Part 2: Section 5 Summary

This section comes from an essay Aung San Suu Kyi started—but was unable to complete before she was placed under house arrest 20 July 1989—that was about democracy and human rights (she had hoped to dedicate it to her father, "Bogyoke Aung San"). She began by noting that the movement for democracy in Burma has been undermined in many places along the way. The Burmese are said to be unfit to govern themselves; the basic tenets of democracy are said to be an outside concept alien to Burmese culture. There is nothing new in justifying and perpetuating authoritarian rule by denouncing democracy as alien: Although conventional propaganda aimed at consolidating established power has been condemned throughout the modern world, "in Burma, distanced by several decades of isolationism from political and intellectual elopements in the outside world," people have had...