A question mark now hangs over the revered leader of the democratic segment of Myanmar’s government. Once lauded worldwide, her lack of condemnation of the military cleansing operation, driving hundreds of thousands of Rohingyas to flee into Bangladesh, has caused shock across the world and brought down upon her serious questions about how good a person she actually is. I have never admired her on anything like the scale of most. I cannot explain it, but I saw something about her that worried me. It may have had to do with her abandonment of her children in favour of her political ambitions. It may have been because instinctively I just did not trust her.
So this Blog does not see a fallen idol. It sees a ruthless politician who, having struck a deal with a military dictatorship which gives her power of sorts, but no authority over the military and its grip upon a good deal of the normal functions of government, has no option but to mutter unconvincingly about ‘terrorists’ and stay away from the annual meeting of the UN. If she were to say the kind of stuff expected of a Nobel laureate, the Buddhist majority of her country would rise up in protest and the military would seize upon the opportunity to slap her back into house arrest, and go back to its old ways.
There are no saints in politics. Only politicians. And as we know, one businessman. But he is quite another story.