Daw Aung San Suu Kyi

By Naomi

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is probably the most amazing human being I know of. It’s hard to do her justice, because there are inspirational women and then there is Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. She is the leader of a fight for human rights and democracy in her country, Myanmar. She spent almost 20 years under house arrest after her party, the National League for Democracy, won an election in 1990 but was denied power by military rulers. But she never stopped fighting. After her release in 2010, she picked right back up where she’d left off. This month it was announced that she’d be running in an election in April for a seat in Parliament.

I watch her on the news with awe. Here is a seemingly tiny woman with the strength of a lion. She is an incredible force for good and peace and justice in Myanmar, where people have been living horrifically under military rule for years. Despite her treatment at the hands of the military, when you see her talk, she has no bitterness, only a dignity that never fails to move me. I think of everything that she has had to fight against and yet she still talks with a smile, with a soft-spoken confidence.

Aung San Suu Kyi’s husband was English, so she could have left Myanmar and lived in England for the rest of her life, but she never did. She stayed and fought for her country and accepted the consequences even though she didn’t have to. It’s not surprising that everywhere she goes these days she is thronged by those who love her, those that put faith in her.

Aung San Suu Kyi believes in peace, in never using violence. Watch her interviews and read her books and you’ll discover a crazy-smart but impossibly modest women that I can only ever hope to be a little like. She also often wears flowers in her hair, which I think makes her an honorary Rookie.