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OPINION/ESSAYS, Page 19
-HD-
Aung San Suu Kyi Speaks to Young America
-BY-
Alexander Kronemer
-ED-
19970609
-TX-
Aung San Suu Kyi of Burma increasingly seems like the Gandhi of our
times. As the physically unimposing head of a nonviolent political
movement, the Nobel Peace Prize winner speaks to world leaders largely
from the authority of her moral stature.
In February she appealed to Burma's trading partners to break economic
ties with her troubled country to further isolate its oppressive regime.
Though Burma's closest neighbors recently voted to accept it into the
Association of Southeast Asian Nations, President Clinton vowed that no
new United States investment dollars will go to Burma, which the
military regime there calls Myanmar.
Since Mr. Clinton's announcement, Ms. Suu Kyi's enemies have threatened
to "punish" her. The military junta that keeps her under virtual house
arrest has imprisoned hundreds of her supporters in the past few weeks.
Yet she bravely continues to speak out for democracy, as she has since
returning to Burma in 1988. And her words, like Gandhi's, often carry a
spiritual message that transcends politics.
Suu Kyi delivered just such a message to some of America's newest
college graduates through a smuggled speech read for her in January at
American University's winter commencement in Washington.
"Some are destined to lead tranquil lives, safe in the security of a
society that guarantees fundamental rights," she wrote. "Others may find
themselves in situations where they have to strive incessantly for the
most basic of rights, the right to life itself."
"It is no simple matter to decide who are the more fortunate," she then
added to the surprise of some in the audience, "those to whom life gives
all or those who have to give all to life. A fulfilled life is not
necessarily one constructed strictly in accordance with one's own
blueprint."
Suu Kyi, who raised two sons in the West before she returned to Burma,
suddenly had interjected into a talk about the wounds of her country
mention of what many say afflicts the young in ours - that they have
nothing but their individual pursuit of material comfort as a blueprint
for constructing a life. They have been called Generation X. Though
every day there is news about the unraveling of our social fabric,
post-cold-war America is frequently described as a place where no
compelling challenges exist for them. Though the world still burns in
many places, as Burma attests, we are told that history has ended.
Why does most of the talk about the supposed banality of post-cold-war
America come from the mouths and word processors of the educated middle
class? The poor in our inner cities and impoverished rural areas don't
complain about ennui. Perhaps, instead of experiencing the end of
history, we are witnessing the end of the social connections between the
middle class and the poorer segments of society.
DURING the first 70 years of this century, many in the growing middle
class were themselves only a generation removed from the struggles
facing the lower rungs of society. The differences in income were not
great.
But as the Commerce Department reported last year, income inequality
among households "increased significantly" between 1968 and 1994. The
measure of family-income inequality showed a stunning increase of more
than 22 percent. Prior to 1968, it had been decreasing for almost 20
years.
As material inequality increases in our country, the middle class and
the poorer segments of society grow further apart both physically and
psychologically. The problem this poses for Generation X is a spiritual
one. As Suu Kyi stated in her address:
"Thinking and feeling people everywhere, regardless of color or creed,
understand the deeply rooted human need for a meaningful existence that
goes beyond the mere gratification of material desires."
What can bridge the economic distance that has led to today's emotional
separation from the most significant problems of our time?
Though some disdain was heaped on President Clinton for calling for
volunteerism at the Summit for America's Future in April, it may be only
through moral leadership that reconnection can be made. Suu Kyi reminds
us that high principles can connect people of different fortunes in
important causes:
"Young women and young men setting forth to leave their mark on the
world might wish to cast their eyes beyond their own frontiers towards
the shadowlands of lost rights."
Or to the shadowlands that exist here. Contrary to critics who consider
it too lightweight an activity for a president, Clinton should spend
more time speaking for such things as volunteerism and community
service. Generation X's challenge is the challenge that Suu Kyi faces:
to reach beyond the connections of economics to find the higher
connections of the spirit.
* Alexander Kronemer, a freelance writer, is an economist in the United
States Department of Labor.
"THERE WILL BE NO REAL DEMOCRACY IF WE CAN'T GURANTEE THE RIGHTS OF THE
MINORITY ETHNIC PEOPLE. ONLY UNDERSTANDING THEIR SUFFERING AND HELPING
THEM TO EXERCISE THEIR RIGHTS WILL ASSIST PREVENTING FROM THE
DISINTEGRATION AND THE SESESSION." "WITHOUT UNDERSTANDING THEIR
STRENGTH, WE CAN'T TOPPLE THE SLORC AND BURMA WILL NEVER BE IN PEACE."
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