Arab Spring stirs plea from Suu Kyi

Source: SMH.COM.AU

AUNG SAN SUU KYI, the Burmese democracy leader and Nobel peace prize winner, has issued a passionate manifesto for freedom in an unprecedented international broadcast describing the continuing 21-year-long struggle against Burma's military junta and the inspirational impact of the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions.

Delivering the first of this year's BBC Reith lectures, which was secretly recorded in Burma and broadcast yesterday, Ms Suu Kyi spoke movingly of the price she and fellow activists had paid while travelling what she called the ''hard road to freedom'' - and of her heartfelt belief in the justice of their cause, which sustained her during nearly 15 years in jail or under house arrest.

''What is this passion? What is the cause to which we are so passionately dedicated as to forgo the comforts of a conventional existence?'' she asked. ''Going back to Vaclav Havel's definition of the basic job of dissidents, we are dedicated to the defence of the right of individuals to free and truthful life. In other words, our passion is liberty.''
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Ms Suu Kyi described the way those who choose the path of resistance and protest could become isolated, physically and spiritually, from ordinary life - and the toll such deprivation exacted. ''Human contact is one of the most basic needs that those who decide to go into, and to persevere in, the business of dissent have to be prepared to live without. In fact, living without is a huge part of the existence of dissidents.''

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/arab-spring-stirs-plea-from-suu-kyi-20110621-1gdlb.html