No Subject Given

[nyeinchan@xxxxxxxxxxx]

-PA-



OPINION/ESSAYS, Page 19



-HD-



Aung San Suu Kyi Speaks to Young America



-BY-



Alexander Kronemer



-ED-



19970609



-TX-



Aung San Suu Kyi of Burma increasingly seems like the Gandhi of our 
times. As the physically unimposing head of a nonviolent political 
movement, the Nobel Peace Prize winner speaks to world leaders largely 
from the authority of her moral stature. 

In February she appealed to Burma's trading partners to break economic 
ties with her troubled country to further isolate its oppressive regime. 
Though Burma's closest neighbors recently voted to accept it into the 
Association of Southeast Asian Nations, President Clinton vowed that no 
new United States investment dollars will go to Burma, which the 
military regime there calls Myanmar.

Since Mr. Clinton's announcement, Ms. Suu Kyi's enemies have threatened 
to "punish" her. The military junta that keeps her under virtual house 
arrest has imprisoned hundreds of her supporters in the past few weeks. 
Yet she bravely continues to speak out for democracy, as she has since 
returning to Burma in 1988. And her words, like Gandhi's, often carry a 
spiritual message that transcends politics.

Suu Kyi delivered just such a message to some of America's newest 
college graduates through a smuggled speech read for her in January at 
American University's winter commencement in Washington.

"Some are destined to lead tranquil lives, safe in the security of a 
society that guarantees fundamental rights," she wrote. "Others may find 
themselves in situations where they have to strive incessantly for the 
most basic of rights, the right to life itself."

"It is no simple matter to decide who are the more fortunate," she then 
added to the surprise of some in the audience, "those to whom life gives 
all or those who have to give all to life. A fulfilled life is not 
necessarily one constructed strictly in accordance with one's own 
blueprint."

Suu Kyi, who raised two sons in the West before she returned to Burma, 
suddenly had interjected into a talk about the wounds of her country 
mention of what many say afflicts the young in ours - that they have 
nothing but their individual pursuit of material comfort as a blueprint 
for constructing a life. They have been called Generation X. Though 
every day there is news about the unraveling of our social fabric, 
post-cold-war America is frequently described as a place where no 
compelling challenges exist for them. Though the world still burns in 
many places, as Burma attests, we are told that history has ended.

Why does most of the talk about the supposed banality of post-cold-war 
America come from the mouths and word processors of the educated middle 
class? The poor in our inner cities and impoverished rural areas don't 
complain about ennui. Perhaps, instead of experiencing the end of 
history, we are witnessing the end of the social connections between the 
middle class and the poorer segments of society.



DURING the first 70 years of this century, many in the growing middle 
class were themselves only a generation removed from the struggles 
facing the lower rungs of society. The differences in income were not 
great.

But as the Commerce Department reported last year, income inequality 
among households "increased significantly" between 1968 and 1994. The 
measure of family-income inequality showed a stunning increase of more 
than 22 percent. Prior to 1968, it had been decreasing for almost 20 
years.

As material inequality increases in our country, the middle class and 
the poorer segments of society grow further apart both physically and 
psychologically. The problem this poses for Generation X is a spiritual 
one. As Suu Kyi stated in her address: 

"Thinking and feeling people everywhere, regardless of color or creed, 
understand the deeply rooted human need for a meaningful existence that 
goes beyond the mere gratification of material desires." 

What can bridge the economic distance that has led to today's emotional 
separation from the most significant problems of our time?

Though some disdain was heaped on President Clinton for calling for 
volunteerism at the Summit for America's Future in April, it may be only 
through moral leadership that reconnection can be made. Suu Kyi reminds 
us that high principles can connect people of different fortunes in 
important causes:

"Young women and young men setting forth to leave their mark on the 
world might wish to cast their eyes beyond their own frontiers towards 
the shadowlands of lost rights."

Or to the shadowlands that exist here. Contrary to critics who consider 
it too lightweight an activity for a president, Clinton should spend 
more time speaking for such things as volunteerism and community 
service. Generation X's challenge is the challenge that Suu Kyi faces: 
to reach beyond the connections of economics to find the higher 
connections of the spirit. 



* Alexander Kronemer, a freelance writer, is an economist in the United 
States Department of Labor.

"THERE WILL BE NO REAL DEMOCRACY IF WE CAN'T GURANTEE THE RIGHTS OF THE 
MINORITY ETHNIC PEOPLE.  ONLY UNDERSTANDING THEIR SUFFERING AND HELPING 
THEM TO EXERCISE THEIR RIGHTS WILL ASSIST PREVENTING FROM THE 
DISINTEGRATION AND THE SESESSION."  "WITHOUT UNDERSTANDING THEIR 
STRENGTH, WE CAN'T TOPPLE THE SLORC AND BURMA WILL NEVER BE IN PEACE."



---------------------------------------------------------
Get Your *Web-Based* Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
---------------------------------------------------------