According to CCTV, Xinhua News Agency, the spokesman of Myanmar's ruling party, the National League for Democracy, confirmed that in the early morning of February 1, local time, the chairman of the NLD, Myanmar's state senior minister and foreign minister Aung San Suu Kyi, and Myanmar President Win Min, and other NLD high-level officials were taken away and detained by the Myanmar military.
Myanmar held a general election last November, and the NLD won by an absolute margin. Myanmar's military recently questioned the issues that appeared on the voters' list in the general election, saying it "does not rule out taking over the regime."
Subsequently, the Burmese military issued a notice announcing the withdrawal of power. Subsequently, the Presidential Office issued an order declaring a state of emergency for a period of one year. The order was signed by Vice President Wu Minrui.
We find a Triptych 2015 article and look at Aung San Suu Kyi, the quadruple life before the campaign.
( Aung San Suu Kyi )
"On the last night of March 1988, in Oxford, as usual, we had a quiet night. The sons were all in bed, and we were reading books. Suddenly the phone rang. Su picks up the microphone and learns that her mother has suffered a serious stroke. She put down the phone and began to pack her bags. I have a hunch that our lives will change from now on. ”
Aung San Suu Kyi's husband, Mike Aris, recalled years later. Aung San Suu Kyi flew hastily from Oxford, England, back to her hometown in Yangon, Myanmar, to visit her mother, unaware that she would spend most of the next 20 years under house arrest in her old home on the shores of Lake Inle in Yangon.
Wife
Before receiving news of a stroke from her Burmese mother that night in late March 1988, Aung San Suu Kyi had lived a quiet life after 15 years of marriage. She lives in Oxford, is the wife of The Tibetologist Mike Aris, and is the mother of two sons, riding her bike to the supermarket every day to buy groceries and cook and wash clothes for her family. Although she lives the life of a housewife in England very low-key, fate is also waiting to awaken her to another identity. "Aung San Suu Kyi has never forgotten who she is or who her father is." Husband Aris said.
During World War II, his father, Aung San, received Japanese military training with others in the legendary "Thirty Heroes" group before entering Burma with the invading Japanese army, when Japan promised to give Burma independence status after expelling the British. When he discovered that this promise was false, he sneaked underground and secretly founded the Burma Independence Army, which he led against the Japanese invading army. He in turn assisted allied British forces re-invading Burma and negotiated burma's eventual independence after World War II with British Labour Prime Minister Clement Attlee. Just a few months before the transfer of power, on July 19, 1947, his entire cabinet of the Provisional Government was shot dead en masse, and Aung San himself was not spared, at the age of 32. It was later discovered that the mastermind was Aung San's political rival, the murderer was punished, and General Aung San was revered as the "father of independence" of Burma.
(Aung San Suu Kyi with husband Mike Aris, eldest son Alexander (1973))
Born on June 19, 1945, Aung San Suu Kyi has few memories of her father. However, everything she learned about him later made her even more eager to learn about her father. Aung San Suu Kyi struggled in the late '70s and early '80s to understand her destiny.
At this time, after graduating from St. Hugh's College in Oxford, the college did not agree to her application for another liberal arts diploma due to her unsatisfactory grades. Somewhat discouraged, she returned to her guardian, Mr. and Mrs. Gore Booth, to live in their home in London's Chelsea district, working part-time as a tutor and as an assistant to Burmese scholars. She was hired to write children's books "Let's Go to Myanmar", "Let's Go to Nepal", "Let's Go to Bhutan", and continued to collect books and papers about her father, and also wrote a book about her father, "Aung San", published by the University of Queensland.
( General Aung San, the "father of independence" of Burma )
At the same time, Aung San Suu Kyi silently cut off her ties with the Burmese military junta at the time. In 1967, Burmese junta leader Nawin summoned two of Aung San Suu Kyi and Aung San U, two children of Aung San Suu Kyi and Aung San U, who were in England, to visit his home while he was on vacation at his own residence in Wimbledon, but Aung San Suu Kyi refused on the grounds that he was preparing for the final exams.
Just when Daw Aung San Suu Kyi did not know what to do with her relationship with her homeland, she met Mike Aris, who studied Tibetan history, through her guardian's son Christopher. Before coming to England to study, 15-year-old Aung San Suu Kyi traveled to New Delhi in 1960 with her mother, Du Qingzhi, who was an Indian ambassador, to attend secondary school there, and Du Qingzhi became the first female ambassador in Myanmar's history. Aung San Suu Kyi received an orthodox education as a high-class Indian lady, tailoring, embroidery, flower arrangement, piano and riding.
So when Aris met Aung San Suu Kyi in Britain, she was a petite, white-skinned, long-haired, well-behaved girl wearing a sarong in traditional Burmese clothing, but speaking English with an Indian upper-class accent. She was completely different from the style of the young British who was wearing a wide-collared shirt, flared pants, short skirts, boots, and listening to the Beatles, with a serious expression, vaguely showing her not simple family background.
( Burmese junta leader Ne Win )
Aung San Suu Kyi and Aris spent the first three years together. After separating from London, Aris returned to Thimphu, the capital of Bhutan, to continue as a private tutor to the Royal Family and to study the early history of Bhutan. Aung San Suu Kyi went to graduate school at the Institute of International Affairs at New York University through the association of burmese friend Ma Than E, but gave up halfway. He then relied on his hometown and unannounced Secretary-General U Thant's connections to find a job at the United Nations Secretarial Service in New York.
In the summer of 1970, Aris traveled from Bhutan to New York on his way back to England, where he became engaged to Aung San Suu Kyi, and the following spring, Aung San Suu Kyi also visited Aris in Bhutan. At the end of her third year at the United Nations Secretarial Service, Aung San Suu Kyi decided that no matter how promising the development prospects here are, it is better to teach her husband and son.
(On April 1, 2012, supporters of Aung San Suu Kyi awaited the results of Myanmar's parliamentary elections outside the NLD office.)
Aris became the center of gravity of Aung San Suu Kyi's life, writing a letter to Aris in less than two days before returning to England to get married, writing a total of 187 letters. But in the letter, she also feared that her family and compatriots would misunderstand the marriage, believing that her dedication to her homeland would diminish.
She kept reminding Aris that one day she would return to Myanmar and that she would need his support. "I ask for only one thing, in case my fellow citizens need me, you are willing to assist me in fulfilling the responsibilities they have entrusted me with. Whether it really will happen, I don't know, but the possibility is always there. Aung San Suu Kyi wrote in the letter.
"I imagined that if that day had to come, it would be late in our lives, when the children had grown up." Aris did not guess correctly, how to predict that after more than a decade of the family's peaceful life, Aung San Suu Kyi, under the call of her mother's serious illness, was inevitably involved in the political whirlpool of the motherland.
(On August 1, 1988, Burmese government soldiers patrolled the streets of Yangon with full armor.)
Daughter
Fate allowed Aung San Suu Kyi to return to Myanmar as a daughter to take care of her mother, and also allowed her as a daughter to continue her father's mission. In 1941 at Yangon General Hospital, the patient Aung San met his future wife, Nurse Du Qingzhi, and 47 years later, Du Qingzhi became a patient due to a stroke, cared for by Aung San Suu Kyi, where she witnessed the 1988 military government crackdown on demonstrators.
(On April 1, 2012, Aung San Suu Kyi was kissed by a supporter when she went to a polling station in Gommu, Myanmar, to observe the pre-election situation.
At this time, Myanmar was in chaos, and the richest country in Southeast Asia became one of the poorest countries in the world. The junta practiced a dictatorshipal and oppressive reign of terror, nationalizing everything, distributing privileges at the top and poverty at the bottom. At that time, residents did not trust the banks and exchanged cash for large denominations of banknotes and kept them at home. In order to curb inflation, the junta abruptly announced that it would stop the circulation of large-denomination banknotes. This undoubtedly exacerbated the poverty of the bottom, with people taking to the streets to protest and the military junta's repression killing and injuring thousands of people. Aung San Suu Kyi, who was caring for her mother in the hospital, witnessed this bloody reality firsthand.
As a result of repeated bloody clashes between the military and the people, the leader of the junta, General Ne Win, held an extraordinary congress of the Myanmar Socialist Platform Party on July 23, 1988, delivered a speech stating that he would resign from the presidency and proposed a multi-party system, holding general elections and electing new members of parliament. "I remember watching the conference scene on TV with Su, and she was as excited as everyone else in Myanmar." Aris later said, "I think it was at that time that Su made up his mind to come forward. ”
Protesters were desperate for someone to unite all the demonstrators, and posters of Aung San Vu, the eldest son of Aung San U, could be seen everywhere in the streets of Yangon in July. The second son, Aung San Lam, drowned in a pond when he was 9 years old, and Aung San Ng became the only surviving son of the Aung San family, but he did not have the heart. As a child, Aung San Ng went to imperial college london in the United Kingdom to study electrical engineering, and then soon worked in San Diego, USA, married a Burmese woman, and renounced burmese citizenship to obtain American citizenship.
After Ne Win stepped down, the chaos did not end, nor did the bloody clashes between the army and the people. Aung San Suu Kyi returned to recuperate with her discharged mother at her home on the shores of Lake Inya, opposite the large villa in Ne Win across the lake. With a new wave of protests and a rush of people rushing to knock on her door, Aung San Suu Kyi's home soon became the center of political activity across the country. "Even if you think that politics has nothing to do with you, politics will take the initiative to come to the door, and you can't avoid it." She once said so.
On August 8, 1988, a dispute between students in a tea house sparked a strike by yangon dock workers, which led to thousands of people marching against martial law in front of city hall. Near noon, the army made a sudden move to expel the demonstrators, and the government said more than 100 people were killed... Unrest spreads. Aung San Suu Kyi did not participate in the demonstration, which caused resentment among many student leaders. Nyo Ohn Myint, a history teacher at Yangon University who was taking part in the demonstration at the same time, approached Aung San Suu Kyi and asked her to become the leader of the protests. Aung San Suu Kyi initially refused, saying she would only be a mediator between the government and protesting students, but then she relaxed, explaining that she did not want to be a speculator, did not want to take over the movement that was already underway, and if the people really needed Aung San's daughter, "I will do it." Aung San Suu Kyi set up her home's restaurant as a temporary office, which later became the main office of her own party.
During this time, Aung San Suu Kyi remained in the arms of the family, caring for her seriously ill mother, urging her son to do his homework, and squeezing out a little time to write her research papers on Burmese literature. And when she addressed nearly a million people on August 26, 1988, in the square outside the Shwedagon Pagoda West Gate of The Shede Palace in Yangon, Aris stood behind her with her two sons. "The crisis in front of me is of national concern, and as my father's daughter, I cannot stay out of it."
Soon, at the end of September, the independent party, the National League for Democracy, was born, with Aung San Suu Kyi as secretary-general. Just as Aung San Suu Kyi was preparing to devote herself to the New Party, her mother died at the end of December. But now it's not just her, but even Aris and her two children know that Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has a new responsibility. Compared to her status as a wife and mother, Aung San Suu Kyi needs to continue to be the daughter of Myanmar's national hero.
On Martyrs' Day on July 19, 1989, Aung San Suu Kyi temporarily cancelled the march, but many people still marched to the Martyrs' Shrine, and the army arrested the crowd under martial law. Although there was no bloodshed, the next night more than 40 members of Aung San Suu Kyi's NLD advisory group were sent to Vinh Thanh Prison, and she herself was placed under house arrest for Chapter 10 of the Penal Code, "Crimes of endangering national security."
Political prisoners
"The worst of the previous years, they threw me into the abyss." After her release in 2010, Aung San Suu Kyi told bBC reporters about her early days under house arrest. Party members, friends, children, husbands were forced to leave her, with no visitors, no phones. On Christmas Day 1989, the Burmese government allowed Aris to return to Yangon to visit Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, by which time she had developed a regular life, waking up at 4:30 a.m. every day and beginning with a 1-hour meditation. Aris later recalled: "Those days were the happiest memories of my married life, the days were so calm, and Aung San Suu Kyi had developed a regular routine of exercising, reading, and playing the piano." I took out the same Christmas present every day for several days. I don't doubt it will be the last time we'll get together. At the end of the holiday, Aris left, he could no longer apply for a new visa, and the Burmese citizenship of his two sons was revoked. "The Burmese government intends to break her will by separating her from her child, hoping that she will accept permanent exile," Aris said. But Aung San Suu Kyi knew that as long as she left Myanmar, she could not come back, and her party and its imprisoned party members were likely to suffer more tragic fate, so she decided to stay in Myanmar and live alone. During her house arrest, there were numerous soldiers outside her mansion, and 15 soldiers guarded the house, accompanied by no one but housekeepers, housekeeper daughters and maids.
Aung San Suu Kyi has been reluctant to talk much about the personal and emotional costs of her choices, and the negative impact of these choices on children is rarely mentioned. "The sacrifice of giving up on their sons is great, and it is the biggest regret as a mother." She said. With no money, she asked the guards to move the furniture out and sell it in exchange for food. She later said in an interview: "I sometimes didn't have money to eat, I lost my hair because of malnutrition, and my weight later dropped to 41 kilograms. I feared dying of heart failure instead of starvation, and then my eyes went wrong and my spine degenerated. ”
When she received an honorary degree from the University of Natal a few years later, her acceptance speech consisted mainly of the realization of the early days of house arrest: "We must walk through the path of a miserable life, try to find strength from tribulations, and gain wisdom from sorrow." "Buddhism has helped her a lot, and Aris once gave her a copy of Master Bandida's book' In This Life at Christmas, and she got something from her daily meditation." We want a full democracy with compassion, and care and compassion should be part of politics. Recalling a visit to Master Bandida a few years later, she wrote, "Bandida said that people should not only tell the truth, but also that what they say should be harmonious, generous, and beneficial to everyone." ”
On May 27, 1990, Myanmar held its first universal suffrage in 30 years, and the military junta had previously introduced new rules that Burmese whose family members were foreign were not eligible to stand for election, and Aung San Suu Kyi was excluded. Although all the NLD's top leaders were imprisoned, the party won the election by an overwhelming margin, winning 392 of the 485 seats in Parliament. But Aung San Suu Kyi remains imprisoned, and the military remains in power. In response to repeated questions about the transfer of power, the Junta-run Reconstruction Commission said in July that because the Constitution was in a vacuum at the time, the old Constitution of 1974 had been repealed in September 1988 and had not yet been replaced by a new Constitution, so that 100 of the 485 elected deputies would need to be elected to form a Constituent Assembly together with 600 military officers who served as government advisers, and that a new government would be formed only after the constitution was completed. Until then, the Reconstruction Commission remained in power, while the winning parliamentary candidates were required to sign Declaration 190, renouncing their right to form a government.
In 1991, Aung San Suu Kyi won the Nobel Peace Prize, and alexander, the eldest son, 18, addressed his mother at the award ceremony. After her release in 1995, Aung San Suu Kyi also mentioned South Africa in front of the media: "Former sworn enemies, working together for the well-being of the people, why can't we?" ”
By this time in Burma, the Ne Win era had ended. Today, the three giants of the junta are Chinnew, Dan Rui and Maung Ay. Michigan Chinnew abandoned Ne Win's economic policies, agreed to foreign oil and gas extraction, signed armistice agreements with most of the border minorities, opened up tourism markets, and gradually internationalized them. But Aung San Suu Kyi, who had regained her free status at this time, called on Western countries to continue sanctioning Myanmar and asked foreign tourists not to visit Myanmar because most of the money spent by tourists went into the pockets of the junta, and promoting tourism was support for the junta dictatorship. "There is only one privileged group in Myanmar that is making money."
Because of this proposition, many of her followers left her, and her early personal secretary, Madanji, even turned against her. As a result, Myanmar, the largest country in Southeast Asia, attracts 200,000 tourists a year, compared with 14 million in neighboring Thailand, and Myanmar's tourism revenue is only 1% of Thailand's. It was not until the final release of Aung San Suu Kyi in June 2011 that NLD changed its policy on tourism. "It may be a good thing for individual tourists to come in and see Myanmar and understand the real situation in the country." Aung San Suu Kyi said.
But then another test lay before Aung San Suu Kyi. In January 1999, Aung San Suu Kyi learned that her husband, Aris, had been diagnosed with prostate cancer in the United Kingdom. Even at the request of Prince Charlie, the Burmese military junta did not issue Aris visas so that the couple could see each other for the last time. At the last moment, Myanmar's official newspaper only stated that Aung San Suu Kyi could return to England to visit her husband at any time, and stressed that staying by her dying husband was the duty of a wife who obeyed the woman's morals. The couple knew the situation well that she would not be able to return after leaving Myanmar, and Aris had told Aung San Suu Kyi at the last moments not to come. On the day of her husband's death, Aung San Suu Kyi simply said, "I am lucky to have a good husband who has always understood what I need, and nothing can take away this happiness." ”
"In my research on Aung San's biography, I have also asked the question that Aung San's distance from her husband and children, and her choice to stay in Burma rather than return to England as soon as possible after her husband's death, leads to suspicion that for Aung San, the power, political struggle, and credibility are far greater than her family." Barbara Victor, an American scholar who wrote Aung San Suu Kyi: Nobel Laureates and Prisoners of Yangon, also questioned the journal, "but then you find out that this is a great sacrifice she has made for the happiness and democratic process of all Burmese." ”
statesman
"I'm a politician." Aung San Suu Kyi told The Guardian after finally ending house arrest. A 2012 statement by Aung San Suu Kyi said: "As the leader of a political party, you must have the ambition to lead your own country, because it means that your party must win, and every party has such a desire." In Marx Weber's theory, the ethics of conscience of intellectuals will eventually merge with the ethics of responsibility of politicians. After lifting her house arrest, Aung San Suu Kyi actively participated in Burmese politics, and made rational decisions based on realistic considerations in all aspects, no longer deliberately adding sadness to herself.
In 2010, when Thein Sein was 77 years old, General Than Shwe organized parliamentary elections, and the Federal Association for the Consolidation and Development, once formed by the military, became the Federal Consolidation and Development Party, receiving the most votes, and Thein Sein was put on the throne as a successor and released Aung San Suu Kyi a week after the election. Aung San Suu Kyi was successfully elected to the Myanmar Parliament in a by-election vote held on 1 April 2012, followed by her announcement of her candidacy for the 2015 general election at the end of 2013. Under Myanmar's constitution, adopted in 2008, a person with a foreign family member cannot serve as president or vice president. While Aung San Suu Kyi's husband is a British citizen and her two sons are also foreign nationals, the NLD is still fighting to amend the constitution to pave the way for Aung San Suu Kyi's presidential race.
As the 2015 general election approaches, Aung San Suu Kyi's visit to China at this time "undoubtedly put more pressure on the junta from the international community to compete for her candidacy in the 2015 general election." The American scholar Barbara Victor made this analysis of this journal.
(Intern Yuwei Hu also contributed to this article)
(Text / Zhang Xingyun Pushi)