The Lady and the Peacock: The Life of Aung San Suu Kyi of Burma [ペーパーバック]

Knowing little about the life of Aung San Suu Kyi, I found her elegant biography both informative and lovely. Of course, the story of the Burmese activist could practically tell itself. Her life was balanced between a Western education, a home where her parents were directly involved in the liberation of Burma and years of detention, house arrest and trauma fighting for her country. In an age where non-violent resistance is becoming a primary means of effecting change around the world, it is easy to forget Burma's Saffron revolution of 2007. Aung San Suu Kyi's story personalizes her country's travails and embodies a life that symbolizes for not only her country's, but also the world's non-violent struggles. The author, Peter Popham, enlivens Aung San Suu Kyi's tale with his craft, in-depth research, findings from clandestine meetings, and story construction. I was surprised by some of the other reviews on this site, which paint, I believe, an inaccurate picture of what I found to be a well-wrought account about a remarkable figure.

I had the bittersweet pleasure of seeing one of Suu Kyi's last public talks in the 90s. A monsoon downpour ended the talk, before the usual English language portion, but her charisma and electricity were evident anyway, along with the broad cross-section of people who had come to listen. People I knew in the human rights world worried about the degree to which change in Burma had become so heavily invested in her, as opposed to a broader based movement. Still, both Suu Kyi and the grassroots desire for change persisted through her long exiles.

The book provides a brief history of Burma and brief biography of Suu Kyi's father, Aung San, the revered hero of Burma's independence, who was assassinated during her early childhood. The history of Burma, the circumstances of colonization and the evolution of the independence movement presaged challenges that Suu Kyi would face in bringing together disparate ethnic groups and clashing with a military her father once led. Suu Kyi had a privileged but disciplined upbringing by her mother and was somewhat out of step with the 1960s world she encountered at Oxford. Suu Kyi had a brief career at the UN, but the married a British future academic from a more modest background. She lived the thrifty life of an academic's wife and took care of their home and children, while also occasionally helping with her husband's work. Her husband had agreed that if she was needed in Burma, she would have to give that life precedence. It was a promise that led to long separations from her family and her husband's tragic death without her.

The book is handicapped by the author's limited direct contact with Suu Kyi and her limited contact with the outside world over the past twenty years. Oddly, the author did interview her shortly before the book was completed, but we are told little about the conversation. Nonetheless, the story flows and Suu Kyi evolves, if at a distance. Anyone expecting a first person account or an intimate close observation will be disappointed. Popham has written a sympathetic biography but one with enough to critical observation to avoid hagiography. For me, the story faltered a bit when Popham attempts a bit of Buddhist psychobiography. He makes a number of contradictory assumptions about her political choices and makes the mistake that outsiders usually do with religion: he confuses doctrine with personal belief, and loses sight of how religion also is practiced within a particular culture. Exactly what Suu Kyi took from her re-immersion into Buddhism and how it affected her dealings with Burma's military regime will only be known when she speak about it, and then we'll only have her biased version. What is clear from the book is that Suu Kyi evolved from housewife into a canny and skillful politician, exactly when Burma needed one. Her father's prestige was easily transferred to her, but her skill in building on that has made a considerable difference.

As I was reading Peter Popham's The Lady and the Peacock, I kept saying to myself, "Mr. Popham is speaking a foreign language to most of these English-language readers" - and several of the reviews already posted serve to confirm my fear. People with limited multicultural exposure will find many of his concepts incomprehensible. (I lived 15 years among the Navajos actively trying to learn whatever I could about their language and culture - and I am FAR from an expert. I also was married for 11 years to an Iranian with a brief period of residency in Iran where by law I was an Iranian citizen - at least while I was there - again I am not an expert. But in both settings I learned a lot about unspoken cultural assumptions - which seem to be what Popham is trying to make the reader aware of.) My amazement is that Peter Popham has grasped matters so well - no doubt because as a foreign correspondent he has habitually delved more deeply into the cultures wherein he is reporting than do most foreign correspondents. There is nothing simplistic about his presentation of the life of Aung San Suu Kyi. It is comprehensive and many-layered.

First, Aung San Suu Kyi is a product of a culture founded on ideas so different from our Western concepts that she might have been raised on a different planet. In his effort to understand that culture, he cites sources, including but not limited to what Suu Kyi herself and those close to her have written, which he has consulted to begin to penetrate the realities of that culture and how and why Suu Kyi's actions impact upon it.

Second, Suu Kyi has had an advantage few others within Burma do: She has lived outside her country for decades and been married to a man from another culture - but what an amazing man Michael Aris was! He seems to have understood her culture almost as well as a native might have. Popham conveys that, while she learned much from interactions with Indian and English cultures, she never departed from being Burmese.

Third, Popham examines the historical interaction between Buddhist monks and ancient kings and sees parallels that apply to today's politics in Burma. He also notes that the Burmese never subjugated their women to the extent that other Asian countries did. Further, he notes what Suu Kyi had to say about problems incorporating democracy into Burma: significantly, that Burmese do not historically have experience with anything resembling the "loyal opposition," which is an integral part of democracy. (This gave me cause to think a bit about why democracy has had problems in the Middle East.) Further he explores the relationship among the many ethnic groups that comprise today's Burma.

Fourth, Popham notes Suu Kyi's efforts to move toward a virtues-based government - and this concept is certainly not in practice in Western democracies of my experience. It resonated with the work of my faith to create a world-wide, virtues-based culture and government - and our definitions of and applications of virtues are closer to what Popham describes as Suu Kyi's virtues than to what my Western friends and acquaintances define as virtues.

Fifth, Popham seems to understand what must have been a very special marriage relationship. He points out that Suu Kyi and Michael Aris had many of the typical disagreements of married couples, but he penetrates the very special way in which each gave full support to the other in matters that were critical to them. For two decades Suu Kyi was a housewife and mother supporting her husband's studies toward and efforts in his career. Her husband, unusual for even a Western "liberated" man, was able to turn the tables and do the support work that was so critical to enabling her to do the work for her own country that she had to do. Even at point of death, Aris told her not to leave Burma, for that would undo all that she had so far attempted.

Sixth, Popham understands commitment - and the conflicting emotions Suu Kyi has to have experienced about her two commitments: to the family in which she is wife and mother and to the country of her birth where she feels she must try to carry on her father's attempt to plant democracy. Among other things, he realizes that she carried the lives of many other people on her back during her detention; had she decided to leave, as the government tried to get her to do, most of those other people would probably have been put to death in her absence - which would have been permanent because the government had no intention of allowing her to return once she might leave.

All of these threads and more are woven into Popham's presentation of the life of Aung San Suu Kyi, along with enough history of Burma to make it into a wonderfully interesting tapestry. I will say that when I was approaching page 100, I nearly put the book down saying, "Enough of this!" But something told me he would not spend the whole book on the somewhat trivial - but ultimately important to understanding Suu Kyi's character - details of her travels in 1988. This is a quite scholarly presentation despite the fact that Popham's footnotes do not conform to usual scholarly practices in English. It is also pretty readable to anyone with some real foundation in multiculturalism.

At the end of the book, Popham espouses the need for tactical application of nonviolent methods - which strikes me as being more confrontational and divisive than Suu Kyi would want to be. My supposition is that she would not really support confrontationalism in any form because she seems to be focussed on unity. Doing a little quick internet glancing, I find that much has happened in 2012 after the time that this book was able to report. As I write this, Aung San Suu Kyi is reportedly about to leave Burma for the first time in 24 years with assurances she trusts from the current government that she will be able to return. She is now a part of the parliament. As things continue to develop, time will tell whether or not my disagreement with Popham about where she will go and how she will get there is valid or not.

All in all, this is a book I found thought-provoking and well worth reading.