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From MIZZIMA News Group (r)



Indians will join Burmese to celebrate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi's birthday

18th June 1999
By MIZZIMA News Group

Nobel Peace Prize winner and Burma's democratic leader, Daw Aung San Suu
Kyi is entering her 54th birthday on June 19, 1999. On the occasion of
her birthday, Indian Women journal "MANUSHI", India International Center
and India-based Women Rights & Welfare Association of Burma (WRWAB) is
organizing a celebration and a public discussion on "Women and Political
Reforms: How to Make Politics Worthy of Women".

The public discussion will be initiated by Mrs. Najma Heptullah,
Deputy-Speaker of the Indian Parliament (Raja Sabha), Mrs. Maneka
Gandhi, State Minister for Social Welfare, the Government of India, Ms.
Uma Bharti, State Minister for Agriculture, the Government of India, Ms.
Jaya Jaitely, General Secretary of the Samata Party and Mr. Mani Shanker
Iyer, a leader of the Congress Party.

The public discussion will be held at 6:00 p.m at India International
Centre in New Delhi. As part of the celebrations, the Women Rights and
Welfare Association of Burma will present a brief account of Burmese
women's role in the pro-democracy movement, followed by a cultural
programme and a 10 minute video film on Aung San Suu Kyi.

The finale of the evening of the day would be a special Burmese dinner
prepared by Burmese students in India.

MANUSHI, an Indian journal about women and society, has proposed Daw
Aung San Suu Kyi's birthday to celebrate as Asian Women's Day.

The following is the interview with Ms. Madhu Kishwar, who is the editor
of the Manushi journal and also a well-known woman activist in India on
her views on Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and on her proposal for the Asian
Women's Day.


Interview with Ms. Madhu Kishwar

Q: Can you tell us about the programme which you are jointly organizing
with India International Centre and WRWAB on 19th June, Aung San Suu
Kyi's birthday?

A: MANUSHI is keen to commemorate 19th June, Aung San Suu Kyi's birthday
because I believe she is one of the very very few women leaders or in
fact one of the very few political leaders in today's world who does us
proud. I feel proud of the fact that she is Asian. I feel proud of the
fact that she is born of a culture which has very closed links with
India and she feels to me my very own.

We have seen in the last several decades that women entry into politics
at least in the sub-continent has thrown up very shameful pieces of

womanity...very women that you look at Benazar Bhuto of Pakistan, or you
look at the two women prime ministers Bangladesh have experienced or
even our Indira Gandhi and several other women notable political
leaders... very few of them...hardly any of them in fact has set any new
standards. They tend to follow the game that men had laid out and in
fact out to do men in corruption, out to do men in authoritarian ways of
functioning. They have not brought about any meaningful change in their
respective societies. For a while, I thought Sri Lankan President
Kumaratunga was one such woman. But she too has faltered after coming
into power, having stay in power for some years.

Aung San Suu Kyi, I believe, is one of the few political leaders who
brings a new vision and a lot of compassion and courage into politics
where by a new civilization of norms not only new political norms but
new civilization of norms are attempted to be set into motion in the
very same way that Mahata Gandhi did and it is not for nothing that she
is known as Gandhi of Burma just as Mandela who is another outstanding
political figure of her times as known as Gandhi of South Africa. And
Gandhi's vision was that women entry into politics should cleanse
politics, should improve the quality of public life that 'in the war
against war women of the world should and must lead' and Aung San Suu
Kyi in that sense lives up to the Mahatama vision which vision I also
hold very dear. It hurts me very much to see women turn to corrupt,
authoritarian ways after entering into politics.

But Aung San Suu Kyi is one of the few we know who have remained
steadfast even while facing a very brutal military regime, a very
shameless military regime which has exceeded all by own decency in
persecuting its own people, in suppressing voices of dissent in their
own society and in crushing the democracy movement in Burma. But her
compassion, her courage, her steadfastness and her clarity of vision I
think are very inspiring. I think this is the role model I would like
women in India to have before them. When they think of wanting to
enhance political participation of women in public life which is why we
are also in order to commemorate this day, MANUSHI has organized a
public meeting and seminar on this question of women and political
reforms which is to say how do we bring about changes, structural
changes, institutional reforms in our politics. So as to make politics
women worthy so that women don't have to be in politics using the same
stratagem and rules that men used which is to say you use violence, you
use theft and robbery which is what politics has come to me and misuse
of public power for personal ends. Politics of accountability, politics
of people's control over their representatives and their institutions
and I believe that Aung San Suu kyi represent that.

That's why we are linking the two. I also see Aung San Suu Kyi as a
victim of metro-politics. On the one hand there is army with all its
guns and weapons of destruction at their disposal which is all they have
to crush the movement that she is leading and on the other hand, this
woman who represent the quintessential feminine force. She has no

weapons, only her courage and her ideas and her vision with which to
inspire her people and use those as bonding force to lead her people to
break the freedom. In that sense it is the battle between the feminine
principle in civilization and the masculine as represented by those who
believe masculinity about force, violence.

I do believe that this is a very important battle, a civilizational
battle. It is not just a political battle for Burma. And in her victory
would be the victory of all those people who believe honesty, truth,
courage, compassion have a place in public life that politics is not
just about power and misuse of power for ugly personal ends.

Q: Why you propose her birthday to celebrate as Asian Women's Day?

A: The reason I feel that this day should be celebrated as Asian Women's
Day is that I believe in Third World Countries, there is the tendency in
the sub-continent and in most non-developed society to accept all the
symbols of struggles from western movements, all the ideas from western
movements and just being mere indulging what I called copy-cat feminism.

Like for instance, 8th March is celebrated as International Women Day.
Nobody knows what that day represents. Some women in some parts of
Europe went on some actions and its history and its symbolism hasn't
really meant much except that it is now come to be accepted as an
International day. But we need to celebrate our own heroines. We need to
celebrate our own symbols of struggle.

For me, Aung San Suu Kyi in that sense is the spirit of Asia and I would
like to see this day celebrated as not just Burmese women day which is
what the Burmese women organizations wanted to but I would like this
celebrated as Asian Women Day.


Q: What exactly do you expect from your programme of 19th June?

A: From the whole programme, first I hope and wish that people in India
would wake up to the doings and misdoings in their neighbouring country
and lend support. Lend much greater support to the pro-democracy forces
in Burma and appreciate what is happening. And it is, as I said that a
very important struggle just as Gandhi's Satyagraha raised politics to
another to a high civilizational norm. Similarly, I think, her movement
does exactly that. I feel very sad that most people in India know very
little about the goings in Burma, know very little about Aung San Suu
Kyi and mostly in the West that she has been celebrated after she got
the Nobel Peace Prize. I would like to see, on the one hand, a greater
awareness, and a greater bonding with the Burmese people in this hour of
trial.

Also that I would like this to be a beginning of on-going endeavour to
involve and to engage both women and men into working out far-reaching
structural reforms in politics which make it possible for ordinary
people, especially women to exercise a greater say in the political
affairs of their country. So that democracy is not a merely a matter of
going and voting once in five years or once in three years, democracy is
a matter of having a say in decision making, especially in those
decisions which effect your life and making politics assessable,

political institutions assessable and accountable, especially to women.

So this would be the beginning of long-drawn process of working out the
whole agenda of political reforms, which would be beneficial for, people
in general and for women in particular.

The End

By MIZZIMA News Group
Tel./Fax. 91-11-5529817