Metamorphosing of Democratic Icon Daw Aung San Suu Kyi into Bigot Dictator?

Please read my article in Burma Digest using the Pseudonym SHWE BA  and shared in my San Oo Aung blog

Myanmar Folk Tale: Metamorphosis of Saviors into Monsters

Once upon a time, long long time ago, there was a village in a far away remote area of Burma called, let’s say, Shwe Bama village. Because of the constant disturbances of the wild beast, the villagers were wishing, praying and waiting for a hero to fight and kill the beast and to liberate them.

One day a prince came to the village and offered his self-less humanitarian voluntary service for the liberation of the village. The prince fought and successfully killed the beast, so the villagers thanked him and offered all the rewards including the right to rule their village. But later the kindhearted, handsome and noble prince surprisingly disappeared from the village. Worse of all, there also suddenly appeared a new ogre (giant) in the forest near the village. So the villagers were very sad and just prayed and wished for another warrior to help them.

Luck is on their side! One strong and brave warrior with a spear suddenly arrived at their village, offered his help, killed the ogre but he also disappeared again later. Unluckily another ogre, holding a spear, appeared in the forest and disturbed the villagers almost at the same time.

The story repeats it self like the wheel of the history and the show goes on with the arrivals and disappearances of warriors with one sword followed by two swords and appearances of new corresponding ogres. More than enough rewards and power followed their victories but they did not understand why those heroes disappeared later and similar new monsters appeared. At last the villagers suspected that some thing might be wrong with those saviors and possibility of transforming into monsters and start terrorizing the villagers they had saved.

At last the leader of village youths organized the youths and killed the two-sword monster. The head of the youth was wise enough to ask his fiancée to watch him closely and to remind him in time to avoid the fate of previous heroes.

During the victory dinner, the youth suddenly disappeared again. That was noticed immediately by his lover and she tried to search for him. Actually the youth had just entered the nearby cage out of curiosity, because of the attraction by a nice music and golden glow coming out from it. He failed to notice the time because he was enjoying the wealth, delicious foods and drinks, beautiful young girls and the new found power in the cave. But because of his strong will power, attention, self-discipline and self-consciousness he managed to look into the mirror. To his surprise and horror he noticed some changes in his face, like an ogre. Coincidentally, his fiancée also appeared at the entrance of the cave and was calling out his name. He suddenly realized that the wealth and power that accompanied the success was corrupting him and slowly changing him into a monster. 

The two lovers managed to resist the temptation of power, destroyed the cave and its contents, and returned to their village. Then only all of them knew the secret of how their heroes were changed into the monsters by the ‘Power that corrupts’. 

No wonder the power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Just look at the cruel King Thi Baw’s replacement by the exploitations of the empire. After the revolution our allied Japanese changed into Fascists. There are some reports of BIA soldiers’ extreme cruel actions on some of the villages. Freedom fighter AFPFL also changed and corrupted and divided into two parties. BIA had to be replaced with BDA and later transformed into the present Myanmar Tatmadaw but its leaders, Ne Win, Saw Maung and Than Shwe are all corrupt and transformed  into biggest monsters and are still terrorizing the country.

We all are waiting for NLD and all the opposition parties to liberate our Shwe Bama but hope and pray that they would be able to control themselves, like the wise village youth leader, from corruption and prevent changing into a monster.

(The above was a very popular story played by the Burmese Government Cultural Opera in 70’s, but once the authorities realized that the opera carried a very good lesson they ordered to drop the curtain on it.)

SHWE BA

Comments

Dental Surgeon Dr David Law, USA said _

Dear U Shwe Ba, your writings have always inspired me and I am glad you retold this story.  As a kid growing up in Rangoon in the 60s or 70s, I saw it in the movies in a cartoon version, as a short feature film;  instead of a cave, each hero went up to the castle nanndaw to fight the monster-dictator, and each time, the people just grew poorer and poorer.  With each dictator, the people lost more possessions.  In the cartoon version, the final hero and his father lost their oxen and they were reduced to pulling the plough by themselves and this is when they cannot take it any more;  the final hero goes to fight the dictator; when done, he discovers a treasure trove within the palace, his face becomes corrupt, but he sees his reflection in the polished surface of a golden vase and he regains his senses, destroys the palace, and truly liberates the people.  But no matter what the slight differences are in each version, it does not matter.  What matters is the lesson that you pointed out.
I just wanted to indicate a small discrepancy.
In the 2nd line of the third last para, “After the revolution our allied Japanese changed into Fascists.” This means 1942.
I hope you will not mind, but the Japanese were already corrupt, cruel fascists since the time they invaded Manchuria in the early 1930′s, circa 1933, and then invaded the rest of China during the rest of the decade.  ”The Rape of Nanking” was in circa 1937 in which about 30,000 Chinese where brutally killed.  So you could say that the Japanese were already fascists since then.
But that small mistake you made does not change your thesis, which is correct, so true.
In the 70′s there was another movie, this one a full length,   in Rangoon, about revolution in one of the Latin American nations.  Like in your story, a revolution occurs, the leaders become corrupt, and their men terrorize the countryside; a young boy witnesses his mother and sisters horribly violated; his father and brothers come home to capture these government soldiers and his father teaches the young boy how to shoot (holding the machine gun together)  and execute the war criminals, telling him to say , “This is for my mother, for my sister, for my country!” He grows up to be one of the heroic revolutionary leaders and succeeds in liberating his land…..
and then, in the chaos that followed, the nation again degenerates into the same corrupt violence that occurred when he was a child.
It is very Tayah kyaht zayar, philosophically sobering.
ERGO, Let us hold up your story high to remind us,  to warn us  to beware of the very possible degeneration that can insidiously begin to corrupt us when our revolution finally succeeds.
Meanwhile, let us stay motivated.
Aung yaht myi, Aung yaht myi, Aung yaht myi!

The following is Just ONE of the room in that cave. Please feel free to look inside @

Cameron pledges support for Aung San Suu Kyi as Burmese icon meets PM, Prince Charles and Camilla on visit to her beloved Britain

• Nobel peace laureate made a special request to see Royal couple on tour 
• David Cameron said he was one of Ms Suu Kyi’s ‘greatest admirers’
  
• Pledged to build institutional pressure for constitutional changes in Burma
  
• She is currently prevented from standing for president in 2015

By Daily Mail Reporter

PUBLISHED: 20:37 GMT, 23 October 2013 |

Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi was reunited with the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall on a visit to Britain today.

The Burmese opposition leader made a special request to see the royal couple on a tour which also saw her meet political leaders including Prime Minister David Cameron, Labour leader Ed Miliband and Foreign Secretary William Hague.

Mr Cameron backed her efforts to amend the Burmese constitution, which currently prevents her standing for president in 2015.

 

Aung San Suu Kyi met Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall at Clarence House during a visit to the UK

 

 

They spoke for about 45 minutes in the palace’s Garden Room after Suu Kyi made a special request to see them

 

 

Prince Charles gave the Burmese democracy leader a tour of the gardens during her visit

 

 

Earlier in the day, Charles and Camilla accompanied Ms Suu Kyi into the Garden Room at Charles’s London home Clarence House and the Prince explained: ‘There’s endless people taking photographs.’

Ms Suu Kyi replied: ‘You’ve got to obey the photographers.’

And the Prince assured her: ‘That’s by far the best policy.’

Ms Suu Kyi met the Royal couple shortly before they attended the christening of Prince George. 

She has close connections with Britain having read philosophy, politics and economics at St Hugh’s College, Oxford, between 1964 and 1967, before settling in the university city with her late husband Michael Aris, a Tibetan scholar.

In July 1989, around a year after her return to her homeland to care for her mother, Ms Suu Kyi was placed under house arrest by the ruling military which feared the influence of a woman whose father was instrumental in gaining Burma’s freedom from British rule.

She remained there for much of the next 20 years, finally being released in November 2010.

Her husband died of prostate cancer in 1999 at the age of 53. He had asked the Burmese authorities to grant him a visa to visit her one last time, but was refused.

 

Prince Charles knew Suu Kyi’s late husband Michael Aris and is now a patron of a trust set up in his memory

Prince Charles showed her the tree planted in her honour at Clarence House last year

 

 

Prince Charles met the campaigner shorty before attending the christening of his grandson, Prince George

 Charles knew Mr Aris and the year the scholar died he became patron of the Michael Aris Memorial Trust for Tibetan and Himalayan Studies.

Charles and Ms Suu Kyi have another connection apart from his links to her late husband.

Lord Mountbatten, the prince’s great uncle, and the campaigner’s father, General Aung San, were involved in important events leading up to Burma’s independence from British rule.

As supreme allied commander of South East Asia Lord Mountbatten held negotiations in 1943 with Aung San, Burma’s war minister, who switched his country’s military allegiance from Japan to Britain and helped the Allies defeat the Japanese in his homeland.

The general went on to play a crucial role in Burma becoming an independent nation before he was assassinated in 1947, months before independence was realised.

The Prime Minister, who said he was one of Ms Suu Kyi’s ‘greatest admirers’, pledged to build international pressure for the constitutional changes.

Welcoming her to Downing Street, Mr Cameron said Britain would do ‘everything we can’ to support Ms Suu Kyi in her efforts to change the constitution, which will require the agreement of the current president Thein Sein and the military.

 

Suu Kyi later met David Cameron at Downing Street where he backed her calls for a change to the Burmese constitution

 

 

 

 

The Prime Minister pledged to build international pressure for the constitutional changes

 

 

Mr Cameron said that some progress seen in Burma on human rights needs to be sustained

 Mr Cameron said: ‘You are hugely admired in this country, I am one of your greatest admirers – for everything that you have done for your country but also for everything you stand for in the world.

‘Your example and your perseverance in your beliefs is a huge inspiration to people across Britain and people around the world.

‘We wish you well with everything that you are doing and want to do everything we can to support you.’

He said there had been progress on human rights in the country, with the release of political prisoners and Ms Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy winning seats in a by-election.

But he added: ‘The most important message is that progress needs to be sustained and, in particular, we need to see the constitution amended.

‘It would be completely wrong for elections to be held under a constitution that really excludes one person, who happens to be the leader of democracy in Burma, to be excluded from the highest office in the land.

 

Cameron announced support for Suu Kyi’s plans to renovate the Rangoon General Hospital

 

Ms Suu Kyi also met William Hague, Justine Greening and Ed Miliband during her visit

‘Those would be no elections at all, in my view. Those would not be democratic elections, the constitution has to be changed in that way and in other ways.

‘We will do everything we can to build the international pressure to send the clearest possible message to the Burmese government that these changes must be made.’

Ms Suu Kyi said: ‘The crucial issue at the moment is to make amendments to the constitution.

‘If the process of democratisation is to move forward, if it is to be sustainable, we have to amend the constitution to make it a democratic one, one that will ensure that the future of our society is going to be rooted in genuine democratic institutions.’

The Burmese opposition leader added: ‘Although there has been some progress there has not yet been enough and in order to carry it forward we have to address this very important issue of constitutional change, of inclusive development which must have, at its heart, providing jobs for our young people and for others.’

Asked about progress on religious freedom and citizenship, Ms Suu Kyi said: ‘It’s for the president and his government to set a timeframe for their policies with regard to citizenship or any other matter that the government has to deal with.

‘If you want me to give you a timeframe you had better make sure that I become president.’

Mr Cameron announced support for Ms Suu Kyi’s plans for the renovation of the Rangoon General Hospital, with the UK funding a team to assess plans for the renovation of the 1,500-bed facility.

International Development Secretary Justine Greening said: ‘Rangoon General Hospital has offered life-saving healthcare to the Burmese people for generations and it is right that we help Aung San Suu Kyi in her work to restore this crucial institution.

‘Her project shows that Burma is getting back to business and I am pleased to support this and the country’s wider agenda of healthcare reform.’

Ms Suu Kyi also met Labour leader Ed Miliband, who said she was an ‘inspiration to politicians across the world’.

 

Tags: Aung San Suu Kyi, Buddhism, Burma, Burma Digest, David Law, Myanmar, Nobel Peace Prize, Rangoon, Saviors, Saw Maung, Than Shwe, United States, Yangon