VOICE OF HOPE - DASSK'S BOOK AVAILA

[uneoo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Subject: VOICE OF HOPE - DASSK'S BOOK AVAILABLE IN AUSTRALIA.

/* Posted 29 Aug 6:00am 1997 by drunoo@xxxxxxxxxxxx(DrU Ne Oo) in igc:reg.burma */
/* ----------------" Voice of Hope, available "---------------- */

ADDED NOTE TO OUR FRIENDS IN AUSTRALIA
**************************************
The "Voice of Hope", the collection of transcripts of Alan Clements's
conversations with Aung San Suu Kyi, is now available in most bookstore in
Australia (certainly in Adelaide bookshops). Cost A$16.95.

If a movement be likened (quite often, I like to think that way) to a human
being, it will need to have some food for energy and exercise for fitness.
In our movement for democracy in Burma, which its important part based on
the international solidarity, the activities we made may be considered not
merely as a pursuit of certain political objective but also to be seen as
the exercise to keep our fitness: Keeping solidarity within the movement.

The book like "Voice of Hope", in this context, may be considered as food
for energy. For meaningful participation in a movement, especially in a
non-violent movement, we must be able to understand the fundamental
concepts of such movement. At some stage, it may not be as easy as it seem
to comprehend those fundamentals. On the otherhand, these fundamentals are
with human-beings since our existence and therefore may not be as faraway
as we think they are of beyond our reach: Ghandi, for example, once said
"I have nothing new to teach the world. Truth and non-violence are as old
as the hills." This book by Alan Clements has shed some more light into the
inner thinking of Aung San Suu Kyi in particular and the Burmese people's
non-violent movement in general. It is hopeful that the book will become
the source of energy for our non-violent friends around the world and in
Australia.

With best regards, U Ne Oo.

* FOLLOWING IS AN ESSAY BY SUSAN KUROSAWA ABOUT "VOICE OF HOPE"
  FEATURED IN LAST WEEK'S THE AUSTRALIAN NEWSPAPER.
*************************************************************************

22/8/97 THE AUSTRALIAN: BOOKS
-----------------------------
BURMA'S GUARDED VOICE OF DISSENT
By Susan Kurosawa

The fine-featured Aung San Suu Kyi, her smooth dark hair caught with a
spray of fresh flowers, has become as much a symbol of non-violent
political struggle as Martin Luther King, Mahatama Gandhi, Valclav Havel
and the Dalai Lama.

It is the fragile Suu Kyi and not the big-gun generals of her country's
ruling military junta -- the State Law and Order Restoration Council - Who
has become Burma's most recognisable politicians. As leader of the National
League for Democracy, Burma's elected government in exile, she continues to
fight with words, not weapons, for democracy, an inspirational example of
what Havel has called "the power of powerless".

While Suu Kyi's plight has been well documented, and her uneasy entente
with the SLORC receives regular news coverage, we know little of her on a
personal level. "The Voice of Hope", a transcribed series of conversations
through nine months between Suu Kyi and Burma watcher Alan Clements (who
spent five years as a Buddhist monk in Burma, and acted as adviser and
script revisionist for the 1995 feature film "Beyond Rangoon"), give
scattered insights into her offstage life.

"I won't ever talk about my personal relationship with my family members,"
she states politely but ever so firmly. So even though the two chat with
ease, Suu Kyi remains guarded, little interested in any grandstanding.

Write Clements in his preface: "Aung San Suu Kyi is a fiercely private
woman ... I found her a sealed vault in some areas and an open universe in
others."

The taped conversation take place in Suu Kyi's home -- the white stucco
colonial villa at 54 University Avenue, RAngoon, so familiar to those
who've followed reports of her house arrest. According to Clements, the
building is in disrepair, with peeling paint and water stains from
monsoonal rains. But he writes of its oasis-like serenity, describing it as
"a calm island within the totalitarian repression outside the compound."

In a high-ceilinged living room, Suu Kyi sits on the edge of a long
straight backed sofa. Clements describes her as "radiant and energetic, yet
balanced with a calm confidence". Withher precise replies, perfect posture
and sense of decorum, one is reminded of a private school head girl --
popular and high-achieving, the dutiful daughter for whome every parent
wishes.

Just as we wonder how Nelson Mandela survived his long imprisonment, it's
hard to imagine how anyone could cope with the boredom and isolation of six
years of house arrest. From July 1989 to July 1995, Suu Kyi's communication
with the outside world was limited to radio broadcasts and monitored
correspondence. But the chapter in which Clements broaches the topice is
titled, tellingly, "I never learned to hate my captors."

In describing the early days of her sequestration, she says how amused she
was by the cutting of the phone line.

"I always thought it simply meant they switched it off some where at the
main exchange. Actually no, they just came and cut off the wires of the
telephone with a pair of scissors and carried it away."

When asked about seperation from her husband, Dr Michael Aris, and their
two sons, she says:"The greatest sacrifice was giving up my sons, but I was
always aware of the fact that others had sacrificed more than me."

She was guarded by SLORC security men and descirbes how she posted excerpts
of speeches made by her father -- Aung San, Burma's great pro-democracy
hero, assassinated when she was two -- on the walls of her downstairs foyer
as she thought it would be "educational" for them. "They were always very
polite and some were very friendly ... I liked most of them as human beings
 .. That is not to say I liked what they did .. You must not think that I
was very angelic and never got angry .. But I never lost sight of the fact
that they were human beings."

So how did the long days pass? I started of the basis that I would have to
be very disciplined and keep to a strict timetable. I thought that I must
not waste my time and let myself go to seed." Suu Kyi laughs at her last
remarks as she goes on to describe a typical day of rising at 4.30, an
hour's meditation, listening to the radio, exercises, a bath. Then the
day's set program of reading -- including Nehru's autobiography and an old
copy of Pride and Prejudice -- and various domestic chores.

She ran the household by selling off pieces of furniture, a girl came by
with shopping orders, but money was short and there were times when food
was scarce and Suu KYi was too weak to get out of bed. "My theory was that
if I died of anything it would probably of heart failure from weakness
rather than from starvation," she states, without a hint of melodrama.

After her release -- at four in the afternoon, with three hours' notice --
Suu Kyi decided she would go outside the next day to resume her public
talks. "I just went out to say hello, as it were, a few words of greeting."
She makes it sound so simple, an ordinary woman, greeting friends after,
perhaps, an inconvenient convalescence.

Through Suu Kyi's replies to Clements's often penetrating questions, the
reader gains a good overall perspective of the political history of Burma
and a sense of Suu Kyi's vision and determination. Curiosity is hardly
seated, however, in the warts-and-all way of profiles of the feted and
famous.

Clements admits he wasn't ultimately satisfied, either. "I wanted more than
she was willing to give," he concludes. But her supporters -- the oppressed
subjects of a regime with one of the worst human rights records in history
-- have no reason whatsoever for such complaint.

        Susan Kurosawa is The Australian's travel editor.

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