Setting the Bar for Peace

Journalists this week didn’t even know whether to call the country Myanmar or Burma. Tens of thousands of citizens and monks rose up at last in response to the SLORC, the State Law and Order Restoration Council, the military regime that has been in charge of that country for decades, to demand the establishment of the democracy they voted for.

The great icon of this movement for democracy in Myanmar is 1991 Nobel Peace Prize recipient Aung San Suu Kyi. She is the daughter of the general who first won independence for then Burma. Since 1989, The Lady, as she is known, has been under house arrest in Myanmar. She cannot leave the country; the junta will not let her back in. Her husband died whilst she has been under arrest. Her two sons are not allowed to see her.

And yet, and yet, this petite woman stands still, no matter that she is silenced, as a loud witness for the possibility of peace in her beloved homeland.

She writes,

“The Burmese associate peace and security with coolness and shade:

The shade of the tree is cool indeed
The shade of parents is cooler
The shade of teachers is cooler still
The shade of the ruler is yet more cool
But coolest of all is the shade of the Buddha’s teachings.”

Myanmar is a hot land. Fear and violence have run that country for many years. At long last, the people—individual persons, one at a time—stood up to hold an ideal for peace in their home. Last week, they reached their tipping point, and the one voice became many voices.

The Lady writes, “In the years of house arrest, I have come to the realization that the world is not divided into those who are good and those who are bad but rather into those who are capable of learning and those who are not. It is hate that is the problem, not violence. Violence is simply a symptom of hate.”

Let us take heart with the citizens and monks of Myanmar and continue in our individuality to hold the possibility for peace in our world. No matter the hate that we sense, no matter the violence that we witness, no matter the rhetoric that we reject.

Let us stand with Aung San Suu Kyi, a beacon for peace for the peoples and the places and planets we love.