Suu Kyi has formed an unlikely alliance with former general—now president—Thein Sein, to move Burma toward democracy. She is a member of Burma’s parliament. Pictures of “The Lady,” as she is called, were banned until recently but are now everywhere. As Gandhi, King, and Mandela have shown, when there is a leader who possesses moral authority and inner strength, nonviolence can crush an army.
