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She was once seen as a human rights warrior who challenged the ruthless army generals in Myanmar.
Aung San Suu Kyi emerged from years of house arrest a decade ago, not accustomed to using the internet, then held court in the office of her banned political party with the human rights reports scattered and rotting on the floor. Armed with nothing more than a collection of international awards, she wore fresh flowers in her hair, sat with impeccable posture and promised the world two things: she would ensure that political prisoners would go free and she would end the ethnic strife that has kept the country’s borderlands at war for many decades.
However, Aung San Suu Kyi is not able to fulfil the two pledges, and the world’s most shimmering icon of democracy has lost her lustre. Aung San Suu Kyi has turned into an apologist for the very generals who once locked her up, downplaying their murderous campaign against the Rohingya Muslim minority. Her strongest critics accuse her, as a member of the Bamar ethnic majority, of racism and an unwillingness to fight for the human rights of all people in Myanmar.
Moreover, after Aung San Suu Kyi neglected the moral authority that came from her Nobel Peace Prize, she still managed to endure her popularity in her home country. Her popularity is evidenced by the victory of her political party…