A Political Biography of Aung San Suu Kyi

A Hybrid Politician

Michał Lubina

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN: 9781000178197
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Asian Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book is the first political biography of Aung San Suu Kyi covering both her years in opposition and all her years in power from 2016 onwards. It offers a new interpretation of Aung San Suu Kyi by presenting a balanced and thorough account of Suu Kyi's policies.

In the last 30 years there has not been a person in global politics who has risen so high and fallen so low – and so quickly – as Aung San Suu Kyi. Using postcolonial theory and introducing the new concept of `a hybrid politician', this book explains apparent inconsistencies of Suu Kyi's agenda. It demonstrates that Suu Kyi considers herself a democrat and yet, rules autocratically. Immersed in her country's tradition of policymaking, she has at the same time been influenced by foreign concepts, both Western and Asian. Drawing on first-hand research, including talks with Suu Kyi, conversations with her supporters and rivals, observations of Suu Kyi's behaviour during intergovernmental talks as well as an extensive number of sources and fieldwork in Myanmar, the author argues that Suu Kyi's case shows both the strengths and limits of hybridity. This brings Suu Kyi priceless political assets such as visibility, recognition and support while proving that such a model of leadership has its restrictions.

A timely biography of the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate as she appears at the International Court of Justice to defend her country against charges of genocide committed against the Rohingya Muslim minority, this book will be of interest to students and researchers of Myanmar politics, Southeast Asian politics, Asian politics, Political Science more generally, Postcolonial Studies, Cultural Studies and Leadership Studies.

1

Becoming a Hybrid Politician

DOI: 10.4324/9781003031956-1

What makes Aung San Suu Kyi a hybrid politician is a complex fusion of overlapping political perspectives, both Burmese and foreign. Naturally, the Burmese component is stronger. Suu Kyi was influenced by the moral, Buddhist underpinnings of policymaking (politicians are judged by morality more than by competence), by the Ashokan model, the personalization of power, the importance of unity and the eclectic, utilitarian assimilation of foreign elements. However, this does not mean that the external ideas that shape her policymaking can be neglected. Suu Kyi at various stages of her life, but particularly before entering politics, inhaled Christian influences, the ‘non-violence’ ideology personified by Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela, Western democratic ideas and Indian syncretic cosmopolitanism.

The Burmese background

Aung San Suu Kyi once wrote that “to be Burmese is to be Buddhist”,¹ and Buddhism is certainly the most important feature of Burmese identity, historically providing the idioms, structure and concepts for Burmese policymaking. The attitude of doctrinal Buddhism towards politics is clear: politics is an inevitable activity, yet of secondary importance.² That is why in Buddhist texts political engagement is often depicted as the antithesis of enlightenment-seeking. However, this does not mean that Buddhism is “unpolitical or anti-political”.³ Politics is not central to Buddhism, yet it matters; political aspects are clearly visible in canonical and post-canonical texts. The fundamental goal of politics is to guarantee stability, order and peace with a strong accent on preventing poverty (“only when your stomach is full can you keep the precepts”) and limiting the evil tendencies of mankind. From this understanding, sets of normative imperatives for a ruler originate: she or he should be moral, care for the people and rule in an enlightened manner. Otherwise there would be natural disasters, people would transgress and, ultimately, society would collapse. It is this tradition that prompted Suu Kyi to write: “the root of a nation's misfortunes has to be sought in the moral failings of the government”.⁴

Emperor Ashoka (304–232 bc) represents the archetype of this behaviour, though it is often conveniently forgotten that Ashoka started his enlightened governance after causing the death of around 100,000 people. His lesson, however, is not lost on many Buddhist rulers who have applied what can be called ‘the Ashokan model’: carrying out ‘necessary’ yet immoral actions first, followed by more moral and enlightened rule.⁵ Hence, the tradition of Burmese ‘warrior kings’ who made imperial conquests first and later turned (or hoped to turn) to piety. It is worth bearing in mind this practice of the Ashokan model of behaviour when interpreting the Tatmadaw's massacre of the ‘8888’ (8 August 1988) revolution or even Suu Kyi's reaction to the Rohingya crisis. The Ashokan model, as well as other multiple ways to bypass the inconvenient Buddhist moral precepts in governance, both doctrinal⁶ and practical,⁷ was born out of the tension between Buddhist ideals and the hard realities of politics.⁸ The tradition of ‘modifying’ such politically inconvenient Buddhist rules as prohibition of killing by saying that “in certain cases one may destroy life”⁹ or by claiming that the defence of dhamma overrides the laws of kamma,¹⁰ although not central to Buddhism, nevertheless survived into the twenty-first century.

From the basis of Buddhism originates the Burmese tradition of policymaking. It is founded on consideration of politics as a field of moral actions under Buddhist laws.¹¹ This deeply religious background of politics in Myanmar produces a reality where the moral perception of politics still dominates, leading to the personification of power (institutions and laws are secondary to individuals and loyalty is personalized), the sacralization of the leader and condemnation of the opponents and everlasting calls for unity (the central value in Burmese political thought) understood as a moral ability to move beyond one's selfishness.¹²

On a more social level, policymaking in Burma was and still is state-centred, where the general population is disinterested and/or excluded from this sphere of life. Although this elitist approach has been challenged by more inclusive voices,¹³ including that of Aung San Suu Kyi, it still remains the dominant approach, albeit on a lesser scale than before.

The traditional political paradigm of Burma emphasizes the imperfection of human nature: people are prone to transgression and enter into conflict with others which produces a never-ending cycle of violence. Only a strong political authority can be a remedy to that, as it can keep the imperfect nature of people in check.¹⁴ This is the authoritarian, antidemocratic tradition (the people cannot be the ultimate source of sovereignty because the people are immoral)¹⁵ that has dominated in the history of Burma.

The alternative, which may optimistically be called a feeble democratic tradition in Burma, does not argue about people's desire-driven nature, but stresses their capacity to overcome it and live ethical lives; here, the purpose of politics is, then, to establish circumstances that encourage the moral behaviour of the people.¹⁶ This is a more inclusive approach that may – but does not have to – lead to the establishment of a democratic system. One may ascribe to this tradition the ambitious yet failed democratic reforms proposed by Hpo Hlaing and other modernizers (U Kaung, Kyaw Htun) in the mid-nineteenth century; Nu's erratic democratic governance in the 1950s and the unfulfilled universalism of the “Buddhist modernists”¹⁷ in the mid-twentieth century. This is a tradition where one could place Aung San Suu Kyi, though not necessarily her father.

Aung San, the father of Suu Kyi and the founder of modern Burma, is the pivotal figure for both Suu Kyi and Myanmar. Following several political, military and ideological twists during World War II, Aung San secured Burma's independence and, although assassinated shortly before it became a reality, became a Burmese hero. Until 1988 all Burmese governments built their legitimacy upon him and so did Suu Kyi when entering politics. It was all too easy given the fact that Aung San was a realist pragmatist, with a quite flexible and eclectic political agenda.¹⁸ In the Burmese context, Aung San represented “a syncretic mixture of Burmese tradition and ‘modern’ global ideas”.¹⁹

If Suu Kyi had not been Aung San's daughter she would not be in politics, as was the case with Sirimavo Bandaranaike, Indira Gandhi, Benazir Bhutto, Sheikh Hasina Wajed, Khaleda Zia Rahman, Corazon C. Aquino, Megawati Sukarnoputri and Park Geun-hye; the “infectious charisma that came from being ‘widows-of-him’ or ‘daughters-of-him’”²⁰ is well-researched in literature. From this standpoint, Suu Kyi with her “karmic credentials”²¹ that came from her perfect lineage is just a Burmese equivalent of an Asian phenomenon. But in the case of Suu Kyi, there is more at stake. Her obsession with her father (visible in so many aspects)²² turns the power struggle in Myanmar into ‘family quest’ for regaining the power from the hands of military usurpers.²³ Finally, and most importantly, Aung San, with his eclecticism, his ideological flexibility, his skilful usage of Buddhist rhetoric, his Leninist style of party governance and many other aspects, remains the ultimate model of leadership for Suu Kyi.

Aung San, who employed several foreign ideologies to suit his policies, followed a local tradition of assimilating foreign ideas. In Southeast Asia there exists a centuries-long tradition of accepting, assimilating and transforming foreign ideas in a way that with time one can barely recognize the original versions.²⁴ This tradition dates back to at least the Indianization, while in more modern history it became very visible during the colonial times. Responding to the challenge, modernizing movements in Southeast Asia did not consider Westernization as the only guarantee of success (as it was in the case of Atatürk's Turkey for example), but they assumed ideological eclecticism instead. They strived to emulate the sources of the West's successes – ‘external’ (technical or technological) modernization without compromising the identity of the country and without undergoing a deep social change. Mindon's modernization with its Buddhism and monarchical power at the centre accompanied by technological modernization in the background is the best example.²⁵ This attitude, similar to Japan's Meiji reforms or to China's zhong ti, xi yong, in Southeast Asia succeeded only in Thailand (then known as Siam). In Burma, despite the brave yet unfinished reforms in the mid-nineteenth century, it failed. It left, however, an important legacy on Burmese policymaking. Since then, almost all Burmese political leaders have considered Western-born ideologies as the means to their goal of regaining independence first and rebuilding the country's greatness later. Ideologies, concepts and political systems taken from the West changed, though the eclecticism remained constant: they chose parts and rejected the rest. Western ideas are not considered autotelic values. Eclectic usage of these ideas functions as a way of modernizing a country. This attitude was true for Aung San as well as to his direct successors: Nu (“the Buddhist socialism”) and Ne Win (“the Burmese way to socialism”), who both tried to assimilate the then fashionable, socialist ideas. Post-1988 Tatmadaw generals did the same with the most popular global idea of the last half-century: democracy. Hence, ‘the disciplined democracy’ was born. This is the intellectual tradition where one should locate ideas formative for Suu Kyi.

The reason why Burmese reforms failed, both in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, offers perhaps a clue as to why Suu Kyi is unsuccessful in governance now. According to widespread opinion in Burma, the British colonized the country because they were stronger (they had guns, better weapons) not because they had more just social institutions. From then on, the Burmese elites were looking to the West in search of sources of power and influence. This was connected to the idea of copying the ‘good things’ from the West (science, technology) and discarding the rest (a concept they called ‘preserving traditional values’) – just like Mongkut and Chulalongkorn successfully did ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 Becoming a hybrid politician
• 2 The Kairos moment
• 3 The lioness
• 4 The non-level playing field
• 5 The roadmap
• 6 The poker game
• 7 A political to-be-or-not-to-be
• 8 The State Counsellor
• 9 Fall from grace
• Conclusion: A balance sheet
• Bibliography
• Index