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ASSK: Freedom From Fear




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FREEDOM FROM FEAR

Editor's note: Usually BurmaNet posts current news articles from the
international press or from sources in and around Burma.  This posting of the
title story from Aung San Suu Kyi's book is a departure from the normal
policy and is done in order to acquaint Internet users who have not had the
chance to read any of her works.

-Strider

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Aung San Suu Kyi. Freedom from Fear. NY: Penguin Books USA Inc., 1991.
180-185

FREEDOM FROM FEAR

*The following was first release for publication by the editor to 
commemorate the European Parliament's award to Aung San Suu Kyi 
of the 1990 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought. The award 
ceremony took place in her absence at Strasbourg on 10 July 1991. In 
the same week the essay appeared in full or in part in The Times 
Literary Supplement, the New York Times, the Far East Economic 
Review, the Bangkok Post, the Times of India and in the German, 
Norwegian and Icelandic press.*

It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts 
those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those 
who are subject to it. Most Burmese are familiar with the four a-gati, 
the four kinds of corruption. Chanda-gati, corruption induced by 
desire, is deviation from the right path in pursuit of bribes or for the 
sake of those one loves. Dosa-gati is taking the wrong path to spite 
those against whom one bears ill will, and moga-gati is aberration due 
to ignorance. But perhaps the worst of the four is bhaya-gati, for not 
only does bhaya, fear, stifle and slowly destroy all sense of right and 
wrong, it so often lies at the root of the other three kinds of corruption.

Just as chanda-gati, when not the result of sheer avarice, can be 
caused by fear of want or fear of losing the goodwill of those one 
loves, so fear of being surpassed, humiliated or injured in some way 
can provide the impetus for ill will. And it would be difficult to dispel 
ignorance unless there is freedom to pursue the truth unfettered by 
fear. With so close a relationship between fear and corruption it is little 
wonder that in any society where fear is rife corruption in all forms 
becomes deeply entrenched.

Public dissatisfaction with economic hardships has been seen as the 
chief cause of the movement for democracy in Burma, sparked off by 
the student demonstrations 1988. It is true that years of incoherent 
policies, inept official measures, burgeoning inflation and falling real 
income had turned the country into an economic shambles. But it was 
more than the difficulties of eking out a barely acceptable standard of 
living that had eroded the patience of a traditionally good-natured, 
quiescent people -- it was also the humiliation of a way of life 
disfigured by corruption and fear. The students were protesting not 
just against the death of their comrades but against the denial of their 
right to life by a totalitarian regime which deprived the present of 
meaningfulness and held out not hope for the future. And because the 
students' protests articulated the frustrations of the people at large, the 
demonstrations quickly grew into a nationwide movement. Some of its 
keenest supporters were businessmen who had developed the skills 
and the contacts necessary not only to survive but to prosper within 
the system. But their affluence offered them no genuine sense of 
security of fulfillment, and they could not but see that if they and their 
fellow citizens, regardless of economic status, were to achieve a 
worthwhile existence, an accountable administration was at least a 
necessary if not a sufficient condition. The people of Burma had 
wearied of a precarious state of passive apprehension where they were 
'as water in the cupped hands' of the powers that be.

     Emerald cool we may be
     As water in cupped hands
     But oh that we might be
     As splinters of glass
     In cupped hands.

Glass splinters, the smallest with its sharp, glinting power to defend 
itself against hands that try to crush, could only be seen as a vivid 
symbol of the spark of courage that is an essential attribute of those 
who would free themselves from the grip of oppression. Bogyoke 
Aung San regarded himself as a revolutionary and searched tirelessly 
for answers to the problems that beset Burma during her times of trial. 
He exhorted the people to develop courage: 'Don't just depend on the 
courage and intrepidity of others. Each and every one of you must 
make sacrifices to become a hero possessed of courage and intrepidity. 
Then only shall we all be able to enjoy true freedom.'

The effort necessary to remain uncorrupted in an environment where 
fear is an integral part of everyday existence is not immediately 
apparent to those fortunate enough to live in states governed by the 
rule of law. Just laws do not merely prevent corruption by meting out 
impartial punishment to offenders. They also help to create a society in 
which people can fulfil the basic requirements necessary for the 
preservation of human dignity without recourse to corrupt practices. 
Where there are no such laws, the burden of upholding the principles 
of justice and common decency falls on the ordinary people. It is the 
cumulative effect on their sustained effort and steady endurance which 
will change a nation where reason and conscience are warped by fear 
into one where legal rules exist to promote man's desire for harmony 
and justice while restraining the less desirable destructive traits in his 
nature. 

In an age when immense technological advances have created lethal 
weapons which could be, and are, used by the powerful and the 
unprincipled to dominate the weak and the helpless, there is a 
compelling need for a closer relationship between politics and ethics at 
both the national and international levels. The Universal Declaration of 
Human Rights of the United Nations proclaims that 'every individual 
and every organ of society' should strive to promote the basic rights 
and freedoms to which all human beings regardless of race, nationality 
or religion are entitled. but as long as there are governments whose 
authority is founded on coercion rather than on the mandate of the 
people, and interest groups which place short-term profits above long-
term peace and prosperity, concerted international action to protect 
and promote human rights will remain at best a partially realized 
struggle. There will continue to be arenas of struggle where victims of 
oppression have to draw on their own inner resources to defend their 
inalienable rights as members of the human family.

The quintessential revolution is that of the spirit, born of an 
intellectual conviction of the need for change in those mental attitudes 
and values which shape the course of a nations development. A 
revolution which aims merely at changing official policies and 
institutions with a view to an improvement in material conditions has 
little chance of genuine success. Without a revolution of the spirit, the 
forces which produced the iniquities of the old order would continue 
to be operative, posing a constant threat to the process of reform and 
regeneration. It is not enough merely to call for freedom, democracy 
and human rights. There has to be a united determination to persevere 
in the struggle, to make sacrifices in the name of enduring truths, to 
resist the corrupting influences of desire, ill will, ignorance and fear.

Saints, it has been said, are the sinners who go on trying. So free men 
are the oppressed who go on trying and who in the process make 
themselves fit to bear the responsibility and to uphold the disciplines 
which will maintain a free society. Among the basic freedoms to which 
men aspire that their lives might be full and uncramped, freedom from 
fear stands out as both a means and an end. A people who would build 
a nation in which strong, democratic institutions are firmly established 
as a guarantee against state-induced power must first learn to liberate 
their own minds from apathy and fear.

Always one to practice what he preached, Aung San himself 
constantly demonstrated courage -- not just the physical sort but the 
kind that enabled him to speak the truth, to stand by his word, to 
accept criticism, to admit his faults, to correct his mistakes, to respect 
the opposition, to parley with the enemy and to let people be the judge 
of his worthiness as a leader. It is for such moral courage that he will 
always be loved and respected in Burma -- not merely as a warrior hero 
but as the inspiration and conscience of the nation. The words used 
by Jawaharal Nehru to describe Mahatma Gandhi could well be 
applied to Aung San: 'The essence of his teaching was fearlessness 
and truth, and action allied to these, always keeping the welfare of the 
masses in view.'

Gandhi, the great apostle of non-violence, and Aung San, the founder 
of a national army, were very different personalities, but as there is an 
inevitable sameness about the challenges of authoritarian rule 
anywhere at any time, so there is a similarity in the intrinsic qualities of 
those who rise up to meet the challenge. Nehru, who considered the 
instillation of courage in the people of India one of Gandhi's greatest 
achievements, was a political modernist, but he assessed the needs for 
a twentieth-century movement for independence, he found himself 
looking back to the philosophy of ancient India: 'The greatest gift for 
an individual nation . . . was abhaya, fearlessness, not merely bodily 
courage but absence of fear from the mind.'

Fearlessness may be a gift but perhaps more precious is the courage 
acquired through endeavor, courage that comes from cultivating the 
habit of refusing to let fear dictate one's actions, courage that could be 
described as 'grace under pressure' -- grace which is renewed 
repeatedly in the face of harsh, unremitting pressure.

Within a system which denies the existence of basic human rights, fear 
tends to be the order of the day. Fear of imprisonment, fear of torture, 
fear of death, fear of losing friends, family, property of means of 
livelihood, fear of poverty, fear of isolation, fear of failure. A most 
insidious form of fear is that which masquerades as common sense or 
even wisdom, condemning as foolish, reckless, insignificant or futile 
the small, daily acts of courage which help to preserve man's self-
respect and inherent human dignity. It is not easy for people 
conditioned by fear under the iron rule of the principle that might is 
right to free themselves from the enervating miasma of fear. Yet even 
under the most crushing state machinery courage rises up again and 
again, for fear is not the natural state of civilized man.

The wellspring of courage and endurance in the face of unbridled 
power is generally a firm belief in the sanctity of ethical principles 
combined with a historical sense that despite all set-backs the 
condition of man is set on an ultimate course for both spiritual and 
material advancement. It is his capacity for self-improvement and self-
redemption which most distinguishes man from mere brute. At the root 
of human responsibility is the concept of perfection, the urge to 
achieve it, the intelligence to find a path towards it, and the will to 
follow that path if not to the end at least the distance needed to rise 
above individual limitations and environmental impediments. It is man's 
vision of a world fit for rational, civilized humanity which leads him to 
dare and to suffer to build societies free from want and fear. Concepts 
such as truth, justice, and compassion cannot be dismissed as trite 
when these are often the only bulwarks which stand against ruthless 
power.