Monday, October 31, 2011

Exploration Seven

My favorite speech was The Revolution of Spirit, by the son of Aung San Suu Kyi. The part that stuck out the most to me was how, even though Aung Suu was under house arrest for years, her political party managed to capture 82% of the seats in parliament, only to be voided by the government of the time. It amazed me how so much could be accomplished by following all the rules and doing so peacefully. It shows that, because of Aung Suu’s family, the people of Burma were ready for a change and they were willing to make that change peacefully and within the laws. My favorite quote was near the end, when Aung Suu is quoted as saying: ‘The quest for democracy in Burma is the struggle of a people to live whole, meaningful lives as free and equal members of the world community. It is part of the unceasing human endeavor to prove that the spirit of man can transcend the flaws of his nature.’

This is a link to an article in the New York Times about change towards democracy in the government of Myanmar.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/26/world/asia/26myanmar.html?_r=1&ref=myanmar

The government of Myanmar has started to release some of the political prisoners they arrested, but there are still many in captivity. Aung San Suu Kyi was released, but has not came out and made any huge advances yet. Since this speech was written, the military dictator has stepped down, and a leader was elected democratically by the Burmese people. One issue still being dealt with by the people of Myanmar is poverty and government corruption. In this article, one man describes the government as being similar to the Soviet government. He says that the people in power do well financially and take bribes, while the rest of the population is trapped in poverty.

2 comments:

  1. Terrible thing that the wealthy stays wealthy, and the poor stay poor. Some say that when one is poor they can change it for it themselves, but really is a country like that they can't most of the time.

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  2. This was my favorite speech too. I still cant believe she was placed in house arrest for about 15 years. The things that can happen in 15 years in a house..

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