DAWEI, Myanmar: Shortly after her aging aircraft rattled its way off the runway and into the skies of southern Myanmar, Aung San Suu Kyi crossed the aisle to where three orange-robed Buddhist monks were seated in the first row.
She knelt down and bowed her head, as passengers watched aboard a suddenly hushed plane. Media were not alerted. There were no clicking cameras.
‘That’s a wonderful moment,’ the lone Western diplomat on the plane said quietly.
Her display of obeisance and humility, less than an hour after ecstatic crowds feted her like a rock-star in the southern city of Dawei, revealed a side few have seen.
This more deferential demeanour of the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize laureate may well help sustain the most sweeping reforms in the former British colony since a 1962 military coup when it was known as Burma.
While she is widely admired at home, figures in her own movement have criticised her as too dogmatic, inflexible or arrogant – accusations amplified by state media under the former military junta which handed power to a nominally civilian parliament in March.
The ruling generals often demonised her as Westernised, out of touch with Myanmar. It contrasts with her international image as an enduring symbol of democracy, locked away 15 of the past 22 years for her beliefs until freed from house arrest in November, 2010.
Her steadfast support of Western economic sanctions over the years, however, divided the dissident community. Some felt they hurt the general public and allowed the junta and its cronies to carve up Myanmar’s resources and other assets for themselves. Suu Kyi countered they were crucial to force the generals to produce sincere reforms, echoing US and European views.
But as Myanmar changes, so too, is she. At 66, many see her now as more politically astute, more realistic.
‘She wasn’t always humble, she wasn’t always flexible. But to succeed now, she needs to be flexible, and she is starting to show that,’ said one veteran Burmese journalist.
Her genuflection in the plane was emblematic of her position as opposition leader as well: monks have been at the forefront of the pro-democracy movement in Myanmar, and Suu Kyi had just finished speeches calling for changes to the army-drafted constitution at the heart of Myanmar’s power structure.
Later, speaking with Reuters aboard the 1970s-era Myanma Airways aircraft, she ticked off her top priorities, including introducing the rule of law and ending several ethnic insurgencies. But above all, she wants to amend the 2008 constitution ensuring the military’s strong influence over the resource-rich country of nearly 60 million people.
‘That’s our election platform,’ she said. (Reuters)