Daw Aung San Suu Kyi's celebrates 75th birthday

19 June 2020
Daw Aung San Suu Kyi's celebrates 75th birthday
A large mosaic-like combo-picture of Myanmar State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi made from portraits of 7,500 supporters holding wish placards on the day ahead of her 75th birthday in Yangon, Myanmar, 18 June 2020. Photo: Lynn Bo Bo/EPA

The following is an interview that Mizzima’s Editor-in-Chief, Soe Myint, did 21 years ago about the 54th birthday anniversary program of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi in India. At that time, Mizzima, based in exile in India, did not have a website (and other media platforms) and sent out the news and information through email and fax to subscribers and readers. This was the Mizzima interview with Ms Madhu Kishwar, editor of MANUSHI, a woman journal in India - http://www.manushi.in

Ms Madhu Kishwar and Indian supporters proposed June 19 (Daw Aung San Suu Kyi's birthday) to be "Asian Women Day". Obviously, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, who was under house arrest in Rangoon at that time, could not read this interview. Here is the text in full to celebrate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi's 75th birthday.

Indians will join Burmese to celebrate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi's birthday

18th June 1999

By MIZZIMA News Group

Nobel Peace Prize winner and Burma's democratic leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is entering her 54th birthday on June 19, 1999. On the occasion of her birthday, Indian Women journal "MANUSHI", India International Center and India-based Women Rights & Welfare Association of Burma (WRWAB) is organizing a celebration and a public discussion on "Women and Political Reforms: How to Make Politics Worthy of Women".

The public discussion will be initiated by Mrs. Najma Heptullah, Deputy-Speaker of the Indian Parliament (Raja Sabha), Mrs. Maneka Gandhi, State Minister for Social Welfare, the Government of India, Ms. Uma Bharti, State Minister for Agriculture, the Government of India, Ms.

Jaya Jaitely, General Secretary of the Samata Party and Mr. Mani Shanker Iyer, a leader of the Congress Party.

The public discussion will be held at 6:00 p.m at India International Centre in New Delhi. As part of the celebrations, the Women Rights and Welfare Association of Burma will present a brief account of Burmese women's role in the pro-democracy movement, followed by a cultural programme and a 10-minute video film on Aung San Suu Kyi.

The finale of the evening of the day would be a special Burmese dinner prepared by Burmese students in India.

MANUSHI, an Indian journal about women and society, has proposed Daw Aung San Suu Kyi's birthday to celebrate as Asian Women's Day.

The following is the interview with Ms. Madhu Kishwar, who is the editor of the Manushi journal and also a well-known woman activist in India on her views on Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and her proposal for the Asian Women's Day.

Interview with Ms. Madhu Kishwar

Q: Can you tell us about the programme which you are jointly organizing with India International Centre and WRWAB on 19th June, Aung San Suu Kyi's birthday?

A: MANUSHI is keen to commemorate 19th June, Aung San Suu Kyi's birthday because I believe she is one of the very very few women leaders or in fact one of the very few political leaders in today's world who does us proud. I feel proud of the fact that she is Asian. I feel proud of the fact that she is born of a culture which has very closed links with India and she feels to me my very own.

We have seen in the last several decades that women entry into politics at least in the sub-continent has thrown up very shameful pieces of womanity...very women that you look at Benazar Bhuto of Pakistan, or you look at the two women prime ministers Bangladesh have experienced or even our Indira Gandhi and several other women notable political leaders... very few of them...hardly any of them in fact has set any new standards. They tend to follow the game that men had laid out and in fact out to do men in corruption, out to do men in authoritarian ways of functioning. They have not brought about any meaningful change in their respective societies. For a while, I thought Sri Lankan President Kumaratunga was one such woman. But she too has faltered after coming into power, having stay in power for some years.

Aung San Suu Kyi, I believe, is one of the few political leaders who brings a new vision and a lot of compassion and courage into politics where by a new civilization of norms not only new political norms but new civilization of norms are attempted to be set into motion in the very same way that Mahata Gandhi did and it is not for nothing that she is known as Gandhi of Burma just as Mandela who is another outstanding political figure of her times as known as Gandhi of South Africa. And Gandhi's vision was that women entry into politics should cleanse politics, should improve the quality of public life that 'in the war against war women of the world should and must lead' and Aung San Suu Kyi in that sense lives up to the Mahatama vision which vision I also hold very dear. It hurts me very much to see women turn to corrupt, authoritarian ways after entering into politics.

But Aung San Suu Kyi is one of the few we know who have remained steadfast even while facing a very brutal military regime, a very shameless military regime which has exceeded all decency in persecuting its own people, in suppressing voices of dissent in their own society and in crushing the democracy movement in Burma. But her compassion, her courage, her steadfastness and her clarity of vision I think are very inspiring. I think this is the role model I would like women in India to have before them. When they think of wanting to enhance political participation of women in public life which is why we are also in order to commemorate this day, MANUSHI has organized a public meeting and seminar on this question of women and political reforms which is to say how do we bring about changes, structural changes, institutional reforms in our politics. So as to make politics women worthy so that women don't have to be in politics using the same stratagem and rules that men used which is to say you use violence, you use theft and robbery which is what politics has come to me and misuse of public power for personal ends. Politics of accountability, politics of people's control over their representatives and their institutions and I believe that Aung San Suu kyi represents that.

That's why we are linking the two. I also see Aung San Suu Kyi as a victim of metro-politics. On the one hand, there is an army with all its guns and weapons of destruction at their disposal which is all they have to crush the movement that she is leading and on the other hand, this woman who represents the quintessential feminine force. She has no weapons, only her courage and her ideas and her vision with which to inspire her people and use those as bonding force to lead her people to break the freedom. In that sense, it is the battle between the feminine principle in civilization and the masculine as represented by those who believe masculinity about force, violence.

I do believe that this is a very important battle, a civilizational battle. It is not just a political battle for Burma. And in her victory would be the victory of all those people who believe honesty, truth, courage, compassion have a place in public life that politics is not just about power and misuse of power for ugly personal ends.

Q: Why you propose her birthday to celebrate as Asian Women's Day?

A: The reason I feel that this day should be celebrated as Asian Women's Day is that I believe in Third World Countries, there is the tendency in the sub-continent and in most non-developed society to accept all the symbols of struggles from western movements, all the ideas from western movements and just being mere indulging what I called copy-cat feminism.

Like for instance, 8th March is celebrated as International Women Day. Nobody knows what that day represents. Some women in some parts of Europe went on some actions and its history and its symbolism haven't really meant much except that it is now come to be accepted as an International day. But we need to celebrate our own heroines. We need to celebrate our own symbols of struggle.

For me, Aung San Suu Kyi in that sense is the spirit of Asia and I would like to see this day celebrated as not just Burmese women day which is what the Burmese women organizations wanted to but I would like this celebrated as Asian Women Day.

Q: What exactly do you expect from your programme of 19th June?

A: From the whole programme, first I hope and wish that people in India would wake up to the doings and misdoings in their neighbouring country and lend support. Lend much greater support to the pro-democracy forces in Burma and appreciate what is happening. And it is, as I said that a very important struggle just as Gandhi's Satyagraha raised politics to another to a high civilizational norm. Similarly, I think, her movement does exactly that. I feel very sad that most people in India know very little about the goings in Burma, know very little about Aung San Suu Kyi and mostly in the West that she has been celebrated after she got the Nobel Peace Prize. I would like to see, on the one hand, a greater awareness, and a greater bonding with the Burmese people in this hour of trial.

Also that I would like this to be a beginning of on-going endeavour to involve and to engage both women and men into working out far-reaching structural reforms in politics which make it possible for ordinary people, especially women to exercise a greater say in the political affairs of their country. So that democracy is not a merely a matter of going and voting once in five years or once in three years, democracy is a matter of having a say in decision making, especially in those decisions which affect your life and making politics assessable, political institutions assessable and accountable, especially to women.

So this would be the beginning of the long-drawn process of working out the whole agenda of political reforms, which would be beneficial for people in general and for women in particular.