Aun San Su Zhi, the Nobel Prize Laureate, won the elections with a military dictatorship in Myanmar. The most interesting is ahead

In Myanmar, elections were held that they can say that they mean nothing, except that a new history of the country may begin with them. They were won by the Nobel Prize of the World Aun San Su Zi. She, the daughter of the main fighter for independence in the modern history of this Asian state, once won the parliamentary elections. And she spent 15 years under house arrest ...

Elections were held in Myanmar (a country that was previously called a burma) about which they can say that they mean nothing, except that a new history of the country may begin with them.

Firstly, these were parliamentary elections, and the parliament here is peculiar. A quarter of deputies are appointed by the military regime. To change the constitution dictated by the military and giving them the supreme power, 75% of the vote is required.

Secondly, these were partial elections. There were only 45 seats at stake, which turned out to be vacant, this is not even a parliamentary tithe.

Thirdly, this is only the third elections for more than two decades.

Modern Myanmar is a unique state. It has only two subjects of politics. The military dictatorship is indicatively dull, cruel and faceless (the names of the supreme rulers cannot be remembered, they are not interesting to anyone). And a woman whose name is known to the whole world - Aun San Su Ji.

For the first time they collided 22 years ago, during the first of the mentioned elections.

It was a pure formality, however, forced.

There is no such dictatorship in the modern world that would not call itself democracy. And this forces us to play the public from time to time, to perform rituals from varying degrees. At the same time, it is understood that this is a game with a previously known result, since all the cards are in the same hands. The winner by definition was considered a party in power - so the only one in the political arena. The result was crushing. The newly formed National League for Democracy, led by a novice in the politics of Aun San Su Ji, gathered 60% of the votes, which guaranteed her 80% of the parliamentary seats. Of course, she did not receive them. The elections were canceled as never passed. The following will take place only after 20 years.

His daughter was then two years old.

The daughter of a national hero ... It can be a very comfortable role. Wealth, honor ... Eastern princess received a Western education. School and College in New Delhi, Oxford, London University. Politics, philosophy, economics, orientalism ... Mother is an ambassador to India, which additionally opens the doors to the world, and then the UN Secretary General becomes its compatriot with Tan, and she receives an appointment to the UN in New York. Happy family life crings this pyramid of prosperity and success. Her chosen one is a young Englishman Michael Aris, a gifted scientist, a specialist in Tibetan culture, at one time he even brings up the heir to the Batan throne. They settle in Oxford, two boys are born in them. Cosmopolitan life, academic orbit - what could be more desirable ...

And then 1988 comes, sharply changing all the milestones. He is so gust for events that the timing should be carried out by the days.

March 31. Aun San Su Ji receives a message that his mother has a heart attack, and the first plane flies into the rank to be at the patient's bed.

On July 23, the general does not resign - after 26 years in power. The street boils - it seems that the long -awaited freedom has come. The boiling point came on August 8, 1988. The uprising 8.8.88 The army extinguishes with fire and blood.

This is her first public action, one might say, political confirmation.

On August 26, a half -billion rally gathers in the square in front of the Swedagon Pagoda in the rank. The main speaker on it is Aun San Su Zi. Next to her are a husband and two sons.

The military lies to their State Emergency Committee to democratic requirements - all power is transferred to the State Committee for the restoration of the law and order. Later, the name will be corrected on a more harmonious - the State Council of World and Development (Pure Orvelian). The military dictatorship was replaced by a military junta. With one hand she pulls the reins. Not more than four not to get together! A special act confirmed the rights to sleepless arrests. But the other hand releases reins. Parliamentary elections are announced, while multi -party systems are allowed - with obvious calculation, however, that the multiplicity of parties will pull the opposition.

On December 27, her mother dies. The funeral of the widow of the national hero turns into a trouser, on which his daughter swears to serve her country, like her father and mother - until his death, if she had to.

So met at the critical moment of the Burmese history of Aun San Su Ji and Democracy. The masses that seek the change, they needed a name that would dawn them. The young woman who incorporated the culture of the two worlds heard this call.

From that moment on, nothing could stop her. The famous episode on April 5 in the Iravadi Valley proves that this is not a metaphor. On that day, the column, led by Aun San Su Zi, met the line of the soldier. They lifted the rifles, preparing for the “Pl!” Team, but Aun San Su Swi did not even slow down. And so carelessly passed through the system of frozen soldiers, as if in a stupor.

The twenty -year history of this house arrest is an epic saga of confrontation. Opponents are grotesquely unequal. Under the act of protecting the state of 1975 (article 10b), anyone can be planted without a court decision for a house arrest for a period of as much as five years. According to the “Law on the Protection of the State from threats from those who intend to commit subversive acts” (Article 10a) of anyone can be sent to prison. And Aun San Su Su Zhy is only a direct speech, only words, each of which falls under the law and under the act. But an amazing thing, the dictatorship is clearly afraid of his prisoner.

What she was doing at home under arrest, they once asked Aun San Su Ji. “I read the works on philosophy and politics, as well as the biographies of outstanding people that my husband sends me. I practice in French and Japanese, ”she replied. “I play the piano Bach ...”

She also speaks out. Including in such a radical way as the announcement of an perpetual hunger strike, along with the demand to put her in prison next to student leaders who are taken in her house, who are tortured. She will stop the hunger strike only when the mockery of the arrested will be discontinued.

The junta all the time leads to her some strange and at the same time clearly forced game. Then the grip is weakened, and foreign ambassadors and ministers are allowed to her house. And once the head of the military regime in the company with other generals meets her.

Then the junta breaks again from his own chain and drags the aun San Su Zhi sitting under the house arrest on the bench of the defendants. The strokes are one more fantastic than the other. For example, tax failure. Why? From the Nobel Prize! There is no longer just anger, there is envy! (By the way, a Fund for Assistance to the Burmese people in healthcare and education was established for the Nobel Million.)

Another loud process was arranged for an even more surprising occasion. Once an American sailed into her house on the lake. It was a complete surprise. The exhausted swimmer was proposed by shelter. When, having restored his strength, he swam back, he was seized. Aun San Su Zhi charged under the article “Violation of the House of Household”.

The generals desperately need one thing: so that it disappears. But they do not dare to kill her - this would cause the tsunami inside the country and the storm abroad. It is also impossible to surround it with a veil - it is not silent. Politicians and journalists are breaking through to her and now and then. Her articles in the international press, interviews, letters each time became a noticeable event.

Sakharov Award for Freedom of Thought (European Parliament, 1990), Nobel Prize of the World (1991), Wallenberg medal (1991) ...

The UN, ASEAN, USA, Great Britain, Japan, and the European Union fights for it. Governments promise money for a return to the rule of law. Threaten sanctions for stubbornness. However, Beijing and Moscow are opposed to sanctions by the terrorist regime. (Beijing-it’s still clear: Myanmar is his client and vassal. But Moscow cannot even refer to material interests. Today, the story is repeated with Syria. It seems to be close to terrorist regimes-a conscious choice. It is difficult to understand, but it is also impossible to refute.)

The generals clearly give up the pleasure of praising the world "no". But they are not able to cope with their victim. An unprecedented house arrest is a compromise. The generals cannot afford anything else. Less, too, means recognizing your defeat.

There is only one way out - to squeeze it out of the country. Aun San Su Suzhi is proposed a deal: freedom in exchange for departure. The lady responds with a refusal. Enraged jailers launch psychological terror. They put pressure on the most secret and sick. My husband and children are denied visas in Myanmar. If she misses her relatives so, let her fly to London. At the same time, no doubt - the road was ordered back to the country.

The situation is dramatized when it turns out that her husband has incurable cancer and the period given to him is calculated for months. He has one desire to fly to say goodbye. The last request of the dying is joined by the Pope John Pavel II, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. The junta sends dad and the Secretary General to hell.

March 27, 1999, at the age of 53, Michael Aris dies in London. Aun San Su Ji will not be able to say goodbye to him. Sons are not allowed to her either. While she is under house arrest, she will have her grandchildren, but she is not given to see them.

It is easy for me to list the milestones of this amazing fate. In my memory, Luke Besson's new film “Lady”. Lady is Aun San Su Ji. She is played by the Malaysian actress Michelle Yeo, playing amazingly, as if she were a double of her heroine. The film is artistic, but the script, one might say, is documentary - it is so accurately followed by the real canvas of events. Looking ahead, I will allow myself to say that this is perhaps the most documentary film that I had to see. And the most artistic documentary. I saw the film at the recent world economic forum, the audience there is specific, and all this political economic bomond standing up the video message, which was sent to Davos Aun San Su Zi.

The film "Lady" starred in Thailand. On the border with Myanmar, a house was recreated, where Aun San Su Ji was under arrest. This is her father’s house, the same, on the shore of the lake that the exalted American crossed. It turns out that he wanted to warn her about the threatening danger ... On May 2, 2008, when the Nargis cyclone fell on the country, the roof was torn off the house, the electric wires were smashed into shreds, and the junta did not give repairs for a long time, so Bach had to play by candlelights. Luke Besson said that with the help of satellite aerial photography, he tried to reproduce the house “up to a centimeter”, right up to how the sun rays fall at different times of the day. When, after the end of the filming, he got into the real house, the director said, he was amazed: everything around was familiar. The atmosphere in the film is extremely reliable. The masses are played by refugees from the camp on the border. And also in the cinema, hundreds of meters of shooting made in Myanmar with a hidden camera were included.

- Where did you find such a wonderful actress? -I asked at the press conference of Luke Besson.

“She found me,” the director answered. “She brought me the script to consult in a friendly manner.” I read and asked her: "Do you have a director?"

Honestly, I asked the question, I can’t come up with stupid ones. Michelle Yeo is the famous Hong Kong and Hollywood actress. Bond girl in "Tomorrow never dies." The main character in the "stolen tiger, hidden a dragon."

And now from eternity - into a current policy. In Myanmar is interesting today.

Twenty years after those failed fateful, new parliamentary elections were announced. Political prisoner No. 1 was proposed to be consecrated by the authority of her party, despite her herself, she was forbidden to run. She refused. The ruling party recorded victory at her account. A few days later, on November 13, 2010, with Aun San Su Ji, they shot.

On March 30, 2011, the military junta announced its disbandment. Here is now the civil government.

... Three years ago I happened to get into Myanmar Tourist. The main shock with which I can no longer part, I will try to describe now. The ritual Buddhist structure is a stupa that resembles an crypt, a grave stone than a temple. Imagine a number of straps that have grown into the ground or growing from the Earth, of a very different size and degree of architectural perfection. Many rows of the straps that go in all directions, as far as it can embrace. This is the dead kingdom of stupa, filling the entire space around, has its own explanation. After himself, a person should leave not a house, not a farm or a factory, but a stupa glorifying a Buddha. Even the most primitive. For this - and for nothing else - a person comes into this life.

In the second half of the twentieth century, Burma entered a backward colonial country. However, she is not one. But all her neighbors - distant and nearby - one way or another, sooner or later found the strength for a jerk in modern. And this country is stuck. And here it is too late to nod to the colonial heritage or centuries -old traditions. Here all responsibility lies in the ruling mode. In 1962, the military threw off the civil government, since then they have always ruled. They mercilessly cleaned all who interfered with them.

They called their system: “Democracy contributing to the heyday of discipline” - the Burmese version of “sovereign democracy”.

The result is obvious and logical. They have no one to blame. The military turned out to be mediocre rulers. They not only could not provide the required progress. They strangled all the development sprouts.

... In the street landscape of Yangon (former ranking), two colors clearly prevailed. Orange - the color of the chitons of Buddhist monks. And khaki is a military uniform. Monks and soldiers are everywhere. Monasticism - duty. All youth should go through monasticism. To feed the monk is a holy cause. Armed soldiers patrolled the streets as an occupied space.

My other Burmese shock is the television paintings of soldiers dealing with the monks. When the monks rebel, this means that all possible boundaries are crossed. The paintings of the beating by soldiers of the monks finally convinced the world that the dictatorship in Myanmar - outside of everything.

But now, it seems, within the country there is no doubt that military dictatorship is bankrupt. Moreover, inside the most ruling caste, an understanding of the exhaustion of the model came. Hence the change.

Skeptics say that all these are forced measures, and they are aimed at lifting economic sanctions, attracting capital to the country ... They say that all this is unsteady and not for long. And here is a meaningful prediction of the main astrologer in the regime that this summer the president will be awaiting serious health problems. Astrologers in this country believe much more than political scientists. And in general, so that the army completely leaves the stage, and not just retreats backstage - this simply cannot be!

It is really difficult to believe in it. There are no guarantees that the country has embarked on normal rails. In addition to one hope. Her name is Aun San Su Ji.

On parliamentary pre -election last Sunday, she won a double victory. I won unconditionally in my district. And out of 45 disputed places, the members of her party, according to preliminary data, got 40.

Nevertheless, is it not far from even from the 1990 triumph, if you recall that there are 664 places in parliament? Not so far. 22 years later, a fragile prisoner launched the history of her country in the right direction. She did not just prove that she was right. She put the military regime in its place.

"We believe in the best, but ready for the worst!" - says Aun San Su Zi.

Aun San Su Zi - About Fear

“In a system that denies the existence of basic human rights, the order of the day begins to dictate fear. Fear of imprisonment, fear of torture, fear of death, fear of losing friends, family, property or livelihood, fear of poverty, fear of being in isolation, fear of defeat. The most insidious form of fear is the one that is camouflaged under common sense or even wisdom, condemning as stupid, reckless, meaningless or useless small everyday acts of courage, which help a person preserve self -esteem and innate human dignity. It is not easy for the people, overwhelmed by fear, accustomed to the fact that power is the right to free themselves from the suffocating miasms of fear. Nevertheless, even with the most pressing state machine, courage rises over and over again, because fear is an unnatural state of a civilized person. ”

“Not the authorities corrupt, but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who are upstairs. The fear of the whip corrupts those who are below. "

“The only real prison is fear. The only real freedom is freedom from fear. ”

“Never let your fears prevent you from doing what, you know, right.”

“Among the basic freedoms that people who dream of a complete and unstressed life are striving for, freedom from fear stands apart. She is both a means and a goal. Народ, которому суждено построить государство, в котором сильные демократические институты учреждены прочно как гарантии против злоупотреблений государственной власти, должен прежде научиться освободить свое сознание от апатии и страха».

«Бывает дар бесстрашия, но, возможно, более ценным является мужество, обретенное через попытки, мужество, которое происходит из воспитания привычки не давать страху диктовать тебе поступки и действия, мужество, которое может быть названо «достоинство вопреки давлению» — достоинство, которое вновь и вновь возрождается перед лицом грубого нарастающего давления».

«Страх — это привычка. I'm not afraid. "