Award Revoked from Aung San Suu Kyi

[Belsnickel]

So, Aung San Suu Kyi is the leader of Myanmar who received humanitarian awards when she leaped onto the world stage. Now she is receiving (deserved) criticism for her being complicit in the Rohingya genocide.

This most recent move was The Holocaust Museum revoking her 2012 award.

Quote:WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States Holocaust Museum is revoking a major human rights award given to Aung San Suu Kyi (ahng sahn soo chee), Myanmar’s civilian leader.

The museum announced Wednesday that the Elie Wiesel (EL’-ee vee-ZEHL’) Award given to Suu Kyi in 2012 would be rescinded. Museum officials cited her refusal to condemn the mass killings of Myanmar’s Muslim Rohingya (ROH’-hihn-jah) minority.

Suu Kyi was a Mandela-like figure in Myanmar who spent years under house arrest for opposing the country’s military dictatorship. She became an international rallying point and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991. Her party won a landslide victory in 2015 and she became state counsellor.

But Suu Kyi’s international reputation has plummeted over the Rohingya massacres and she has been criticized as an apologist for the purges.

[Dill]

(03-07-2018, 02:38 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: So, Aung San Suu Kyi is the leader of Myanmar who received humanitarian awards when she leaped onto the world stage. Now she is receiving (deserved) criticism for her being complicit in the Rohingya genocide.

This most recent move was The Holocaust Museum revoking her 2012 award.

Ha ha, not the first time a "freedom fighter" turned out to be a terrorist.

[BmorePat87]

(03-07-2018, 06:38 PM)Dill Wrote: Ha ha, not the first time a "freedom fighter" turned out to be a terrorist.

every freedom fighter is a terrorist in their opponents' eyes

[*bfine32*]

Things like this happen when we try to judge what we have no idea about.

[Dill]

(03-08-2018, 12:14 AM)BmorePat87 Wrote: every freedom fighter is a terrorist in their opponents' eyes

Rebel, certainly, but not always a terrorist.

In this case I'm guessing there are cultural frames of reference in play that are hard to read from outside. Kyi may understand direct confrontation with her military will not be effective, or appear to much of the country to be shaming Myanmar before the outside world.  Hence her moral paralysis, or a more oblique approach that appears to her the only route forward, even though we can't see it. Hence talk of effects of long dictatorship on the population, about which she could be right. And of course she might simply share the prejudices of her countrymen, and we didn't notice that when she was oppressed (just like people didn't notice Solzhenitsyn was a crazy authoritarian when the Soviets forbid his immigration). I would not have recalled the award without talking to her first--in private.

The oppression of Rohinga has gone on long enough to draw jihadis from the world over, making the conflict harder to sort out and resolve. Beyond the capacity of anyone in Myanmar, I'm sure.  Broken state in the making? This will likely eventually destabilize fragile Bengladesh as well, perhaps draw it into conflict with Myanmar.