{"id":187636,"date":"2021-06-28T12:00:26","date_gmt":"2021-06-28T11:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=187636"},"modified":"2021-06-25T04:12:01","modified_gmt":"2021-06-25T03:12:01","slug":"myanmar-anti-coup-oppositions-happy-birthday-parties-for-aung-san-suu-kyi-do-not-augur-well-for-the-countrys-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2021\/06\/myanmar-anti-coup-oppositions-happy-birthday-parties-for-aung-san-suu-kyi-do-not-augur-well-for-the-countrys-future\/","title":{"rendered":"Myanmar Anti-Coup Opposition\u2019s Happy Birthday Parties for Aung San Suu Kyi Do Not Augur Well for the Country\u2019s Future"},"content":{"rendered":"

The mass hysteria around Aung San Suu Kyi\u2019s birthday is the clearest indication of deeply entrenched cultist neo-totalitarian thoughts, mental habits and political behaviour among Ms Suu Kyi\u2019s populist base. It confirms how indifferent this base is to the democratic ethos, international law, and normative principles of human rights.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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A Bangladeshi activist burn effigy of Myanmar\u2019s State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi during a protest to stop the Genocide on Rohingya in Myanmar, in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on September 15, 2017. Photo: Mamunur Rashid \/ Shutterstock.com<\/p><\/div>\n

24 Jun 2021 – <\/em>On 19 June Myanmar\u2019s ousted populist leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, turned 76.\u00a0 Naturally, wishing someone, a public figure, a loved one, or even a Facebook friend, Happy Birthday, is a good and heart-warming thing.<\/p>\n

However, the global public display among her millions of supporters (both Myanmar public and foreigners, including diplomats), of birthday wishes on social media, along with in real-time and real-space parties for Suu Kyi, is deeply troubling. For the widely popular act betrays both the pervasive public indifference to both the pain and suffering of the genocide victims \u2013 2-million people.\u00a0 Additionally, it signifies the absence of individual and collective responsibility and the shirking of national responsibility as Myanmar people in the face of international judicial and criminal proceedings at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and International Criminal Court (ICC).<\/p>\n

Without a doubt, the detained leader bears the charge of genocide complicity at best, and criminal responsibility at worst, for the country\u2019s national crime, namely the genocide and crimes against humanity regarding the Rohingya, a \u201cprotected group\u201d (with its own distinct racial, ethnic, and religious identity) under the Genocide Convention as determined as such by the ICJ\u2019s preliminary, or provisional orders.<\/p>\n

To me as a Burmese human rights activist, the mass hysteria of wishing \u2018Mother Suu\u2019, Happy Birthday speaks volumes about how little fundamental change there has been in Myanmar, despite the public outpouring, (especially among the country\u2019s Generation Z), of remorse and apologies directed at the victims of the genocide.<\/p>\n

A decade ago, led by the acting Director of the London School of Economics and Political Science, I joined the packed audience inside the Peacock Theatre on campus in London in singing \u201cHappy Birthday Daw Suu\u201d at the end of the Rule of Law Roundtable which coincided with her 66th birthday.\u00a0 She was the guest of honour on the Roundtable I helped organize with Professor Mary Kaldor, a close friend of her late husband Michael Aris and her contemporary at Oxford University.<\/p>\n

The School\u2019s organisers asked me if it would be culturally appropriate to sing a Happy Birthday for the Burmese leader and how our world renowned guest would receive such public act of well-wishing.\u00a0 I even helped pick LSE\u2019s birthday gift for her: a never-before-published black and white picture of her martyred father, Aung San, while he was in London in January 1947 for independence negotiations with the then-Labour Prime Minister, Clement Attlee.<\/p>\n

Although my political activism had taken a different direction from her NLD policies, I had retained deep personal warmth towards the woman, the only daughter of Bogyoke Aung San whom the country\u2019s ethnic majority consider our slain national hero and father of the republic.\u00a0 Besides, she was a major source of my activist aspirations who was an example of placing the country\u2019s interests above her family and own academic career.<\/p>\n

At a more personal level, her late father and my great-uncle Zan Yin were young lads who hailed from the Burmese heartlands of Upper Burma to Rangoon where they lived as dorm neighbours for 4 years, became good friends and attended same classes as undergraduates in the old colonial-era Rangoon University, during the restive nationalist days of the 1930\u2019s.<\/p>\n

Then I felt elated and honoured to share that panel and to sing Happy Birthday for the woman whom I called Aunty (and she addressed me as \u201cson\u201d), whom the world thought could walk on the water.<\/p>\n

However, this past weekend\u2019s 76th birthday celebrations on social media, triggered in me nothing less than a very visceral reaction, for the reasons that I will spell out here.<\/p>\n

I am not alone.<\/p>\n

While the ethnic Burmese who found unconscionable the continued love fest around the detained National League for Democracy leader, make up only a minority, the rage against the unmistakable mass hysteria with hashtags \u2013 as evidenced in the #FlowerCampaign #HappyBirthdayMother \u2013 was palpable in the social media, particularly on Facebook.<\/p>\n

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CDM (Civil Disobedience Movement)\u2019s campaign of #FlowerStrike on Suu Kyi\u2019s 19 June birthday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Sir Geoffrey Nice, the prosecutor in the case against Slobodan Milosevic, the President of Serbia\u00a0 indicted for genocide<\/a>, in the Yugoslavia tribunal at the Hague, was one of the distinguished speakers on our panel who also joined in the singing. As more evidence of genocidal crime were reported 4 years since LSE\u2019s birthday party for Suu Kyi, Sir Geoffrey proceeded to co-author a Foreign Policy opinion editorial \u201cMyanmar Genocide in the Making<\/a>\u201d \u2013 In the op-ed, the law professor and former prosecutor stressed that, as the sitting head of state, Aung San Suu Kyi was expected to know the international law and may even bear \u201ccriminal responsibility\u201d for the crimes which were perpetrated under her watch.<\/p>\n

After global happy birth day parties on 19 June, one Burmese social media activist \u2013 writing under the pseudonym, Vito Scarletta<\/a>, \u2013\u00a0 went ballistic. He expressed his disbelief that the massive number of fellow Burmese people would continue to idolise and express deep love for the globally disgraced \u2013 nah, \u201ccondemned\u201d is the word \u2013 politician who misled and misinformed the adoring crowds of supporters on the country\u2019s genocide and other crimes against non-majoritarian ethnic communities, as well as the Muslims.<\/p>\n

For Suu Kyi\u2019s real crimes see \u201cThe real crimes of Myanmar\u2019s Suu Kyi and the farce of her trial<\/a>\u201c.<\/p>\n

Below: Suu Kye at London School of Economics. Recorded on 19 June 2012 in Peacock Theatre, Portugal Street. Irreversible change: from where she and Burma were in 2012 and today.<\/p>\n

httpv:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=z2O0yp-xijc&t=3320s<\/p>\n

Vito pointed out that 19 June was designated as global day against sexual violence, and yet millions of Burmese people were pouring their hearts out, wishing Happy Birthday to the populist demagogue whose official Myanmar State Counsellor website brazenly mocked as \u201cFake Rape\u201d all first-person victim tales of rape and gang rape of Rohingya girls and women between the ages of 12 and 70.<\/p>\n

As early as February 2017, Aung San Suu Kyi dismissed the UN Office of the High Commission on Human Rights field reports documenting the use of sexual violence against Rohingyas in the genocidal purge, albeit on a small scaler, in the autumn of 2016. She did so in a phone conversation during which she was, in no uncertain terms, informed by the then UN Human Rights Chief Zeid Ra\u2019ad Al Hussein about the widespread use of rape against Rohingya women. Zeid publicly expressed<\/a> his indignation that Aung San Suu Kyi, the sitting de facto head of state, who not even once bothered to sit down and hear the horrific rape stories recounted by the Rohingya survivors of such heinous crimes, would question the \u201cmethodology\u201d of the UN human rights documentation.<\/p>\n

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Myanmar State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi\u2019s Statement (25 Aug. 2017)<\/strong>
\nendorsing, with great appreciation, the security forces launching military operations against \u201cextremist terrorists\u201d in Northern Rakhine.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Both the military\u2019s genocidal purge, violence, deportation, rape, and physical destruction of nearly 400 villages and Suu Kyi\u2019s own categorical denial have been well-documented.<\/p>\n

She did not stop at the crime denial. Amidst global condemnations of the Myanmar genocide and the UN\u2019s official findings, Suu Kyi closed ranks and stood with the perpetrators, while repeatedly expressing her \u201caffection\u201d for the perpetrating Burmese generals whom she called \u201cmy father\u2019s sons\u201d. \u00a0\u00a0According to Professor Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak who was involved in hosting Aung San Suu Kyi at Columbia University in 2013, the Burmese leader was emphatic that her affection was \u201cgenuine\u201d.<\/p>\n

In the BBC\u2019s flagship broadcast programme, Desert Island Discs, the host, Kirsty Young, emphatically asked the Myanmar leader if the latter still felt affectionate about the men who were credibly accused of raping and slaughtering Rohingyas and other national minorities such as Karen, Shan, Kachin and so on. Her shocking response was this \u201cif you love someone you love them (unconditionally) \u2013 in spite of (who they are or what their behaviour)\u201d. [Listen here from: 34:20 in the recording: https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sounds\/play\/b01q7gvl<\/a> ]<\/p>\n

Her unconscionable stance on Myanmar\u2019s international crimes against Rohingyas culminated in her appearing as the Agent of Myanmar defending the genocide allegations at the ICJ in December 2019.\u00a0\u00a0 Deservedly, she has been roundly and universally condemned by the very media that had a huge role in the manufacturing Suu Kyi as an inspiring global icon of human rights and humanity.<\/p>\n

Below \u2013 11 December 2019: Singapore CNA\u2019s reportage of Aung San Suu\u2019s dismissal of genocide allegations at ICJ<\/p>\n

httpv:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=aqC1OxN6kM0<\/p>\n

Below \u2013 23 January 2020: Al Jazeera International, the ICJ delivered unanimous provisional orders to protect Rohingya from further prospects of genocide<\/p>\n

httpv:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=kzAJvPyuK94<\/p>\n

Below \u2013 24 December 2019: BBC News: Aung San Suu Kyi: How a peace icon ended up at a genocide trial<\/p>\n

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