Welcome

I've not hesitated to kvetch about the things the Obama administration has gotten wrong, so it's only fair that I note when it has done the right thing in the right way. One of the things Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have gotten right is their handling of Burma, easing that vicious military junta back into the world through the use of old-fashioned diplomacy rather than drones and bombs. We are now seeing the results of those efforts.

Democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi’s first trip to the U.S. in decades starting Monday could prompt a further easing of U.S. economic sanctions against Myanmar, analysts said, although the visit will mainly serve as a victory lap for the demure figure celebrated by Republicans and Democrats alike.

During her six-stop, near three-week trip, the Nobel laureate is expected to meet with President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and receive the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest U.S. civilian award. She also may spend a night in the White House and be feted at a dinner in her honor attended by former Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton as well as Microsoft head Bill Gates.

The Obama administration is keen to highlight her visit as a foreign policy success in an election year, analysts added, given her role in pushing the long-isolated pariah state also known as Burma to open its doors, legalize protest, ease media restrictions and release hundreds of political prisoners.

President Obama has every right to claim this as a foreign policy success. The tireless prodding and pushing has worked. Aung San Suu Kyi's freedom from decades of isolation and house arrest is testament to that. Her election to Parliament, even if at this point the military leadership continues to hold all of the power, has been a signal that the current leaders are loosening their grip, albeit slowly.

Ironically, also visiting the US at this time is Burma's current president, Thein Sein and there is some concern that all of the attention paid to Aung San Suu Kyi is upstaging him. If handled appropriately by the Obama administration, this need not be a major concern.

While some believe Thein Sein has felt upstaged by Suu Kyi, both share a desire to see Burma emerge from isolation, analysts said.

“She’s gone out of her way to be quite constructive in parliament,” said Turnell. “And let’s face it, if it weren’t for her, Burma wouldn’t be on anyone’s radar.”

Indeed.

So, welcome to them both

Kingbirding

(Photograph by Steve Creek and published at his wonderful blog, which is filled with great photography and worth a visit or a hundred.)

Last week I posted on the terrific example the Eastern Kingbird in noblejoanie's neighborhood provided us.

Nature notes: Watched a tiny eastern kingbird assail a bald eagle who must have done some nest robbing. Irate little bird actually surfed the back of the eagle furiously pecking his head for about 1000 feet. Saw similar outrage directed at a raven. Tough day for nesting kingbirds.

Yes, a tough day, but my response to their action was the obvious one:

I consider that an excellent metaphor for the very least we can do, so much so that I've created a new label, "Kingbirding." I suggest that as often as we can we peck mercilessly at the heads of the rapacious thieves stealing from our nest for as long as we can. If nothing else, it will annoy them, causing them to spend their oh-so-precious-time trying to shake us off.

And then this weekend I got the perfect example of what I meant. After 21 years of house detention, Aung San Suu Kyi finally got to deliver her acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize awarded for her work to restore democracy to Burma. The full text of this great woman's speech can be found here. I encourage you to sit down with it when you some time. I think it is illuminating. In the meantime, I am going to provide some excerpts and gloss from the Los Angeles Times which got posted shortly after her speech was given.

“When I joined the democracy movement in Burma, it never occurred to me that I might ever be the recipient of any prize or honor. The prize we were working for was a free, secure and just society where our people might be able to realize their full potential,” Suu Kyi said. “When the Nobel committee chose to honor me, the road I had chosen of my own free will became a less lonely path to follow.”...

She recalled learning that she had won the 1991 Nobel Prize by hearing news of it on the radio in Burma, also known as Myanmar. With her movements restricted by the country’s ruling military junta, she was unable to receive the award in person; her now-late husband accepted it on her behalf. But the recognition helped ease her isolation.

“It had made me real once again. It had drawn me back into the wider human community, and what is more important, the Nobel Prize had drawn the attention of the world to the struggle for democracy and human rights in Burma,” Suu Kyi said. “We were not going to be forgotten.” ...

Her belated speech Saturday was made possible because of the Burmese government’s recent political liberalization, which has earned praise from around the world.

“There have been changes in a positive direction,” Suu Kyi said. “Steps towards democratization have been taken. If I advocate cautious optimism it is not because I do not have faith in the future, but because I do not want to encourage blind faith.”

Rather, all sectors of Burmese society must actively participate in and support the reform process, she said. And in the only part of her address to be interrupted with applause, she called for the release of other political prisoners in her country.

“I am standing here because I was once a prisoner of conscience. As you look at me and listen to me, please remember the oft-repeated truth that one prisoner of conscience is one too many,” she said. “Those who have not yet been freed, those who have not yet been given access to the benefits of justice in my country number much more than one. Please remember them and do whatever is possible to effect their earliest, unconditional release.” [Emphasis added]

In other words, Aung San Suu Kyi isn't done kingbirding, but at least she is now free to invite her compatriots and the rest of the world to join her. Like Archbishop Tutu in South Africa while Nelson Mandela was silenced by imprisonment, like Rosa Parks who just refused one day to move to the back of the bus, Ms. Suu Kyi calls us to reclaim our rights, our due. They won't just be handed over, and we will have to struggle, but in the end I believe we will prevail.

And in the interim, we have an opportunity to drive those rapacious eagles crazy by our head-pecking.

International Women's Day

After weeks of women-bashing and women-trashing by the far right in this country, I decided to celebrate International Women's Day by noting one woman who is a true hero and who is considered a treasure by her country: Burma's Aung San Suu Kyi.

The daughter of a Burmese general who fought for democracy in his country, Aung San Suu Kyi carried on that struggle and at great cost. She spent 18 of the last 23 years under house arrest for her efforts because of the brutal military junta, yet she has not wavered one bit in her quest to bring democracy and human rights to her country. After international pressure finally got the junta's attention, she was released from her captivity. Now she is running for parliament, to the absolute jubilation of her fellow citizens.

In just over a year since her release from house arrest, the 66-year-old opposition leader has made the once unthinkable leap into Myanmar’s mainstream, transforming from political prisoner to political campaigner. Now she’s trying to take another big step: from icon to elected official. ...

If the pro-democracy icon wins the April 1 vote, she will become a junior and minority member of parliament, meaning that Suu Kyi’s greatest challenge would be her lack of power to make any real change, at least for the foreseeable future. ...

Even if Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy opposition party win all 48 seats up for grabs they would only have a small minority. The military is guaranteed 25 percent of seats in the 440-seat lower house and the remainder is dominated by the main pro-military party.

No, winning her election is not going to make any kind of sea-change in the here-and-now in Burma, but it will keep the dream alive. That's what real heroes do, they keep the dream alive in the rest of us.

Some observers fear Myanmar’s people will be disappointed in the new parliament when it fails to quickly deliver on their expectations. After years of isolation, Myanmar needs a top-to-bottom overhaul of its economy, education, health and banking systems and a plan to unify the country’s ethnic groups after years of guerrilla warfare with the junta.

But that disappointment is unlikely to dim Suu Kyi’s star among the Burmese people, analysts say.

“They identify her with democracy and freedom and with resistance, and they will continue to do that whether she manages to get into parliament, become prime minister, or not,” said Monique Skidmore, a Myanmar expert at the University of Canberra. [Emphasis added]

And so, Mother Suu (as you are called by your countrymen), I honor you and wish for you an electoral victory and the years to witness the real victory: the defeat of the Myanmar generals and the restoration of Burma's democracy.

Sunday Poetry: Marge Piercy

(Yes, again. This time to honor Aung San Suu Kyi.)


The Low Road

What can they do
to you? Whatever they want.
They can set you up, they can
bust you, they can break your fingers, they can
burn your brain with electricity,
blur you with drugs till you
can't walk, can't remember, they can
take your child, wall up
your lover. They can do anything
you can't stop them
from doing. How can you stop
them? Alone, you can fight,
you can refuse, you can take what revenge you can
but they roll over you.

But two people fighting
back to back can cut through
a mob, a snake-dancing file
can break a cordon, an army
can meet an army.

Two people can keep each other
sane, can give support, conviction.
love, massage, hope, sex.
Three people are a delegation,
a committee, a wedge. With four
you can play bridge and start
an organization. With six
you can rent a whole house,
eat pie for dinner with no
seconds, and hold a fund raising party.
A dozen make a demonstration
A hundred fill a hall.
A thousand have solidarity and your own newsletter;
ten thousand, power and your own paper;
a hundred thousand, your own media;
ten million, your own country.

It goes on one at a time,
it starts when you care
to act, it starts when you do
it again after they said no,
it starts when you say We
and know who you mean, and each
day you mean one more.

--Marge Piercy

Free At Last ...

... At least for now.

Two confessions: I didn't go to Watching America this weekend and I cry easily.

The reason for both confessions is that I was too busy reading this news and crying during the time I set aside each Saturday afternoon for my trip to the site which features articles from the international press on the US.

For years in her native Myanmar, Aung San Suu Kyi has been known simply as "The Lady," a pro-democracy stalwart and Nobel Peace Prize laureate who has languished for years in an arbitrary solitary confinement imposed by the nation's ruling military junta.

Although she was snatched from the public limelight, residents of the former Burma have always known this about the charismatic Buddhist activist, now 65: She would not be broken by the military generals she has long defied.

On Saturday, Suu Kyi proved them all right. She was finally released from the mildewing, two-story villa where she has spent much of her house arrest, spanning 15 of the last 21 years. [Emphasis added]

Fifteen years away from her family, during which time she could not visit her husband as he lay dying and could not travel to receive her Nobel Peace Prize, which her two sons had to do for her. Fifteen years with only an old radio to keep her informed on what was happening in her country and in the world. Fifteen years with only her aging housekeeper and the housekeeper's daughter for company. Fifteen years. And all because she wanted the restoration of democracy and the dismissal of the military junta which ruled her nation.

My tears were those of sadness for all those lost years, but also tears of joy that "The Lady" had finally gained some measure of freedom. Whether the generals believed that she was too old to do much damage, or that by holding fraudulent elections the week before and then releasing her, all international pressure on the vicious regime would cease is irrelevant. Suu Kyi was no longer imprisoned in her own home.

And my tears were also those of personal shame. This woman never gave up on her dream of a democratic Myanmar (Burma). She knew what the costs for her defiance would be steep and yet she still spoke out and organized and led, just as I believe she will now do once again, generals be damned. She did more than just check a box on an electronic petition or post on a blog or kvetch in liberal chatrooms. She went into the streets. Her courage and dedication to the principles of democracy make her an exemplar, someone who points the way for the rest of us.

Welcome out, Aung San Suu Kyi. And may your days of personal freedom be filled with the joy of leading your people to real freedom.