[Home]  
[Long Contents][Short Contents] [Reviews]
[Front Cover] [Press Release] [Download Burmese Fonts] [Download PDF]
[Search] [Statistics] [Other Publications] [Asceticism Conference]  

Houtman, Gustaaf. Mental Culture in Burmese Crisis Politics: Aung San Suu Kyi and the National League for Democracy. Study of Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa Monograph Series No. 33. Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, Institute for the Study of Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa, 1999, 400 pp. ISBN 4-87297-748-3

Chapter 15
Aung San Suu Kyi:
a personality cult?

In his press conference General Khin Nyunt justified the employment of the authoritarian instruments of State against the NLD by saying that the Communists ‘decided to fully exploit the propensity of the Myanmar masses to be enthused with personality cults and the sudden rising popularity of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’.[1] The army, used to holding the reigns of power since 1962, know that their ana instruments have failed to create enduring structures of State, and they fear the invisible, fluid and unbounded trickling of awza personalities throughout the country who might just succeed in snatching away their privileges.

The regime's predicament

The regime's psychological warfare campaign has only a very limited repertoire. The generals hope to justify their power, and diminish Aung San Suu Kyi's, by pointing at ‘conspiracies’ and ‘personality cults’. The shape these accusations take are woolly and lack consistent logic, but they do involve certain features. First, since party politics is in their view personality politics, those involved in party politics are not looking at the interests of the country as a whole, but at their own clique. Since the army fought as a national army for Burma as a complete political entity, it proclaims a privileged position in the annals of history, and a superior vision for the country. This should be accepted by everyone without question or any form of discussion. Second, since party politics is invariably centred around a popular personality, the people who support this personality are open to exploitation. Hence, national politics becomes dependent on the personal characteristics of a few leaders with their greed and desire for power, thus ‘destablizing’ the country. Third, the subject of such a personality cult has no loyalty to the army. Since the army represents the country, this person is easily tempted to sell out to foreigners. Hence, with the nation thus narrowly defined, party politics becomes a front for ‘foreign’ interests. It is by this ‘hermit land’ logic through which the military ends up proclaiming the following kind of statement, of which there are all too many:

the Myanmar people place the interest of the country before that of an individual, whereas the NLD and its supporters place the interest of the individual before that of the country, resulting [in] a personality cult. One wonders whether a group of new masters-would-be [Britain] are trying to play the behind the-scene role to install in power in Myanmar an individual who is married to a British citizen and is widely suspected to have vowed her allegiance to that foreign power.[2]

The regime's view of politics – both of its own and of the NLD – is fundamentally flawed. As I have shown in chapter 6, the regime bases itself entirely on ‘authority’ (ana), for ‘influence’ (awza) would endear certain army personalities with the public, and this would soon result in a coup and cause a split in the army and therefore ‘disunite’ the country. The army must be liked as an institution, but it is better if all its individual personnel are hated, so that there is no question about the loyalty of all of its individual members. In other words, the army does not generate personalities, let alone cults. In this respect, I fundamentally disagree with Taylor's view that Ne Win was a more pragmatic man than U Nu simply because he ‘decided’ not to pursue personality politics[3] – Ne Win became a thoroughly unpopular man around whom no cult of any sorts could be generated even if he had wanted to. By contrast, around U Nu a cult arose spontaneously. This is all the more so with Aung San Suu Kyi.

In trying to encourage the popular view of the army as institutionally loved (‘the army is father, the army is mother’), but willingly disliked at the level of personnel, the army is in fact foreignizing people who under normal circumstances could be its ‘friends’. It is manufacturing its own enemies. The more it emphasises ana, the more awza figures will jump out of the woodwork. These awza figures appear like circles drawn by Bo Bo Aung that you can never – however hard you try – wipe out as they multiply endlessly. The Wunthanu movement and the Freedom Bloc tell us something about Burmese political culture and how they respond to dissatisfaction with an authoritarian government – they practise mental culture and they produce azani whose powers will ultimately prove unstoppable. To introduce a programme of ‘frameworks’, 

(c) ILCAA 1999 - Gustaaf Houtman. Mental Culture in Burmese Crisis Politics. ILCAA Study of Languages and Cultures of Asia & Africa Monograph Series 33, Institute for the Study of Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa, 1999, ISBN 4-87297-748-3, p281/392

‘structures’ and ‘traditions’ to contain these personalities, only produces stronger azani, who will sooner or later present the generals with the consequences of the same law of samsara with which Ne Win judged U Nu's elected government. Tin U said that ‘incarceration didn't impede our struggle, it enhanced it’.[4] In short, the paradox then is that, while the army complains about personality cults destroying Burmese politics, it is its own very authoritarian measures that produces the personality cult it feels threatens it, and that it so intensely dislikes. Just as Aung San and Gandhi were products of British colonial politics, so Aung San Suu Kyi is a product of Burmese army politics. It is as simple as that.

Aung San Suu Kyi's predicament

Undoubtedly, the most influential personality in Burma today is Aung San Suu Kyi, the daughter of the azani who, having great awza, was able to bring national independence to Burma as a civilian. Though people in Burma may feel uncertain about the future, in their hearts they support her fully and they hope that the generals will see that. Until they incorporate her awza into government, Bo Bo Aung's circles will continue to multiply – there will be no end to personality cults and conspiracies.

Her approach has been to emphasize the spiritual in the political. Indeed, she has said that there is no conflict between Buddhist and political pursuits [H1][H7], that ‘politics is about people, and you can't separate people from their spiritual values’ [E9]. The result is that her political aspirations become linked, in the public eye, to her spiritual aspirations.

Facing a corrupt and repressive military regime, that continuously endeavours to expose her as corrupted by personality characteristics and foreign money, Aung San Suu Kyi has consistently emphasized a more spiritual and ethical approach to political leadership. However, in proclaiming that liberation of the country can be found through personal mental culture, and in criticising the regime for not personally reforming in terms of personal Buddhist practice, she herself only further raises the spiritual capital invested in her by her supporters and her spectators. Her use of Buddhist concepts and practices – byama-so tayà, metta, karuna, parami, samatha, sati, vipassana, nibbana, yahanda, bodhi – in the fight for democracy inevitably lead to a personality cult from which she finds it difficult to extract herself. As the gap increasingly widens between the dirt and corruption represented by a repressive military regime and the purity and power of the heroic democracy fighters, so also the impersonal continuity of political organizations demanded by a truly democratic system is increasingly at risk.

Angel or female bodhisattva?

The Thirty-Seven Nats in Burma are spirits associated with a particular region or with particular families, who were instituted by King Anawratha at the Shwezigon Pagoda in Pagan. These spirits were elevated to be paid respect by the public. They were either greatly loved or greatly pitied by the people, before they met their violent death, often at the hands of the authorities. One difference between a nat and an azani [martyr] such as Aung San is that the latter is worshipped as a hero by government itself also, and not just propitiated by a selected and factionalised public.

Some of Aung San Suu Kyi's followers refer to her as ‘Angel [Nat] of University Avenue’ [tkïqiul\lm\:nt\qmI:][5] and ‘female bodhisattva’ [J2]. Some intellectuals have suggested to me that she is the ‘Angel [Nat] of Democracy’ [dImiukersI nt\qmI:]. Others have referred to her as ‘a heroine like the mythical mother goddess of the earth who can free them from the enslavement of the evil military captors.’[6] This supernatural attribution to Aung San Suu Kyi is affirmed when the SLORC refused to hand over power in August and September 1990, by the way many Burmese people interpreted the swelling of the left breast of Buddha statues and the bleeding of the eyes as indicating Aung San Suu Kyi's imminent rise to power soon – the swelling of the left breast indicating Aung San Suu Kyi's nurturing characteristic.[7]

(c) ILCAA 1999 - Gustaaf Houtman. Mental Culture in Burmese Crisis Politics. ILCAA Study of Languages and Cultures of Asia & Africa Monograph Series 33, Institute for the Study of Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa, 1999, ISBN 4-87297-748-3, p282/392

These positive characterisations of Aung San Suu Kyi's supernatural power contrast with the negative characterisations by her self-made adversaries. They call her the spirit ‘Mother of the West’ (Anauk Medaw).

Your Mrs Michael Aris, called Anauk Medawgyi, is just following the course of Thakin Than Tun, her aunt's husband. As I have experiences, past and present, I can see her steps well. Both of them are of the same mentality. They are [the] same in having great aims and thinking highly of themselves in arrogance. They are same in marching along the path towards their wishful goal.[8]

They also refer to her as the Head of the Byahma [òbhîa¨I:eKåc\:] which is too hot to handle, after she supposedly contributed to ruining economic progress after her release in 1995:

Persons who are called the Byamma's Head always get angry as soon as they know their nickname … I can't be certain whether Mrs Aris would be angry or take pride if she were called the Byamma's Head. But she has surely become the terribly hot Byamma's Head right after the restriction was revoked … Even though you are being held by golden hands, your terrible heat will melt them down as you are the Byamma's Head. So, you'd better leave this nation. As citizens, we are demanding deportation of Mrs Aris. The only word we have to say to you is ‘Get out’.[9]

If the Burmese supernaturalise her in these contrasting ways, some of the publications aimed at foreign audiences have been equally extreme. For example, in one publication she has been characterised as ‘Burma's Saint Joan’.[10] She is also referred to as ‘Burma's Woman of Destiny’. Although he has asked many interesting questions, Alan Clements does sometimes excessively overemphasize her spiritual side, such as when he suggests Aung San was a ‘spiritual seeker’[11] or when he asks whether she turned her house arrest into a ‘monastic-like life’.[12]

Victor has argued that some Aung San Suu Kyi's supporters are responsible for creating her supernatural image. Journalists sometimes complain that she does not distinguish her personal identity from her political image.

According to several, The Lady takes umbrage if she is challenged on any specific issue or position. She becomes haughty, they say, retreating behind an academic snobbism that tends to intimidate and discourage people from approaching her. A journalist from Time magazine recalls that when she asked a question that Daw Suu Kyi perceived to be challenging, her respose was to rise and exit. ‘One of her aids came in and just announced that The Lady had a previous appointment’, the journalist says, ‘and the interview was over’.[13]

Her followers are unwilling to permit the ‘deconstruction’ of Aung San Suu Kyi herself, and only permit engagement of the SLORC's criticism. Supporters argue that the SLORC makes use of the slightest criticism of Aung San Suu Kyi for its own ends.

Aung San Suu Kyi herself must take some responsibility, for these views are not just the creation of her situation or her commentators. To some extent they also have been stoked up by Aung San Suu Kyi's view of the human condition as ‘trying to gain enlightenment and to use the wisdom gained to help others’ [S1][Y15], and ‘while we can't all be Buddhas, I feel a responsibility to do as much as I can to realize enlightenment to the degree that I can, and to use it to relieve the suffering of others’ [Q2]. Her highest personal goal is ‘purity’ in a ‘spiritual’ sense [V1], which is related to the purity of an arahant [V2]. Though she has denied being a ‘female bodhisattva’, she greatly emphasizes the development of metta, one of the Ten Perfections (parami) practised by bodhisattvas, and admits to meditating [J2]. Aspiring to mental perfection, and believing that only incessant self-perfection permits a political leader to be worthy of respect, she has 

(c) ILCAA 1999 - Gustaaf Houtman. Mental Culture in Burmese Crisis Politics. ILCAA Study of Languages and Cultures of Asia & Africa Monograph Series 33, Institute for the Study of Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa, 1999, ISBN 4-87297-748-3, p283/392

used the concept of saint for herself, though in a metaphorical sense, as part of the never-ending struggle for perfection that musicians and artists strive for in an imperfect world [Y2].

Some journalists have been antagonised by this cocktail of holy imagery. For example, Lintner wrote: ‘Suu Kyi’s almost mystical streak makes her writings, and books about her, different from those about and by other democratic leaders who have spent time in prison, such as Nelson Mandela, Vaclav Havel or Mahatma Gandhi, who was but a saint and a shrewd politician … These three books show that Suu Kyi is indeed a good saint but …’. Moreover, Lintner goes on to criticise her lack of detailed economic planning for action in Burma and that this ‘may fail to prevent more martyrs being made by the kangaroo courts of Burma’. In other words, playing her saintly role leads her to neglect the hands-on style leadership required for a good politician. This echoes the criticism U Nu received, who has been characterised by Brigadier Maung Maung as ‘a Gandhi without Gandhi's predilection for politics’.[14]

Such criticism has, of course, much truth from an outside observer's point of view. Indeed, it reiterates what one observer said about the relationship between Buddhism and the political order in U Nu's style of political campaigning in the 1960s as ‘this tendency to over-value the personal and discount the systematic and technical, seems to be the Achilles heel of all present Buddhist social-political philosophy and methodology’.[15] Here, ‘the controlling philosophy is that good men make good government’ and there is the tendency ‘to set personal character over against plan and technique, and to substitute it for the latter in actual procedures’. The result is that ‘a “Buddhist” political campaign may be more like a religious preaching mission than a statement of political principles, and a party platform an exhortation to be pure rather than a statement of basic policy’.

Because there is no rigid legalistic system of standards and controls, a personal-relations way of carrying on government affairs may be in actuality only the best possible way to perpetuate a system of personal ‘pull", influence, and corruption. And emphasis upon ‘government by character’ rather than government by principle, may well become only a camouflage for an indisposition or inability to plan and execute intelligently.

Aung San Suu Kyi evidently realises this because she has responded to the regime's personal attacks on her, which she finds ‘less disconcerting than articles or speeches that attribute me with vaguely saintlike qualities’, for such practice, she says, runs counter to democracy. Quoting one of the drafters of the Constitution of India, ‘hero worship is a sure road to degradation and to eventual dictatorship’, and these in her own words ‘there is no room for hero-worship in a true political struggle made up of human beings grappling with human problems’.[16] But in this very same article, in which she seeks to moderate the public image of her spirituality, she cannot avoid using the metaphor ‘dark nights of the political soul’, an evident play on Teresa Avila's contemplative experiences of the Night of the Soul.

When I am asked what sustains me in the dark nights of the political soul, I am inclined to answer: ‘understanding, compassion, friendship.’ This is perhaps not the kind of answer the questioners want. Perhaps they would rather hear about mysterious inner resources, some wonderful inspiration, some memorable experience that gives us the strength to withstand the hardships of the human lot. But our powers of endurance are slowly and painfully developed through repeated encounters with adversity.[17]

Evidently there is much tension between Aung San Suu Kyi's attempt at coping in adverse circumstances by perfecting herself in the battlefield – watching over and sharpening herself into an incorruptible leader for the cause of democracy, capable of sacrificing her own life for the cause – and make true her desire to advance democracy for the country as a whole. 

Complexities in Aung San Suu Kyi's situation

We must, of course, appreciate the complexities of the situation pertaining to Aung San Suu Kyi and the NLD for they operate in a very difficult political landscape. On the one hand, there is the total repression by the military, and on the other, there is the inherited culture of politics to contend with.

First and most importantly, to say that Aung San Suu Kyi is behaving like a saint without framing this against the Burmese cultural background leads to a skewed picture of what she is trying to do. It ignores the history of traditions of mental culture and political opposition in Burmese politics.

I have pointed out that political opposition is denied a secular legal space in Burma. Furthermore, it is unable to express itself in terms of material culture that might convey it the status of Buddhist legitimacy, 

(c) ILCAA 1999 - Gustaaf Houtman. Mental Culture in Burmese Crisis Politics. ILCAA Study of Languages and Cultures of Asia & Africa Monograph Series 33, Institute for the Study of Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa, 1999, ISBN 4-87297-748-3, p284/392

such as building pagodas, for such is reserved for the military. What it can do, however, is to emphasise mental culture, which has a long historical tradition in Burma. Aung San Suu Kyi, along with the senior NLD leadership, are in that sense carrying on a local political tradition. They have in common with their reformist predecessors (U Nu, Mindon, U Hpo Hlaing) an emphasis on the practice of vipassana and the deployment of Buddhist terminology as a reformist technique of political leadership in which some discourse is unavoidable, in particular when choosing the non-violent route. This specifically Burmese element is readily understood by the Burmese, but not so easily by non-Burmese [C19][D6][D7][E19]. As suggested earlier, it internalizes evil as a fight with one's own mental impurities through the practice of mental culture.

Second, the regime has greatly neglected all fields of academic analysis, in particular analysis of the economy and political order. It is common for regime spokesmen to confidently field questions about Burma by foreign journalists and international organisations without any form of research or evidence. It obviously wants to prevent such an analysis. The few who are qualified to comment are harassed if they speak out. If they live abroad, and the regime cannot reach them directly, then their relatives are subject to harassment. This makes it difficult to reflect on policy matters at this stage.

Third, without even the most basic human rights, there is no possibility even for telephone calls or letters to be exchanged between interested parties, let alone collect data and publish extended analyses. The flow of communication is closely monitored and long prison sentences are routinely handed out for possessing a fax machine or a computer without a government licence.

Fourth, it should be noted that in the origin myth, the Mahathamada, the first king elected by the people, was characterised as a bodhisattva. Also, this claim has been commonly made for Burmese kings and also Prime Minister U Nu whose popularity was largely part based on his supportive work for the higher forms of Buddhist practice instead of charity alone. That Aung San Suu Kyi should be referred to by some as a ‘female bodhisattva’ is but a manifestation of such a long-standing tradition.

Furthermore, as for ‘practicalities’, in this particular environment of political culture, the concepts of ‘practice’ and ‘practicality’ are more closely linked with mental culture in Burmese than is at first sight apparent. In the English language, ‘contemplation’ is the original meaning of ‘theory’ (theoria) which in contemporary parlance is considered unable to engage reality. This is opposed to ‘practice’ which does engage reality. Meditation traditions in Burma, however, are firmly known as ‘traditions of practice’ [põipt†i] which are based on ‘hands-on experience’ [lk\etæ>] in opposition to scriptural learning or ‘theory’ [priyt†i]; this is very much related to discerning truth and reality. The Buddhist concept of practice, with its intrinsic relationship to mental culture, was subsequently used to translate political concepts such as the Marxist idea of practice.[18] Therefore, in this culture of perception, practicality is in fact, not that far removed from vipassana practice.

Sainthood and the political inheritance of Aung San

Aung San Suu Kyi has repeatedly sought to side-track her designation as a ‘big leader’ (gaungzaunggyi) or an ‘extraordinary’ person,[19] or a saint or female bodhisattva:[20]

Do not think that I will be able to give you democracy. I will tell you frankly, I am not a magician. I do not possess any special power that will allow me to bring you democracy. I can say frankly that democracy will be achieved only by you, by all of you …[21]

Her party colleagues have also regularly denied that she is, or indeed pretends to be a saint [O4]. In interviews also, she has frequently and very strongly suggested that democratic change should involve the democracy movement as a whole, and not involve her as the personality representing it [Y3]. When described as representing Burma in interviews, Aung San Suu Kyi has clearly said that ‘we must not 

(c) ILCAA 1999 - Gustaaf Houtman. Mental Culture in Burmese Crisis Politics. ILCAA Study of Languages and Cultures of Asia & Africa Monograph Series 33, Institute for the Study of Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa, 1999, ISBN 4-87297-748-3, p285/392

emphasize this personality business’.[22]

SLORC blamed the Aung San Suu Kyi personality cult as responsible for stalling a meeting that it had called with NLD chair U Aung Shwe on 16 September 1997, who initially accepted but later declined because the General Secretary (Aung San Suu Kyi) was not included in the invitation. The following appeared in the state owned newspapers:

After a study and assessment of all the developments, conditions, stands and causes, it can be concluded that the one who disrupted the meeting is the National League for Democracy with dishonest attitudes and the personality cult, the serious disease, relying solely on a person instead of relying on organizational strength that has been pestering it since its formation.[23]

It was evident from the resolutions of the NLD conference held between 27–29 September 1997 how internally the NLD was positively working towards avoiding personality cults, in part as a response to such accusations.[24] This is reminiscent of her father, Aung San. He wanted to discourage popular perception encouraged by writers such as Thahkin Kodawhmaing, which vested in him the role of the concentration meditation wizard, the mental cultivator cum universal ruler. He said in his first AFPFL conference speech that we must ‘take proper care that we do not make a fetish of this cult of hero-worship’.[25] And nine months later in his 1 September 1946 speech he said that