Aung San Suu Kyi is the politician and activist from Myanmar, who unfolded a rally of protests against the brutal rule of the dictator, Ne Win.
She spoke out against him, and initiated a non-violent movement toward achieving democracy and human rights.
In 1989, the government placed Suu Kyi under house arrest, and she spent fifteen years in custody. In 1991, her efforts won her the Nobel Prize for Peace, and she was finally released from house arrest in November 2010.
In March 2016, Suu Kyi became the State Counsellor, a position above the presidency that allows her to direct the country’s affairs. She believed that values like love and compassion should be a part of politics, and justice should always be tempered by compassion.
Aung San Suu Kyi has often said that the greatest influences on her life were her father, Aung San, and India’s greatest leader, Gandhiji. She drew her commitment to non-violence from Gandhiji.
Once entrenched in the fight for democracy in Myanmar, Suu Kyi embraced many of Gandhi’s protest techniques in her own resistance movement against military rule.
