Aung San Suu Kyi is free. How wonderful – quite unbelievable. It is so very like when Nelson Mandela walked out of prison on that February day in 1990, and strode with so much dignity into freedom. And the world thrilled at the sight.
The world is exultant, too, at the news of Suu Kyi’s release from the six years of house arrest which prevented her from becoming the leader of her beloved country after her National League for Democracy won a landslide victory in the 1990 elections. Freedom, justice and goodness have yet again been vindicated as they were vindicated on the release of Nelson Mandela, whose example of compromise and reconciliation Suu Kyi declared had inspired her: this remarkable woman said that she bore no one malice; she nursed no grudges against those who had treated her so unjustly; she had no bitterness; and she was ready to work for the healing of her motherland, which had suffered so grievously. In revealing this extraordinary magnanimity she was emulating Nelson Mandela, who has left the world awed by his singular lack of bitterness, his magnanimity and his willingness to forgive those who ill-treated him.
How wonderful that Aung San Suu Kyi’s first public utterance after her release should be a clarion call to all the major role-players for dialogue and reconciliation!
The way forward will demand people of stature who are ready to compromise for the greater good of all, not those who remain intransigent by demanding all or nothing. The way forward will require persons of integrity, who know that negotiation is the art of how to give and take. People will need to acknowledge the past and the awful things that were done so that there may be contrition, confession and forgiveness.
Without forgiveness there can be no future. Forgiveness is not a nebulous spiritual thing. It is practical politics. Bygones can never be bygones if dealt with lightly. They will never then be bygones, for they will return to haunt us.
The land must be healed and then, when the past has been dealt with adequately, let it be put firmly behind us and let all get on with the business of building a prosperous motherland for all, where freedom and justice and goodness and laughter and joy and compassion will rule supreme.