When Aung San Suu Kyi’s pro-democracy party stormed to power, following general elections in Myanmar last November, the world erupted in celebrations to mark the stunning transition from decades of military rule to a civilian government. As the leader of Myanmar’s first democratically elected government since 1962, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate raised a lot of expectations from the international community of building a truly harmonious society.
But those hopes are swiftly evaporating with Suu Kyi’s hardening stance against one of the world’s most persecuted minorities, the Rohingya. The immediate cause for concern is Suu Kyi’s advice to the United States against using the term “Rohingya” to describe the persecuted Muslim population that has lived in predominantly Buddhist Myanmar for generations. Her stance is not new. Even in the run-up to the election campaign last year, Suu Kyi showed a deliberate reluctance to embrace the Rohingya as integral part of Myanmarese society. Rather than being the mascot of unity and harmony in a country repressed by decades of junta rule and crippling sanctions, Suu Kyi now appears to exhibit the familiar contours of an opportunist politician, ready to embrace the very narrative of discrimination she fought so bitterly against.
There is of course the question of pragmatism. In the short term, Suu Kyi and her party needs the cooperation of the powerful military establishment — which instituted the divisive policies against the Rohingya — and cannot afford to jeopardise the fragile democratic set-up in Myanmar. But her handling of the Rohingya issue shows neither the determination nor the promise to provide justice to the persecuted anytime soon. And that is ironically the most undemocratic beginning of a nascent democracy in Myanmar under the stewardship of a so-called human rights activist.
