Sunday, November 18, 2012

Suu Kyi visits her alma mater in India

    This week, when Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese opposition leader, who’s being hosted with great ceremony by world leaders after over two decades of struggle and detention in her home country, visited her alma mater — Delhi University’s Lady Shri Ram College — she was met with great warmth by generations of students.
    After eloquent and carefully prepared speeches were read in her honour, Suu Kyi spoke impromptu, explaining, “Before I came, I thought, what kind of speech should I prepare? Then I decided not to prepare any,
partly because I didn’t have enough time, and partly because I wanted my speech to be an answer to what you say to me. I knew that when I came to India, I’d come to LSR, to this hall where I learnt to sing one of Gandhi’s favourite songs, Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram... In the faces of these girls — and I have seen the same faces everywhere I’ve been, including in Oxford — is the warmth of hearts who haven’t learnt to be embittered by hatred. They must carry the world forward, because nothing ages you more than hatred.”
    She added, “I’d like to remind you that many of the things you take for granted are things we in Burma are still fighting for. In institutions like these, syoung women can enjoy ‘campus life’, but in Burma, they don’t know what that means. They don’t have that kind of life outside classes... As we go forward in our quest for such higher education, we’d like you to be with us... all those interested in helping young people develop.”