The Perfect Hostage - part 2

The early history of Burma is wracked by endless conflict and bloodshed, which somehow seems to foretell the fate that has befallen Burma today. Since ancient times, Burma has never existed as a peaceable homogenous whole. Even today, some minorities in Burma like the Shan and the Karen people do not recognize the rule of the majority-Burmese governments.

Late in the 19th century, after Burma had endured yet another bloody post-succession purge, the British, under the pretext of a “moral cause for regime change” (yes, the White Man’s Burden), made the country a part of the British Empire, the Evil Empire of its day.

When the Japanese came, the British absconded and left the Burmans to the mercy of the Japanese, just like they did in Malaysia. When the Japanese left, the British just waltzed in to reclaim sovereignty over the nations they had left in the lurch when the going got tough.

Burma’s independence movement was born before the Japanese occupation, and the leader was The Lady’s father, Aung San. His political genius won Burma’s independence, and he was well on the way to becoming Burma’s first prime minister at the young age of 32. He was to institute a democracy in Burma after more than a thousand years of autocratic rule.

It looked like Burma was to have a peaceful society at last after a long history of conflict. However, enemies of Aung San killed him and members of his provisional Cabinet on 19th July 1947. The Lady was two years old.

His widow, Daw Khin Kyi, sad as she was, did not dwell on his death and strived on her own to bring up The Lady and her two brothers, one elder and younger. She always told them about how great their father was. After all, it was he liberated Burma from the British.

Daw Khin Kyi began to take up a variety of posts within the government, ending with ambassador to India in the 1960s. By then, the country had fallen into the hands of a military dictatorship under the corrupt and superstitious Ne Win. Daw Khin Kyi was disgusted at the prospect at working for a dictator who had lied to his people about eventually restoring democracy to the country.

Thus, for most part of her teenage and adult years, she lived outside Burma. She later went to Oxford, where she was to meet her husband Michael Aris. She had seemed content to spend her life outside her birth country, though she kept a watch on what was happening there.

(to be continued...)