Hey guys, I’ve decided to do a rewrite on a historical figure. So I’ve chosen the Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi. I’ve also decided to write the story from a first person perspective. I used the book The Lady: Aung San Suu Kyi to help get an idea of her background and life story.
Aung San Suu Kyi rewrite by Jason Sim.
Solitude does strange things to the mind. There are days when I would look out at the lakeside garden from the barred windows of my bedroom, and wondered whether it was all worth it. Has it been more trouble than it was worth? I am now almost certain to spend the rest of my days in this prison I once called home. Many friends have already passed away, and many more languish in prisons far worse off than this. Innocent people, women, monks, have been jailed, beaten and tortured. Many others have lost their lives to the guns of the junta. But what good has come out of this? Have I helped bring suffering to my people? Has my antagonism of the junta tightened their iron grip? These questions continue to haunt me, and I would lie in bed wrestling with the answers, sometimes convincing myself that I was wrong to have opposed the junta. Sometimes I would cry myself to sleep, only to be greeted by the same dream that I have often had since I was a young girl.
The air is smoky with the smell of incense, the sound of Buddhist meditation chimes can be heard in the distance as I walk along the banks of the Ayeyarwaddy River. Up in the horizon, I can see the towering spirals of the pagodas casting its massive shadow over the fields like giant behemoths. As I approach the pagodas, I see a lone monk, sitting cross legged on the ground; his eyes closed while deep in meditation and chanting his prayers. He stops abruptly, seemingly aware of my presence, and looks up.
“Suu Kyi. Why..?”
“I’m sorry,” I kneel to the floor crying, “I’m so sorry.”
The monk stands up, his robes sliding off and falling to his feet, revealing bleeding scars and open wounds all over his body.
“Suu Kyi my daughter. My dear, sweet Suu Kyi. Why?” he muttered “Why?”
I would wake up in the middle of the night, the voice of the monk still echoing in my head. I have had this dream many times, ever since I was a young girl, but the dreams would sometime appear to me differently. Sometimes the setting of the dream would take place at night, other times in a middle of a rain storm. Sometimes the monk would have bullet holes on his body instead of scars. But one thing was always constant. The monk would always refer to me as his daughter. I had long struggled to understand the dream throughout my childhood years. I would hide the details of my dreams from my mother and my brothers, fearing that they would question my sanity. But as I grew older, I sought help from monks to interpret the dream, and with their help I traced my first dream to when I was six years old; a year after my father was assassinated. It seemed that the dreams were a manifestation of some deep seated guilt that I harbored towards my father. The more that I learnt about my father and what he stood for, the more I begun to understand why they occurred.
‘Bogyoke’- The Father
My father, General Aung San, is regarded as the father of modern day Burma. They called him ‘Bogyoke’, or the General. He was the ‘great revolutionary leader’ who helped free Burma from the British. He was instrumental in bringing about Burma's independence from British colonial rule, but was assassinated six months before its final achievement, when I was only five years old. My memories of him are few and far between, but the ones I do remember are vivid; like it had only happened yesterday.
I remember the long walks and picnics that he would enjoy with me, my brothers, and my mother. He would take us to one of his favourite spots, his grandfather’s old broken down wooden house, on top of a splendid green hill overlooking the Natmauk countryside where he was born. During those long walks, he would often talk us about the days when his great uncle Bo Min Yaung would hide out from the British in this broken down house, while he was involved in the Burmese resistance against the British annexation of Burma in 1886. He would speak with great excitement about the bravery of his father and uncle in opposing the Queen’s mighty empire.
“If it wasn’t for them, and men like them, there will be no Burma today…,” he turns to my brother and playfully takes a bite of a piece of cake he was about to put in his mouth.
“Aww pa..”
“..and there would be no Htan-thee Mohnt (Burmese palm fruit cake) for you to enjoy, because our culture would have been lost..”
Then he turns to me and pats me on the head.
“Your name wouldn’t be Suu Kyi because you wouldn’t be allowed to have a Burmese name.”
He picks me up and sits me on top of his shoulders. “You would have a British name. Like E-li-za-beth. Do you want to be called Elizabeth, Suu Kyi? Hahaha”
My brothers and I would break into laughter. We were so full on innocence then; it mattered not that father loved to exaggerate his stories, or that at the time Burma was still not free but remained under British colonial rule. I understand now that he only wanted us to grow up having a sense of pride at our Burmese heritage and to have an appreciation of our culture; but most of all he wanted us to feel like we were free boys and girls who could feel safe and secure on the land that belonged to all the Burmese people. And we did. We hung onto every word he said, and to my brothers and I, Burma was the most blessed place on earth.
But that illusion was shattered one fateful evening. We were on one of our walks to the wooden house on top of the hill. Except that this time there was no wooden house, but just a pile of broken wooden planks. Father rushed to the debris in horror.
“Stop right there!” a voice called out in an English accent.
We turned around, and there stood a tall, blonde, mustached man, wearing a brown soldier uniform, pointing his rifle at my father.
“You have no right to be here. I can arrest you for trespassing”
“But this is my land!” father shouted. “It belonged to my father, and his father before him, and it belongs..”
“Not anymore I’m afraid. This land belongs to the Crown now, so I’d suggest you take your..”
“Do you know who I am?? I am a General! And you have no right to address me in such a..”
Whack. My father falls to the floor as the butt of the rifle makes contact with his forehead.
“Stop! Don’t hurt him!” Mother lets out a scream and rushes to father’s aid, only to be struck down by the guard again. My brothers and I rush to our parents, crying and cowering in fear.
“You sir, may be a general of an army of desperate orientals, but I am an officer of her majesty’s armed forces, and right now you are stepping on land belonging to her majesty,” he points the gun at me. “ So I suggest you and your family leave and never return, or I would have no choice but to shoot you all.”
Father picks mother up by the hand and we slowly walk away, me sobbing and trembling with fear.
“One last thing!” the soldier calls out again. “I suggest you teach your woman some manners. It’s not a woman’s place to be interfering in the affairs of men. Especially an oriental woman.”
Things were never the same after that. My father knew that our innocence was lost. At the time my brothers and I, especially my brothers, were surprised and admittedly disappointed that my father had not fought back against the guard. We always had this image of our father as this heroic figure who could crush his adversaries at will. But I remember asking him about it one night when we were sitting alone on the front porch of our family home.
“Pa, why didn’t you attack the bad man the other day?”
The question caught my father by surprise. He sat silently for a few minutes, so I assumed he chose to ignore me. Then he turned and looked straight at me.
“Buddha once said ‘They are not following dharma who resort to violence to achieve their purpose. But those who lead others through nonviolent means, knowing right and wrong, may be called guardians of the dharma.’ Yes we want freedom and dignity for our people, but we must not lose sight of who we are, a proud but peaceful people faithful to the teachings of Theravada.”
I nodded, pretending that I had fully understood his words.
“I have big hopes in you Suu Kyi,” he lights a cigarette and takes a puff. “Your brothers, they are stubborn like all men, always believing in the might of the gun, in the power of fear over other men. But maybe what Burma needs is the strength, conviction and empathy of a woman,” he pats me on the head. “Maybe you’d understand one day.”
******
My father was killed on the 19 of July 1947 when a gang of armed paramilitaries broke into the Secretariat Building in downtown Yangon during a meeting of the Executive Council (the shadow government established by the British in preparation for the transfer of power) and assassinated him and six of his cabinet ministers. But he had helped set the wheels in motion for a peaceful transfer of power from the British to the Burmese government six months later. But little did I know that more grief and violence loomed on the horizon for Burma, and that the beliefs and convictions that my father instilled in me would be severely tested.
‘Suu Kyi’-The Child
It is 1987 in London, England. I live a happy life here with my husband Michael and our two beautiful boys Alexander and Kim. I had left Burma in 1960 when my mother was appointed Burmese ambassador to Nepal and India. Since then I had lived in New York, working at the United Nations and one point, and eventually settling in London with my husband. Life was good, even the dreams had disappeared for a few years.
And then one night it returned. I woke up from the dream, with my heart racing and my body drenched in cold sweat.
“What happened? Are you alright?” said Michael, who was already awake next to me but was obviously startled by my sudden awakening from bed. “Did you have a nightmare?”
“Yea..just a bad dream. It was nothing really.”
“It was probably the heavy meal you had before bed,” he walked to the dresser and grabbed an envelope with an official UN logo on it. “By the way, there was a phone call for you. Somebody from the United Nations is looking for you. Who knows, it might be a job offer.”
I looked at the paper. It contained a time and address but no name. I got dressed, jumped into a taxi, and went to the location. I reached a tall, glass building, and was greeted by a man dressed in a dark suit.
“Miss Suu Kyi,” the man spoke in an American accent. “This way please Miss Suu Kyi, somebody would like to speak with you. But first-“
He hands me a contract stipulating that the contents of this meeting would be kept private and confidential, and that it would be illegal for her to even suggest that such a meeting took place. The demands of the contract surprised me at first, but I eventually signed it anyway, and was led into a meeting room where there was a man seated on an armchair. He stood up and greeted me in an American accent.
“Ah miss Suu Kyi, it’s a pleasure to finally meet you. My name is Robert Gibbs. I’m a great admirer of Bogyoke and I have been watching your career with great interest.”
We shook hands and seated ourselves. He then explained to me that this was no UN affair, that the envelope was also a ploy to get my attention. Instead he claimed to represent US interests.
“Ne Win’s time is coming to an end,” Gibbs said, referring to the Socialist leader who ruled Burma at the time. “We have reason to believe that he would step down soon, and that there will be a massive power vacuum in his absence.”
“That is incredible news. But how does this concern me?”
“It is in the United States and the world’s best interest if there is a democratically elected government in Burma. And we believe you are one of the best candidates to lead the country.”
“You want me to return to Burma and lead the country??”
“Why yes, we think you would make a great leader. And because you are the child of Bogyoke, you will have almost unanimous support for the Burmese people.”
“But what does the United States want from me?”
He was slightly surprised at my directness. “Well Miss Suu Kyi, what the United States would like is a friend and partner in South East Asia. With the growing threat from the Chinese and Vietnamese communists as well as religious fundamentalists in Indonesia and elsewhere, we would like to a defense arrangement between our two countries. In exchange for the protection of Burma and the world from these threats, we would like to cooperate with a new Burmese government on the development of military bases, the use of airspace and intelligence support.”
“I am sorry Mr. Gibbs. While I greatly appreciate the United States concerns for our country, I have to decline your offer. Burma will always be a friend to the US, as well as the rest of the world, because we are a peaceful and compassionate people.” I remembered my father’s words. “But I’m sorry I cannot allow a foreign military force in the country again.”
We shook hands and parted ways. A few months later my mother fell seriously ill, forcing me to return to Burma. But what the Gibbs had told me came true. In the same year, the long-time leader of the Socialist ruling party, General Ne Win, stepped down, leading to mass demonstrations for democracy on 8 August 1988, which were violently suppressed. This compelled me to act, leading to my subsequent political career. I ran for office in the 1990 general election, and won by an overwhelming 82% of the vote. Instead, the results were nullified, and the military refused to hand over power. I was then placed under house arrest at my home near Lake Inya, where I stay locked up till this day.
******
The air is smoky with the smell of incense, the sound of Buddhist meditation chimes can be heard in the distance as I walk along the banks of the Ayeyarwaddy River. Up in the horizon, I see the towering spirals of the pagodas casting its massive shadow over the fields like giant behemoths. I see the monk again, sitting cross legged on the fields. He looks up at me. Then he points towards the direction of the river. I turned towards the river, and I see a dark, shadowy figure emerge slowly from the waters. I stood frozen in fear as this dark figure slowly creeps towards me.
I looked back at the monk, and he looked straight into my eyes. Then he spoke.
“Beware the ghost.”
‘Yettaw’-The Ghost
Solitude does strange things to the mind. Or maybe it’s just the stress of nearing the end of my house detention, which I highly doubt would be allowed to happen by the junta. Or maybe I am finally losing my sanity; because as I look out the barred window of my home prison, I can see a figure swimming across the lake towards the home compound. It was like the figure I saw in the strange version of the dream I had last night. The ‘ghost’ that the monk was telling me about. And like a ghost he had somehow eluded all the guards that patrol this compound 24 hours a day. I could no longer see him from the window as he disappeared under the house.
I then hear a banging sound coming from the kitchen. I rushed to check where the noise was coming from, and arrive in the kitchen to see the wooden floor boards pushed out from underneath. I watched fear stricken as a man forces his way from under the floor boards. I slowly started to recognize the face on the head that poked into the hole in the kitchen floor. It was the man who greeted me at the meeting with Gibbs all those years ago. I could hardly believe my eyes.
I grabbed his hand and helped pull him out.
“What on earth are you doing here? Do you know you could get shot?”
“Miss Suu Kyi, I am John Yettaw, I’m sure you recognize me from your meeting with Mr. Gibbs many years ago.” He sits himself against the wall, visibly exhausted from the swim across the lake. “I come with an urgent message and time is off the essence. Miss Suu Kyi your life is in grave danger.”
“What? But how..? Who..?”
“We have information that a military coup is going to take place inside the junta,” he pauses for breath, and continues. “But this is a staged coup, a hoax, a ploy designed to deceive the international community. So there will be an appearance of a power vacuum in Burma. A famous Burmese exile would come in to lead a puppet government that would be hostile to the West and other democracies, but one that would be free to operate without the constraints of international sanctions.”
I could hardly believe what I was hearing.
“But for this exile to take power, you Suu Kyi, would have to be killed.”
“But, but, who? Who would do such a thing?”
We hear the sound of juntas running outside towards the house.
“We have reason to believe that he is one of your brothers.”
“…………………………….”
I listened in horror as Yettaw pauses for another gasp of air.
“But we have another offer for you.”
*****************
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