I once read the autobiography of Aung San Suu Kyi as a college student. I used to read about her in the major papers then. I was much younger and very thirsty for knowledge that could help me contextualize my condition as a young African who was reeling from a history of powerlessness and a future that was full of uncertainty . I was particularly interested in the story of Burma as one of the trilogy of Asian countries that I first heard as a young boy growing up in my village. The other two countries were China and India.
India was the only country out of the three that had historical connections I could taste. The Indians had been brought to Kenya during the colonization of Kenya as experienced builders of the railway. That is obviously a sanitized, half truth propagates that disguises the underlying injustices that informed the conscription of Indians. The truth of the matter is that India was also a sister country suffering from a wave of European violence on a global scale. It is sobering to realize that globalization as we know it today started with violence, food, markets. You can add culture and religion, though these were used as alibi at first but did later become an extremely lucrative source of wealth for those who invested in them. Ultimately, culture and religion become more permanent sources of not so visible violence.
The Indians did build the railway from the coastal town of Mombasa to the lakeside town of Kisumu. The rail had it's doubters from the onset. The wiser ones called the rail the "lunatic line", which was not without reason. The railway was extremely expensive and it's commercial viability was questionable at best. What few could have foreseen was the impact that the Indians would have on local food. So as a young boy in a small rural village, I could eat rice and chapati occasionally and during celebrations of all manner. So India was known to me through food.
Food in our household was almost exclusively served on Chinese flatware and cutlery. Most of the cups and plates had the stamp "made in China" on the bottom.
Burma was part of the village folklore as a result of men who had been recruited to fight for the British during the Second European war of 1914. I specifically avoid calling it a World war as I have noticed the loaded implication of such a term. By calling a World War, it's possible to assume that there was a unifying purpose for which the whole world was fighting for and from which all involved would benefit.
I obviously knew nothing about the war except that one of the elders, Gítango , was in the war. He retained an old heavy military coat from his days in the battle field. Beyond the cloak, I saw no other benefits from his involvement in the war. His deployment to Burma did make the asian country part of my village folklore and by extension an interest Burma in later years.
That was how I first became interested in Aung San Su Chì. Her struggle for justice gave my interest staying power.
After reading about her, it became obvious that she was connected to the power elite of her country. She received support from westerners that stood to gain financially from her rule.
What amazes me is the number of people who complained about her role in the suffering of the ethnic Rhuhinja people. The Rhuhinja were partly persecuted on religious grounds. That is why I mentioned that religion was not spread by the invaders as a majority but it has turned out that way. Religion was a source of serious contention historically amongst Europeans and Arabs. Other nations are now following the same footsteps of instability based on religious intolerance.
San Suu Chi did not have any real power. She entered into an unfair agreement with the military to help sanitize the military regime and help remove the crippling sanctions that were hurting those in power.
While I am not trying to absolve Aung San Suu Chi from responsibility for the suffering caused to the people of Burma , I cannot avoid noticing the old trend of neglecting the finer details behind global problems that always seem to come back and haunt us.
Aung San Suu Kyi was not the person most deserving of any peace prize then nor now. The Nobel committee also has its own agenda. That agenda is quite different from the billions of people who wait annually to find out who was lucky enough to join the list of Nobel laureates. Others use the opportunity to learn about new and interesting people worth learning about.
I am the first one to admit that I belong to that group. I have learned about a good number of writers and researchers that I wouldn't have otherwise known; at least not in the midterm. One such person was Waslawa Szymborska, the Polish poet who received the price in 1996 at the age of 74 years . I happened to be visiting Poland that year. It was nice to have something to strike a conversation with the learned people I met during my trip. That is the nice part.
Not so nice is the kind of normalization of blood money that perpetuates the power of those privileged at the expense of the dominated, who bore the brunt of the same oppressive practices that produced the privilege currently driving the gap between the haves and the hopeless. By giving the money away, Alfred Nobel keeps a tight grip on power into perpetuity.
All the good vibes and philanthropy can potentially disguise the fact that Alfred Nobel, the source of the money that is now awarded to people doing good things for a small price of always bearing the name of the Nobel mostly after their name is mentioned or written down. Alfred Nobel, much like most of the other wealthy robber barons of his time or the era did not make his money by farming organic foods or anything close. He made his money in the military industrial complex before the term was even coined. He was doing research on explosives and made his fortune selling the technology for making bombs. During his trials, he accidentally killed his brother, an accident he could not forgive himself for. He tasted first hand the poison in the charlace that poisoned the lives of millions of people globally. That technology probably was built on the technology of the guns and gunpowder first invented in China. That technology could have emotionally and physically damaged one of my village elders, Gitango. Those stories of Gitango brought Burma into the radar of my innocent mind.
India had been colonized by the British India Company starting in 1612. The British East Indian Company had a military of 200,000 soldiers by 1800. That number was twice the number of soldiers that England had at the time. While Alfred Nobel would not be born until the 1830s, his research in canon technology, along with more than 350 patents he held in his life as a chemist and engineer. That is what you call power. For all the pain and suffering he caused, the smartest of us, or at least those they consider the smartest and most worthy will bear the name of Nobel even after they pass away.
Aung San Suu Kyi has little power as she is not White and neither am I and many who are still operating under the principle of social distance not due to corona but the long standing historical tradition of being distant from power. I only knew three countries while growing up in the village. Now know way more countries from Asia and beyond, but how much closer does that bring me to power? A Nobel nomination is great but closing the distance to power is far better. It eliminates the power vacuum that produces the injustices we currently face. Sadly, these injustices are mostly invisible, disguised and underrated. We have actualized the popular monkey cartoon of seen no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil. Talk of a recipe of perpetual pain. We are in need of a cross that can hang and crucify our oblivion and cross over from a world of endarkening injustice to of one of justice and light.