My Living legend… A woman from Asia

Ekhlas Altayar*

Neither fear, nor hesitation, nothing stops her dreams to act deeply in her soul and mind, with “iron will” when the matter related to live free with indignity.

She is the Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi , a woman is the leading pro-democracy opposition leader in Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, one of the world’s most isolated and repressive nations, but with light of her soul, there was no more darkness over her country as the dictatorship wants.

She suffered house arrest for many times, but her spirit is deliberately warmest things in life from the values ​​of goodness and freedom, justice and truth.

She is opposition’s leader in Myanmar, Aung San Suu Kyi , which and her party won a historic election a few days ago and was considered the beginning of a new era in the her  Asian country, which was “arrested” by the military government for five decades, who once opened the door to a wind of change.

She was the daughter of her country, Aung San, received from her citizens the fruit of patience and hope of freedom and dignity, her people and nation which handed down detention and pain, but that could not defeat the power of belief and faith. She was loudly said no to violence, never, just peace was her only option, and that made her a symbol of non-violence resistance.

Tireless of peaceful resistance, even after stolen victory by the army in the elections of her country, which used to be called Burma, has become Myanmar even they put here under house arrest for many years, but she spent most of the past twenty years under some form of detention for her efforts to implementation of democracy in her country, and with that biography became Aung San Suu Kyi, a universal symbol of peaceful resistance in the face of repression, and extracted by insisting on freedom and democracy, the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991, by really reflecting the meanings of peace,  not as in a lot of times, which were granted to the leaders were they closest to be killers.

It really is an example as described by the Chairman of the Nobel Prize, «a wonderful model for the force that many had not» was Suu Kyi, despite her arrest and detention for a period of two decades, a powerful symbol of hope for the majority of Burmese citizens.

She is the daughter of her father’s national leader and a hero of independence, the Burmese General Aung San, who was assassinated in 1947, before his country’s independence a few months, the daughter, in its second year, but grew up on the clean dream: the dream of a free country gives its citizens human dignity, a daughter grew when she left to India in 1960 with her mother, who was appointed ambassador for her country there.

She did not make her degree from Oxford University, where she studied philosophy, politics and economics, as  to her own life when she met her man: Academic Michael Aires, she refused to be only an English wife successfully raising her two children, Alexander and Kim, because her country has in her mind always, so her national feelings explode of when she arrived to the capital Rangoon in 1988, to take care of her sick mother,  while Burma was in political unrest,she has spread students, staff and monks in the streets, demanding democratic reforms, to tell her famous  statement among them: «I cannot keep silent, I am the daughter of father: the national hero.

On the basis of her admiration for the campaigns of peaceful resistance led by civil rights U.S. Martin Luther King, and the movement of Mahatma Gandhi before him, Suu Kyi in organized marches and demonstrations, and toured across the country, calling for democratic reform through peaceful means and calling for free elections. But these demonstrations were suppressed strongly by the army, which called for a general election in 1990, Suu Kyi and movement of peaceful protest, won, while she was actually under house arrest, but the rulers of Burma’s military refused to hand over power, and remained in control the affairs of the country since that time.

The rose of Asian freedom was under house arrest for six years, until freed in 1995. But placed back under house arrest in 2000, and was released after two years, but they jailed her a year later, and allowed her then to go back to her home, to be placed virtually under house arrest again, and remained there until her release recently.

Dream of freedom did not die in her mind and spirit, through her forcing presence in her home, she was practiced meditation, and developed her French, Japanese, and rehearsed the play pieces by Bach on the piano. She was so sad and shaken vigorously  after her husband leave, who died of cancer in May of 1999, when the military government allowed her to travel to Britain to meet her very patient husband’s, but she rejected the call due to fear of possible rejection to return to her country. She said «whatever the strength of the governing system, in the end they will not be able to stop people, they cannot stand in the face of freedom, and our time will come.»

This is the living legend,a woman from Asia, but really I want her from my country, as an example of great values: freedom, dignity and human rights. But I try to compensate my feeling of lose, when I say: any how these values are remaining an example to all human beings. But really I want her a woman of my country, not like Iraqi Parliament female members, un fair represent Iraqi women, or other women gave the meaning of freedom and human rights through «civil society», a bad name, who are addicted to corruption is not financial, but also intellectual and moral, they corrupted the value of freedom to live, dignity and justice.

I want her a woman of my country, not like those occupying the seats in parliament or the government, recommend by parties and religious clerks, not for their achievements and brilliant careers, or to be the example of “equality”  that was showed by  the “democracy” assisted by the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

I want her I was an example of the freedom of my country, an example of such dreams of Iraq daughters, but the consolation is that the rose of Asian freedom Aung San Suu Kyi, smacked perfume, and now I inhaled even thousands of miles away.

* Iraqi writer and academic