In his book Courage, Gordon Brown named Aung San Suu Kyi as one of his heroes and it is easy to see why. She followed in the footsteps of her father, Aung San, the legendary Second World War leader who liberated his country from colonial rule. Shortly after the conclusion of negotiations with Clement Attlee, Aung San was murdered and a military junta took over. But his legacy lives on.
His daughter remains under house arrest; the regime has been careful not to make her a martyr like her father. Her National Democracy Movement led the student protests in 1988 and has been ruthlessly suppressed ever since. Burma is indeed a troubled country and although this may not necessarily be the untold story she professes Emma Larkin’s book is fascinating nonetheless.
The ruthless suppression of monks who dared to march against economic hardship is shocking enough but the sheer malice of the response to tropical cyclone Nargis in 2008 is difficult to comprehend. To refuse the aid of the international community after the storm – “events happen in Burma, and then they are systematically unhappened” – was evil. British, French and US ships were waiting a few miles from the devastated disaster zone to hand out supplies but the regime decided the death and disease of thousands of its own citizens was a price worth paying to keep foreigners out. Human beings were dying because of the government. Such a dereliction of duty towards its citizens should leave the Burmese regime with no authority in the eyes of the international community.
Cyclone Nargis and the oppression of the monks are flashpoints of life in Burma. The greater tragedy is the daily toil heaped on people by the kleptocracy led by Than Shwe. The general hosts lavish weddings for his daughters while his people starve. The generals get rich while the people stay poor. Everything is ruined, poisoned and, indeed, broken by the dictatorship in Burma. In his novel Burmese Days, the writer, journalist (and one-time literary editor of Tribune) George Orwell portrays British rule in Burma. Animal Farm might be more relevant now as the pigs have taken over from the farmers.
