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Perfect Hostage: A Life of Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma's Prisoner of Conscience

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This biography does what few other biographies of any leader do - it puts the subject in the proper historical perspective. Starting from the beginnings of the Burmese state, Wintle provides readers with background on Burma. This is useful because it places the country's modern politics in an appropriate frame of reference. For example, Wintle does not avoid the complexities of Burma's ethnic minorities and their long history, which later allows him to show how Aung San and his daughter Aung San Suu Kyi may have been the few leaders to be able to gain the trust of the minorities.

I also appreciate Wintle's honest appraisal of Suu Kyi near the end of the book. While Wintle is obviously sympathetic to Suu Kyi (as we all should be), he does ask important questions about the success of her non-violence movement and stubbornness.

My only criticism is that the book does not have comprehensive footnotes. While the author footnotes a few interesting articles, there are many other anecdotes and interpretations that should have been footnoted so the reader can check the source and read further if he desires.

Hopefully, when (and if) Suu Kyi is released and allowed to lead in a democratic Burma, Wintle can update his volume to include more insights into this remarkable woman.

The author rights this book out of obvious respect. Yet despite any biases, he presents plenty of new research to back it up. For anyone wanting to uncover the mysteries behind this elegant living martyr, this is a must-read book. Accounts of "The Lady's" true sacrifices, the least of which are being banned from seeing her children or even husband on his death bed are remarkable. There are moments during this read when you feel like you are actually there, sitting in the car with her, waiting for the regime-hired thugs to beat your skull in, or anticipating the next on-slaught. This book, not only prefaces the story of her life with a comprehensive historical background, but also paints the picture of an iron-willed, extremely clever and amazingly patient woman. Such a small, gentle and feminine woman on the backdrop of a brutal regime, riots and often unadulterated chaos make this a read you won't soon forget. Whether you are intrested in Souh East Asian politics, or not, one can't help but respect this woman, if not sympathetically, thanks to the author's masterful brush strokes.

Perfect Hostage: A Life of Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma's Prisoner of Conscience


Aung San Suu Kyi, the daughter of assassinated democratic hero Aung San, may be undertaking a hunger strike, according to sources in Thailand. Suu Kyi has refused food for three weeks and has turned away visitors, according to sources quoted by "The Nation." A lawyer who visited her recently said she appears thin and under stress. The 63-year-old Nobel Peace Prize laureate has been under house arrest for 13 of the past 19 years. Merely mentioning her name aloud in the wrong society can bring imprisonment by Burma's ruling generals. Burma is one of the world's most repressive regimes, carefully regulating the media, limiting access by foreigners and repressing all dissent.
Human rights organizations routinely cite Burma for violating civil liberties, using forced and child labor, and tacitly encouraging opium production. Burma is the world's second largest producer of opium and a source of forced trafficking of women and children for sex. The ruling Junta has gone so far as changing the nation's name to Myanmar, and relocating the administrative capital from Rangoon to an inland city that affords greater secrecy.
Despite its rich natural resources... petroleum, timber, tin, rubber, zinc, natural gas and hydroelectric power... Burma remains one of Asia's poorest countries because of mismanagement and a centralized economy. It's "Burmese Way to Socialism" was an unequivocal disaster. Politically Burma is a pariah in the international community; its only close ally is China. The US refuses to recognize the "Myanmar" regime.

Against this background, British writer Justin Wintle has written a valuable political biography of Aung San Suu Kyi, now an ageing but tireless advocate for reform. Burma's ruling generals are in a dilemma: Suu Kyi's father, the murdered Aung San, is revered as a founder of Burmese democracy and its independence from colonialism, but his daughter is the regime's avowed enemy. Wintle does an excellent job outlining Aung San Suu Kyi's marriage to British national Michael Aris; her student years at Oxford, and her rise to power, her exile, as well as recent developments in the struggle for freedom.
It was probably Burma that George Orwell had in mind when he wrote his political satires "1984" and "Animal Farm." Orwell, who was born in India, served in the British Colonial Police in Burma between the World Wars. Everything Orwell wrote about--a civilization turned on its head; a paranoid, insular, xenophobic totalitarian state where Big Brother watches everyone and the Truth Squad launders public opinion--is true in Burma today. In "Burmese Days," Orwell says of his colonial character, Flory:
"For he had realized, suddenly, that in his heart he was glad to be coming back. This country which he hated was now his native country, his home. He had lived here ten years, and every particle of his body was compounded of Burmese soil. Scenes like these --- the sallow evening light, the old Indian cropping grass, the creak of the cartwheels, the screaming egrets - were more native to him than England. He had sent deep roots, perhaps his deepest, into a foreign country."
Like Flory, Aung San Suu Kyii is a product of her homeland. But she is exiled within her homeland: she faces the Hobson's Choice of remaining at home in virtual exile; or leaving her homeland and not returning again.
And the clock is ticking: she is in failing health, past middle age; and separated from her supporters and loved ones. History will judge; we can only hope that moral and economic pressure from the international community will bring about the changes she has given her life to achieve.




Suggestions for further reading:
Letters From Burma by Aung San Suu Kyi
Burmese Days by George Orwell
Finding George Orwell in Burma
Finding George Orwell in Burma
Letters from Burma
Burmese Days
Freedom from Fear and Other Writings: Revised Edition


Why Orwell Matters

I liked this book. It provides events in Burma in chronological order. The author has indeed made a good research. I now understand why this country still under military rule.

Only one thing I did not like is author tried to compare her with Indian leaders (Rajiv Gandhi and Sanjay Gandhi), author is naive in misquoting the facts, forgetting Rajiv was the prime minister of nation much more diverse than Burma.

I hope to see Democracy in Burma pretty soon.

Anand

An almost first rate biography of Aung San Suu Kyi. Wintle is first to the field with an adult, even academic, biography of the Burmese Nobel Laureate. His research on her time in Japan, New York and Oxford is original and goes into much greater depth than anything else I've seen. Against fairly weak competition, Wintle's is easily the best biography of The Lady and does credit to subject and author.

The shortcomings are mainly editorial and can be cleaned up in a later edition. His treatment of the regime's lobbying campaign in Washington (P385) is a mess, mangling even the spelling of names. Merrill didn't succeed Orde Wingate after his death, Joe Lentaigne did. And Myint Oo appears as both a Captain and Colonel in Wintle's recounting of the incident at Danabyu. Don't make too much of these nigglings though because minor errors aside, it is an extremely good book.

Wintle is an honest, perceptive and mostly careful biographer. Trust him on the main line of the story but be careful of the details.

A lady at the age of forty-one flew back from London to tend her ailing mother at Rangoon General Hospital on 2nd April 1988.

This trip had become a journey of no-return to her family in England. Since then she had to part with her husband, Dr. Michael Aris, and her two sons, Alexander and Kim. She had set her priority to stay back in her homeland to fight the junta to gain a `second independence' for her people than to live a comfortable family life in England. "It is my aim," she said, "to help the people in Burma attain democracy without further violence or loss of life."What was offensive to her was the military regime's denial of `the full enjoyment of human rights', which undermined any notion of `full independence'. [Page 279, Perfect Hostage]

This lady is Aung San Suu Kyi( her name means `Strange Collection of Bright Victories' in Burmese language). She is the daughter of the Independent fighter of Burma, General Aung San. General Aung San was assassinated with thirteen bullets of gunshot on 19th July 1947. In the space of thirty seconds, he and his four other ministers were killed immediately on the spot while they were having a meeting at the Secretariat in the government building at Rangoon.

Suu Kyi became the icon of Burma's opposition to the Draconian rule of the military regime since General Ne Win assumed power on 2nd March 1962.

In the year 1990, her political party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), had won with a huge majority in the first ever held General Election since the junta took over the reign of Burma in 1962.Out of a total of 485 constituencies, the NLD captured a staggering 392 seats. The magnitude of the NLD's success was not just a landslide, it was a nationwide earthquake despite of the fact that Suu Kyi was under house arrest several months before the election was conducted. But the junta refused to honour the outcome of the election. Those elected opposition members from the NLD were intimidated, put into jails, or bought over. With this the junta hoped to make the NLD a spent force with Suu Kyi reduced to a general without soldiers.

Suu Kyi was under house arrest for three times with an accumulated duration of more than 6 years in her house at 54, University Avenue,Rangoon, near the Lake Inya(formerly known as Rangoon's Lake Victoria). Utterance of her name was not encouraged and it could be an offence as the junta tried to erase her from the national consciousness. The people in Burma, out of respect for her, generally addressed her as `The Lady' or `The Lady by the Lake'. Suu Kyi has become an eyesore as well as a pain in the neck for the junta as long as she remains in Burma as she has established herself as the de facto opposition leader of Burma. The junta cannot end her life with a bullet in the head or incarcerate her in the notorious Insein prison as she is the offspring of Burma's National Hero, General Aung San, the architect of Burmese independence. The only way the junta could do was to provide Suu Kyi a one-way ticket to leave Burma which she refused to accept. At the time of her husband's demise in the year 1999, the Burmese government allowed Suu Kyi to attend the funeral in England with the condition that she could not return to Burma after that. She again turned down the offer as she wanted to remain in the country to fight for her nation's human rights and democracy.

It is not that Suu Kyi does not want to devote her time and her love for her family, it is rather her strong conviction to serve her country that she puts it in a simple statement, `I dream about my family all the time, but there are a lot of people here who need to be cared about and loved and looked after. They've become my second family.'

For Suu Kyi the struggle is a persistent and ongoing process until Burma becomes a truly democratic nation.

[...]

Justin Wintle's biography is a well crafted, and thoroughly researched story of a woman who's life has been wrought with more pain and suffering than most people could bear. Imagine not only losing your father, an icon not only to you as a child but an icon to his country, losing your country to vile, murderous dictators and lastly, losing your freedom. That is enough to crush the humanity from someone, but Aung San Suu Kyi has risen from the shallowness of despair to become an icon like her father, perhaps even larger.


While the book at times is very textbook-ish, if that's even a word, it is well worth taking the time to read and digest the vast wealth of information Justin has managed to dig up. The thoroughness of "Perfect Hostage" not only tells the tale of one woman's struggle with freedom, but a whole nations. From the beginnings of a country to more recent events like the protests led by Buddhist Monks in August of 2007, "Perfect Hostage" is a meticulous history of a nation screaming for freedom, yet not being heard by anyone.

Aung San Suu Kyi won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 for her dedication to non-violence while fighting for democracy and human rights. She was not allowed by the ruling junta in Burma to attend the awards ceremony, so her sons Alexander and Kim accepted the award on her behalf. She was awarded 1.3 million dollars and chose to use that money to establish health and education trusts for the Burmese people. Some may think of giving this money as another sacrifice on her part, although she would not have thought of it that way. She could have used it to leave the country, start a new life- but that's not what she is about. Aung San Suu Kyi' life is Burma's and Burma is forever indebted to her.

The book may seem cumbersome to some readers, it took me quite a bit of time to get through, but the tremendous amount of knowledge one comes away with after reading this book is immeasurable. "Perfect Hostage" is academic, yet elegant at the same time. The detail that has been payed attention to here does not go unnoticed and the reader will come away wondering how such a story could even be playing out in our time.

The story of Aung San Suu Kyi, and Burma, is still being written today. Though under house arrest after nearly two decades time, she continues to defy authority in a non-violent manner, by just existing.

Justin Wintle has produced a volume that is wide in scope and rich in detail. Readers will be getting more than a life of Aung San Suu Kyi. Wintle introduces briefly the immediate and long term history of Burma, the life of Bogyoke Aung San, Suu Kyi's father, and the story of how a brutal dictatorship came to rule Burma and rename it Myanmar. Aung San Suu Kyi's NLD won fairly the elections of 1990, but was not granted any power by the brutal regime. Following the nonviolent dictates of her conscience, Suu Kyi's commitment to Burma is truly heroic, though not without critics and detractors. Wintle's book will no doubt remain a very important milestone for understanding a very important woman and her very troubled country. Read this book. It is well worth the time spent on it.