The Trials of Aung San Suu Kyi -By Tijjani Abdulsalam

For a woman who has endured a lot: repeated periods of house arrest for almost two decades, prolonged separation from and losing a spouse without even having to chance to say goodbye, and having to stand up to a hopelessly brutal military regime, one feels a lot of sympathy towards Aung San Suu Kyi for the recent turn of events in Myanmar. It would seem that not much has changed after all, following decades of struggles for the entrenchment of democracy, human rights and justice for which Suu Kyi had become synonymous and for which she was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize.

Tijjani Abdulsalam

So what happened? The military struck again, taking power and putting Suu Kyi and members of her cabinet who were parties to a power sharing agreement in custody. The agreement itself was, ab initio, fragile and shaky, in that Suu Kyi had absolutely no control over the Military and some key state institutions. Analyzing the limitations of that power arrangement itself is beyond the scope of this piece but suffice to say that it was one fraught with a lot of mistrust and consequently, could not have stood the test of time.

On the other side of Suu Kyi’s travails lies the part that a lot of people have struggled to reconcile in recent years – the poster lady of democracy, freedom and justice and everything good who appeared before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to defend, rationalize, justify, dismiss and downplay the atrocities of Myanmar’s military against the Rohingya population. The Rohingya, who are mostly Muslims by faith, have been subjected to brutal crackdowns in recent years of 2017 and 2019 and earlier. While the Myanmar Military claims to be fighting Rohingya militants, the brutality of the Military’s actions on the civilian population have been severe and, according to the United Nations, executed with ‘genocidal intent’.

Her defence of the Military’s actions at the ICJ put serious question marks on her credentials as a democracy and peace activist. It has been suggested that her reasons partly lie in guarding against offending the sensibilities of the larger Buddhist population, most of whom are at best, indifferent, or at worst, hateful towards the Rohingya. The reality is that any activist who prioritizes the political gain from protecting the interests of a larger segment, or retaining the support of same over defending the human rights of a minority group is undeserving of the title of an activist. Genuine activism is about doing what is right and pushing those in power to do same.
When your sense of activism is based on numbers then you’re more of a politician than activist. Activism and politics are not always compatible bedfellows. The former is about right and wrong irrespective of numbers. The latter is about numbers, usually irrespective of right and wrong. It seems time and circumstances have revealed Suu Kyi to me more of a politician than an activist, let alone a genuine one.

Tijjani Abdulsalam,
(Twitter:@TeejayKool, Instagram:@mrteejay.13)
Image credit: dawn.com