beauty delux

How World politics got its groove back: Aung San Suu Kyi

Her face has been on the cover of every TIME magazine edition  around the World and  an appearance in the Swiss capital Bern, had to be cut short  after she vomited during a press conference. Meanwhile  back in her homeland, dozens were reported killed and hundreds of homes destroyed in fires as Muslim-ethnic Rohingya and Buddhist-ethnic Arakanese clashed in western Burma…

She exused herself saying she was exhausted after the little incident in Bern…I watched her last night live from Geneva  speaking at the UN labor conference….I must confess I was overwhelmed it became hard to swallow my dinner…. not as much for the speech itself, it was after all a well written speech no doubt,  but there was something going on…you don’t know what it is do you Mr. Jones… something larger and rather incredible…

This woman has the groove that  has been missing from the arena of World politics since maybe Corazon Aquino was around.  You cannot help but be drawn to her her sincerity and spiritual resolve;  she is actually genuine, her openness  palpable:  of pure flesh and bones…. I felt pulled into her gravitational orbit and without sounding too metaphysical or new age:  her Karma was definitively real…She is the new hope for a World that has grown cold. After President Obama’s promises and rhetoric came to a fizzle shortly after he took office back in 2008 it seemed that the possibility for there ever being a brighter future had been dealt its final blow. On a World stage these things have always taken on mhytical and methaforical proportions;  that is the way that we perceive the actions of our leaders, it has always been this way: we buid and destroy our own idols.

While speaking in Geneva  the 67 year young Aung San  said she did not represent the government of Burma, which has faced allegations of using conscript labour in the armed forces and state industries.   I do not stand here as a representative of the workers, or of employers, or of a government,” She said: “Not yet anyway.”

It was a simple and disarming statement from the woman who has spent 15 of the last 20 years under some form of house arrest and now feels power is within her grasp. She has been elected as an opposition MP only in April, and she currently commands the support of just 10 per cent of the military-dominated parliament…but it doesn’t matter because what she has is the hearts of millions of people around the World as the new poster icon for yes,  you guess it HOPE.

It is highly possible that with the next wave of elections to take place in Burma she will be the new head of state, I only wish that it does not engulf her heart and spirit as it was in the case of president Obama, I hope she keeps her groove. We do need something to believe in that is pure and true. We work better this way knowing that in the end there is still a place left for sincerity and good in the World. Something money or power can’t buy.

Ms Suu Kyi has embarked on a 17-day tour of Europe that will see her accept the Nobel Peace Prize she was awarded in 1992 before travelling to Britain to address a joint session of parliament in Westminster Hall.

The emotional high point of the trip will be a return to Oxford where she lived as a student and wife of Michael Aris, an Oxford scholar who died in 1999. She was unable to leave Burma at that time,  since she was still under house arrest. She will celebrate her 68th birthday in the city with her son Kim and other family members.

She will also visit Dublin where U2 front-man Bono has organised a concert in her honour and France where she will visit relatives and be feted by President Francois Hollande…I just hope all of the usual trappings reserved for the new figure of World political correctness do not ensnare her genuine resolve to become something greater that the  cause of the day for a rock star and for  heads of state wanting to shroud themselves in her light and presence to further their agenda…but that may be asking too much;  after all how many rock concerts in their honor people generally get…never mind the Nobel price,  it seems these days they give it to just about anyone…

Suu Kyi’s speeches will be closely watched by governments and businesses however, less for her skillful political rhetoric  than for signs that it is now safe and proper to invest in Burma at a time when it is making some democratic progress. In November 2010, she was released from house arrest and in April she won a seat in Parliament.

Eager to compete with China and Japan for Burma’s abundant resources and emerging consumer class, European countries in April lifted decades-old sanctions imposed on the junta…U.S.A. is playing the part of the Promoter in all of this of course any new star needs one…

Shada Islam, head of policy at the independent Brussels-based think tank Friends of Europe, said there were strong economic reasons for Europe to thaw its relationship with Burma. “There is concern that with competition to do business with Burma heating up, a failure to lift sanctions could penalize European companies vis-a-vis their Asian and American rivals,” she said.

So nothing is without a hidden agenda any more;  eventually people will die and go without,  all in the name of democracy, even in this part of the World, even with Suu Kyi as their new World figure….We just hope this time the show will be worth the cost of admission…We all desperately need to get our groove back.