26 February 2021, United Nations, New York City, USA
Aung San Suu Kyi: 'You have to know why the world is the way it is or you have to want to know', Sakharov Award for Freedom of Thought - 2013
October 2013, European Parliament, Strasbourg, Germany
Aung San Suu Kyi received this award in absentia during her period of house arrest. In 2013, she attended in person to collect it.
This is for me a joyous and a deeply meaningful occasion. A joyous one because I have been given the opportunity to thank all of you for the support you have given me and my party and all those who believe in democracy in Burma for over two decades.
And it is deeply meaningful because the Sakharov Prize is very meaningful. It was given to me in 1990. That was a year of great significance in the history of Burmese politics. That was the year in which the first democratic elections in over two decades were held in my country. In these elections, my party, the National League for Democracy, won over 82% of the seats that were contested. But we were never allowed to take office. We were never allowed to even call parliament. We were never allowed to implement the wishes of the people as had been expressed through those elections. Instead, our party was repressed. Our people were persecuted and we had to struggle on for a couple more decades before we had come to this stage.
Where are we now? I think we have to look at it in a very practical way. We have made progress since 1990. But we have not made sufficient progress. But before I talk about this I would like to say a few words about what the Prize meant to me at that time. I had become familiar with Professor Sakharov through the writings of others as well as through his own writings. I was sent a copy of memoir, of his memoirs while I was under house arrest. And I remember the day when I received it because whenever I received books from my family at that time it was always a very exciting moment for me because this was my contact with the outside world. And I got into the habit of always smelling the books before I read them. There is something very nice about the smell of fresh printer’s ink. And this was for me the beginning of a very pleasurable few hours, reading a new book.
When I read Professor Sakharov’s book, I was struck by the fact that he was so down to earth and so practical and so scientific in his approach to politics. I have to confess I didn’t quite understand some of his scientific comments but it made me feel very good simply to be reading them. I remember reading them on a very sunny day. Sunny like today here in Strasbourg, but of course we have many more sunny days in Burma, and thinking this was a happy occasion for me even though I was under house arrest to be able to read something by a man who I admired and a man who I saw as a great champion of human rights and freedom of thought.
Freedom of thought (applause),…freedom of thought is essential to human progress. If we stop freedom of thought, we stop progress in our world. Because of this it is so important that we teach our children, our young people, the importance of freedom of thought. Freedom of thought begins with the right to ask questions. And this right our people in Burma have not had for so long that some of our young people do not quite know how to ask questions. One of the tasks we have set ourselves, in my party, the National League for Democracy is to teach our people to ask questions, not to accept everything that is done to them without asking why.
'Why' is one of the most important words in any language. . If you do not have this curiosity and if you do not have the intelligence in order to be able to express this curiosity in terms that others can understand than we will not be able to contribute to progress in our world. How many of our people over these past few decades ever ask themselves why that had to submit to the authority of people who did not have the mandate of the general public. I do not think very many did. It was taken for granted that those who had power and authority could do exactly as they please. This was something that we could not accept.
During our years of oppression many of our people were arrested almost on a daily basis and we had to teach them to ask those who came to arrest them why. We had to teach them their basic rights and we had to say to them, if someone comes to arrest you in the middle of the night you have to right to ask do you have a warrant. Even that many of our people did not know. I have to confess that one of those who took our teachings very seriously and asked those who had come to arrest him if they had a warrant was answered, don’t be silly we’ve already decided how many years you’re going to be imprisoned. So this is the kind of society in which we had to live for many years.
But we have made progress. That I think we admit we recognize, not sufficient progress. Our people are just beginning to learn that freedom of thought is possible but we want to make sure that the right to think freely and to live in accordance with a conscience has to be preserved. This right is not yet guaranteed 100%. We still have to work very hard before the basic law of the land, which is the constitution, will guarantee us the right to live in accordance with our conscience. That is why we insist that the present constitution must be changed to be a truly democratic one.
I think Professor Sakharov would agree that if we are to be firmly on the road to democracy, that is to say, if we are to adopt a system that respects the will of the people, it would not due to have a constitution that subjects the people to the authority of one particular organization, an unelected organization, which is the military. I have often said sometimes to the annoyance of many of my colleagues that I have a great fondness for the Burmese military. This is very natural because my father was the founder of the army and I was brought up to love it and to look upon it as our family and one of the great aims, the main aims, of our democracy movement was to bring about national reconciliation, which means reconciliation between the then ruling army and the civilians who wanted democracy. We are still trying to achieve such a reconciliation but in order to achieve such a reconciliation we need the help of all our friends all over the world.
I accept and I’m very proud to accept (applause) that it is the people of my country who must do most, who must work hardest and who will ultimately be responsible for the democratization of our country but at the same time in this day and age we cannot ignore the fact that the weight of international opinion is immense, that the world has great power over any particular society anywhere. We are in the age of globalization, which has its drawbacks, which has its problems, but also has great advantages in that nowhere in the world can people what other people think. (applause)
This brings me back to freedom of thought. Because you are in a position to be able to think freely and to be able to live in accordance with you conscience, you have great power, you have great strength in you endeavors to help our people to engage with freedom of thought and to be able to live in accordance with our conscience. When the European parliament, the European Union, the European Commission, when the free world recognized our movement for democracy in Burma it have us the strength to go one despite great odds. There were those who said to us that we should give up because we were trying to achieve the unachievable but I have never thought that anything that human beings wanted to achieve for the society in which we live was beyond reach. We only have to have the will and determination to pursue our goals.
Our goals are very simple. Our people simply want to live in dignity and in peace. We want to be free from want and free from fear. These are the freedoms that are recognized as most important by the community of nations as reflected in the United Nations charter of human rights. Because we wish to live free from want and free from fear we have had to face want and we have had to face our own fears and overcome them. This we have managed to do because of the solidarity not just of our own people but of the world at large.
Solidarity is a beautiful word because it means that you reach out to those who are different from you and who have to cope with different circumstances because we recognize that we all share the same human needs and same values. It is the values that count most of all. The value of freedom of thought, the value of democratic practices, the value of respect for your fellow human beings. I have never claimed that democracy was a perfect system because we human beings are not perfect. We are not capable of producing a system that is perfect. But I think there is something nice and challenging about imperfection. If we were all perfect I think it would be a very boring world. But as it is (applause) because we have to cope everyday with our imperfections everyday can become a day of excitement. You wake up and say to yourself now which one of my many imperfections shall I work on today and that makes it very interesting and very challenging.
But it is more important that we work on the imperfections of societies and of laws and of practices that truly hurt us as human beings, that erode the foundation of human dignity. It is because of this that we feel our quest for democracy is not yet at an end. We will not achieve perfection as I said earlier but we do want to get to the point where we can say that the laws of the land, the institutions of our society, guarantee that our people can live in human dignity as far as it is possible for human beings to do so.
We all have to be responsible for ourselves. I accept the concept that respect for yourself must be the foundation of respect for others. It is only if you respect yourself as a human being and you have faith in your ability to achieve what should be achieved that you will be able to help others. You in the European Union have been fortunate to be born in country, or perhaps not born in those countries but you have made those countries, the kind of countries where you could live as dignified human beings.
There are many countries in the European Union now which as the time when we started our movement for democracy in 1988 did not yet enjoy the fruits of a democratic society. It is say but I’m proud and sad at the same time to say that the democratic revolution started in Burma before it started in the Czech Republic or Slovakia or Romania or I can name a great number of countries that only started getting on to the road to democracy in 1989, a who year after we had started. (applause) But they outstepped us. They went forward and we were left behind. But now we are on the road towards democracy. We have not got there yet and we would like you to be aware of fact that we still need your help and your support and your understanding that we need still to make a lot more progress before we can say we are were Professor Sakharov would have wished us to be. And he would have wished us to be in a place where freedom of thought was the birthright of every single citizen of our country. And to achieve this position of a society which would have had the approval of Professor Sakharov, we will have to work harder. Our people will have to do the greater part of the work but I do believe that all of you can help us in our endeavors.
I’ve always said there’s no hope without endeavor. Hope has no meaning unless we are prepared to work to realize our hopes and dreams but in order to that we do need to have friends. We need those who believe in us. Friends are those who believe in us and who want to help us whatever it is that we are trying to achieve.
So I would like to take this opportunity as I thank you for the Sakharov Prize to say that I hope you will be our friends in our continuing endeavor to achieve democratic rights for our people. I hope you will give us the understanding that we need to resolve the many problems that our country is having to face today. I hope we will have your help from freeing our people from want and from fear because it is a fact that fear is still very much part of our society. Unless we are free from fear we will not be able to give our children the kind of future that we would like them to have.
The future of our country is in our young people as the future of the world is in the hands of our young people. We would like you to understand that we need help with education, with health, with development, inclusive development, the future of our country might be safe, the future of our children and our young people might be assured. But in order to achieve progress in those areas we need basically the kind of political system that will give our people the right to shape their own destiny.
When the fathers of the independence movement were working to free our country from colonial rule they said we want the right to shape our own destiny. This is still what we need in Burma, the right of our people to shape our own destiny. We want to be able to decide what we think is best for ourselves. We want to be able to learn to sort out our differences. We want to be able to come to a united position in spite of our differences because Burma is a country of many peoples, of many opinions, of many religions, of many races. We have to all come together and create unity out of diversity that the destiny that build will be one that is right not just for now but for generations to come.
And as we work to achieve such an end we hope that you will be with us to point out our mistakes when we need to know that we’ve made mistakes, to help us when you think that we’re doing the right thing and always to remember that ultimately we are one. Whether we are Europeans, whether we are Asians, whether we are Africans, or Australians, or Americans, we are all one because of our shared common human values based on the belief that we have the right to the birth right of every human being which is a dignified and secure existence.
Security, freedom, dignity, if we had these three we could say that it has been worth while being born into this world and I would like all the young people of Burma and young people all over the world to be able to feel that it was right that they have been born into this world.
I would not like young people to ask this question, why were we born at all. I want them to ask every kind of question but for them to question why they have been born to a situation which does not assure them of their right to dignity and to freedom from want and from fear, that is not the kind of question I would want anyone to ask.
So, may I conclude by saying once again how much I appreciate everything you have done to support our people in their endeavors to live with their conscience freely and proudly and I would like to say that there will come a time when our people too can make our own contribution to the world. I’m confident now that the young people of Burma will one day be valued citizens of the world helping to promote those rights and those achievements which Professor Sakharov would have approved. Thank you. (applause)
Aung San Suu Kyi: 'It is not power that corrupts but fear', Freedom from Fear -1990
October 1990, European Parliament, Strasbourg, Germany
This speech was written on the occasion of Aung San Suu Kyi, then under house arrest, being awarded the Sakharov Prize For Freedom of Thought, in absentia in 1990.
Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it. Most Burmese are familiar with the four a-gati, the four kinds of corruption.
Chanda-gati, corruption induced by desire, is deviation from the right path in pursuit of bribes or for the sake of those one loves. Dosa-gati is taking the wrong path to spite those against whom one bears ill will, and moga-gati is aberration due to ignorance. But perhaps the worst of the four is bhaya-gati, for not only does bhaya, fear, stifle and slowly destroy all sense of right and wrong, it so often lies at the root of the other three kinds of corruption. Just as chanda-gati, when not the result of sheer avarice, can be caused by fear of want or fear of losing the goodwill of those one loves, so fear of being surpassed, humiliated or injured in some way can provide the impetus for ill will. And it would be difficult to dispel ignorance unless there is freedom to pursue the truth unfettered by fear. With so close a relationship between fear and corruption it is little wonder that in any society where fear is rife corruption in all forms becomes deeply entrenched.
Public dissatisfaction with economic hardships has been seen as the chief cause of the movement for democracy in Burma, sparked off by the student demonstrations 1988. It is true that years of incoherent policies, inept official measures, burgeoning inflation and falling real income had turned the country into an economic shambles. But it was more than the difficulties of eking out a barely acceptable standard of living that had eroded the patience of a traditionally good-natured, quiescent people - it was also the humiliation of a way of life disfigured by corruption and fear.
The students were protesting not just against the death of their comrades but against the denial of their right to life by a totalitarian regime which deprived the present of meaningfulness and held out no hope for the future. And because the students' protests articulated the frustrations of the people at large, the demonstrations quickly grew into a nationwide movement. Some of its keenest supporters were businessmen who had developed the skills and the contacts necessary not only to survive but to prosper within the system. But their affluence offered them no genuine sense of security or fulfilment, and they could not but see that if they and their fellow citizens, regardless of economic status, were to achieve a worthwhile existence, an accountable administration was at least a necessary if not a sufficient condition. The people of Burma had wearied of a precarious state of passive apprehension where they were 'as water in the cupped hands' of the powers that be.
Emerald cool we may be
As water in cupped hands
But oh that we might be
As splinters of glass
In cupped hands.
Glass splinters, the smallest with its sharp, glinting power to defend itself against hands that try to crush, could be seen as a vivid symbol of the spark of courage that is an essential attribute of those who would free themselves from the grip of oppression. Bogyoke Aung San regarded himself as a revolutionary and searched tirelessly for answers to the problems that beset Burma during her times of trial. He exhorted the people to develop courage: 'Don't just depend on the courage and intrepidity of others. Each and every one of you must make sacrifices to become a hero possessed of courage and intrepidity. Then only shall we all be able to enjoy true freedom.'
The effort necessary to remain uncorrupted in an environment where fear is an integral part of everyday existence is not immediately apparent to those fortunate enough to live in states governed by the rule of law. Just laws do not merely prevent corruption by meting out impartial punishment to offenders. They also help to create a society in which people can fulfil the basic requirements necessary for the preservation of human dignity without recourse to corrupt practices. Where there are no such laws, the burden of upholding the principles of justice and common decency falls on the ordinary people. It is the cumulative effect on their sustained effort and steady endurance which will change a nation where reason and conscience are warped by fear into one where legal rules exist to promote man's desire for harmony and justice while restraining the less desirable destructive traits in his nature.
In an age when immense technological advances have created lethal weapons which could be, and are, used by the powerful and the unprincipled to dominate the weak and the helpless, there is a compelling need for a closer relationship between politics and ethics at both the national and international levels.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights of the United Nations proclaims that 'every individual and every organ of society' should strive to promote the basic rights and freedoms to which all human beings regardless of race, nationality or religion are entitled. But as long as there are governments whose authority is founded on coercion rather than on the mandate of the people, and interest groups which place short-term profits above long-term peace and prosperity, concerted international action to protect and promote human rights will remain at best a partially realized struggle. There will continue to be arenas of struggle where victims of oppression have to draw on their own inner resources to defend their inalienable rights as members of the human family.
The quintessential revolution is that of the spirit, born of an intellectual conviction of the need for change in those mental attitudes and values which shape the course of a nation's development. A revolution which aims merely at changing official policies and institutions with a view to an improvement in material conditions has little chance of genuine success. Without a revolution of the spirit, the forces which produced the iniquities of the old order would continue to be operative, posing a constant threat to the process of reform and regeneration. It is not enough merely to call for freedom, democracy and human rights. There has to be a united determination to persevere in the struggle, to make sacrifices in the name of enduring truths, to resist the corrupting influences of desire, ill will, ignorance and fear.
Saints, it has been said, are the sinners who go on trying. So free men are the oppressed who go on trying and who in the process make themselves fit to bear the responsibilities and to uphold the disciplines which will maintain a free society. Among the basic freedoms to which men aspire that their lives might be full and uncramped, freedom from fear stands out as both a means and an end. A people who would build a nation in which strong, democratic institutions are firmly established as a guarantee against state-induced power must first learn to liberate their own minds from apathy and fear.
Always one to practise what he preached, Aung San himself constantly demonstrated courage - not just the physical sort but the kind that enabled him to speak the truth, to stand by his word, to accept criticism, to admit his faults, to correct his mistakes, to respect the opposition, to parley with the enemy and to let people be the judge of his worthiness as a leader. It is for such moral courage that he will always be loved and respected in Burma - not merely as a warrior hero but as the inspiration and conscience of the nation. The words used by Jawaharlal Nehru to describe Mahatma Gandhi could well be applied to Aung San:
'The essence of his teaching was fearlessness and truth, and action allied to these, always keeping the welfare of the masses in view.'
Gandhi, that great apostle of non-violence, and Aung San, the founder of a national army, were very different personalities, but as there is an inevitable sameness about the challenges of authoritarian rule anywhere at any time, so there is a similarity in the intrinsic qualities of those who rise up to meet the challenge. Nehru, who considered the instillation of courage in the people of India one of Gandhi's greatest achievements, was a political modernist, but as he assessed the needs for a twentieth-century movement for independence, he found himself looking back to the philosophy of ancient India: 'The greatest gift for an individual or a nation . .. was abhaya, fearlessness, not merely bodily courage but absence of fear from the mind.'
Fearlessness may be a gift but perhaps more precious is the courage acquired through endeavour, courage that comes from cultivating the habit of refusing to let fear dictate one's actions, courage that could be described as 'grace under pressure' - grace which is renewed repeatedly in the face of harsh, unremitting pressure.
Within a system which denies the existence of basic human rights, fear tends to be the order of the day. Fear of imprisonment, fear of torture, fear of death, fear of losing friends, family, property or means of livelihood, fear of poverty, fear of isolation, fear of failure. A most insidious form of fear is that which masquerades as common sense or even wisdom, condemning as foolish, reckless, insignificant or futile the small, daily acts of courage which help to preserve man's self-respect and inherent human dignity. It is not easy for a people conditioned by fear under the iron rule of the principle that might is right to free themselves from the enervating miasma of fear. Yet even under the most crushing state machinery courage rises up again and again, for fear is not the natural state of civilized man.
The wellspring of courage and endurance in the face of unbridled power is generally a firm belief in the sanctity of ethical principles combined with a historical sense that despite all setbacks the condition of man is set on an ultimate course for both spiritual and material advancement. It is his capacity for self-improvement and self-redemption which most distinguishes man from the mere brute. At the root of human responsibility is the concept of perfection, the urge to achieve it, the intelligence to find a path towards it, and the will to follow that path if not to the end at least the distance needed to rise above individual limitations and environmental impediments. It is man's vision of a world fit for rational, civilized humanity which leads him to dare and to suffer to build societies free from want and fear. Concepts such as truth, justice and compassion cannot be dismissed as trite when these are often the only bulwarks which stand against ruthless power.