Aung San Suu Kyi

Aung San Suu Kyi is a renowned freedom fighters and advocates of nonviolence. This legendary activist was born to a Burmese military officer Aung San and Daw Khin Kyi on 19 June, 1945 in Rangoon, capital city of Myanmar (then Burma). Rangoon. Rangoon, now known as Yangon is the capital city of Myanmar was underdeveloped during that time since it was under the Japanese occupation. The condition of living only improved once the country regained independence from the British Empire. Aung San Suu Kyi’s father founded the modern Burmese army and negotiated Burma’s independence. However, he was assassinated by rivals from an opposing political group when Suu Kyi was barely two years old. Her mother Daw Khin Kyi was a prominent figure working in the External Affairs Ministry and was appointed as Burma’s only woman ambassador to India and Nepal.

Aung San Suu Kyi was educated in Rangoon until the age of 15 and continued her studies in New Delhi. She never stops pursuing knowledge as she went on to do her BA in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics as at Oxford University, receving an Honorary Fellow. In 1969, she met United Nations’ Secretary General U Thant and became the Assistant Secretary of United Nations Secretariat in New York. After that, she married Dr. Michael Aris, a scholar of Tibetan culture and had two wonderful children. She then went on to Kyoto University to further her studies as a visiting scholar.

However, there was a dramatic turn to her blissful life as her mother fell ill in 1988 and she had to return to Myanmar which was governed by Burma Socialist Programme Party (BSPP). General U Ne Win, the party chairman had resigned from his position and left the country in the hands of the military junta. Protesters were rallying and Aung San Suu Kyi submitted an open letter to the military government, requesting for the establishment of a rule. Demonstrators raised pro-democracy banners and marched throughout the cities. The military junta who had seized the...