Engaging Politics in Myanmar by Aung Htoo

Author:Aung Htoo [Htoo, Aung]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781783687817
Publisher: Langham Creative Projects
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

During her life in the UK, Suu Kyi used to garnish herself with the traditional costume as an expression of her identification with the people of Myanmar. Even though Suu Kyi is educationally a product of the West, she is fluent in the Burmese language and can masterfully articulate her ideas by using local resources (such as sayings, metaphors, illustrations, and images) without referring to Western intellectual traditions.[12] This greatly appealed to many of the people of Myanmar. As a result of identifying with her people, Suu Kyi received love, admiration and respect from her people and from those across the world. This kind of leadership can be compared to the idea of “incarnational leadership” which is now promoted among Christian scholars. The word “incarnation” is a theological term that refers to the act of God coming to earth in human form as Jesus. Based on this concept, incarnational leadership is defined as, “an attempt to imitate the self-emptying act of Jesus as the Word made flesh that came to dwell among us.”[13] Therefore, incarnational leadership promotes a leadership approach that values those of the people who are being led with active humility. Therefore, King and Suu Kyi, through identifying themselves with the people, were able to get a closer look at and better understand the real lives and struggles of their people.

Furthermore, leadership in nonviolence seeks to nurture and support people, not to overpower them. Nonviolent leaders refuse to use any form of violence in any situation for they have identified with the spirit of the DFO. As Wink illustrates that in the crucifixion, Jesus rejected the use of violence, even as a last resort, and instead trusted God with the outcome, as he endured the cross.[14] Similarly King and Suu Kyi, in their leadership, have exercised a great deal of power in leading their people, where the power they exerted is transformative and supportive, not domineering and overbearing. They have also repudiated violence as a last resort; instead, they endured all the threats and attacks of their opponents. In that sense, the ideas of dictatorship, authoritarianism, totalitarianism, despotism, and tyranny have nothing to do with nonviolence, because they all seek power to control, but nonviolent leaders seek to get rid of this idea and transform enmity into friendship.

Despite the great moral leadership of King and Suu Kyi, their charisma led their people to idolize them, and eventually, they inadvertently created personality cults. The civil rights movement that King led could not find a replacement for him after his assassination. Similarly, who will replace Suu Kyi after her retirement since she is eighty years old? Further, she has felt that the younger generation seems to be too ambitious or craving position instead of responsibility. As discussed in the last chapter, she stresses the importance of responsibility in leadership at the expense of the role of the position. For her, what counts is not a position but responsibility. As Peter Popham observes, there is Suu Kyi’s suspicion – anybody who wants to lead is a priori proof that they are not of the right moral calibre.

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