Aung San Suu Kyi (b.1945) is a Burmese politician, diplomat, and author. Formerly a prominent political prisoner, she is internationally recognized as a vibrant symbol of resistance to authoritarian rule and political reform through non-violent public protest. She was the preeminent leader of the Burmese (now Myanmar) movement toward the reestablishment of democracy in that state. In 1991, while under house arrest, she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Born in Rangoon, Burma, now Yangon, Myanmar, Suu Kyi, is the youngest daughter of Aung San U, Father of the Nation of modern-day Myanmar. She studied at Oxford University and worked for the United Nations in New York. She later pursued an academic career after marrying Michael Aris, a lecturer of Tibetan and Himalayan Studies at Oxford University. She returned to Burma after her mother’s stroke and, during a time of great political turmoil, served as leader of the National League for Democracy (NLD) party since 1988.
Aung San Suu Kyi was held under house arrest 1989–95, and the ruling military government refused to recognize her party’s victory in the 1990 elections. From 2000, she was frequently detained again before being released in 2010.
In the 2015 elections, her NLD party won a majority. Still, Suu Kyi was barred from becoming president by clauses in the constitution (her deceased husband and children are British citizens.) She assumed the newly created role of State Counsellor or de facto head of government.
Suu Kyi has drawn condemnation over her inaction to the oppression of the Rohingya community in Myanmar, her refusal to acknowledge that Myanmar’s military has committed massacres, and for widespread prosecutions of journalists.
Suu Kyi is the author of Freedom from Fear: And Other Writings (2010; coauthored with her husband,) and Letters from Burma (2010.)
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Aung San Suu Kyi
The only real prison is fear, and the only real freedom is freedom from fear.
—Aung San Suu Kyi
Topics: Activism
The education and empowerment of women throughout the world cannot ail to result in a more caring, tolerant, just and peaceful life for all.
—Aung San Suu Kyi
Topics: Women
The struggle for democracy and human rights in Burma is a struggle for life and dignity. It is a struggle that encompasses our political, social and economic aspirations.
—Aung San Suu Kyi
Topics: Aspirations
At the root of human responsibility is the concept of perfect, the urge to achieve it, the intelligence to find a path towards it, and the will to follow that path, if not to the end at least the distance needed to rise above individual limitations and environmental impediments.
—Aung San Suu Kyi
Topics: Perfectionism, Responsibility
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