{"id":46615,"date":"2012-06-28T15:41:21","date_gmt":"2012-06-28T15:41:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=46615"},"modified":"2012-06-28T15:51:43","modified_gmt":"2012-06-28T15:51:43","slug":"aung-san-suu-kyi-uk-parliament-at-its-best-and-at-its-worst","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/aung-san-suu-kyi-uk-parliament-at-its-best-and-at-its-worst\/","title":{"rendered":"Aung San Suu Kyi: UK Parliament At Its Best And At Its Worst"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By <a href=\"http:\/\/www.article19.org\/\">Oliver Spencer<\/a> &#8211;<\/strong><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_46629\" style=\"width: 185px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/aung-san-suu-kyi-uk-parliament-at-its-best-and-at-its-worst\/oliver_small\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-46629\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-46629\" class=\"size-full wp-image-46629\" title=\"oliver_small\" src=\"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/oliver_small.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"175\" height=\"98\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-46629\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Oliver Spencer<\/p><\/div>\n<p><strong>Aung San Suu Kyi arrived in the UK on Tuesday with a full schedule organised by the British Foreign Office carefully crafted to ensure civil society was kept if not out, at least at the boundaries. We wouldn&#8217;t want anyone to say anything that ruins the moment.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Suu Kyi&#8217;s invitation to speak in Westminster Hall, the oldest and largest room in Parliament, was an example of what the UK does best: pomp and pagentry.<\/p>\n<p>Invite in hand, we went to take part in something magnificent; a celebration of a great person who stood up for free speech and suffered greatly on behalf of her struggle, losing her husband and contact with her children for decades in the process.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/aung-san-suu-kyi-uk-parliament-at-its-best-and-at-its-worst\/assk-shirt\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-46626\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-46626\" title=\"assk-shirt\" src=\"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/assk-shirt.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"100\" height=\"147\" \/><\/a>Unfortunately in my excitement, I had forgotten that this was the British establishment at work, and that a shirt with Suu Kyi on it (see image) would be completely unacceptable. How could I consider turning such an event into something political when they were doing their best to turn it into something different?<\/p>\n<p>Unluckily for them, because I&#8217;m sure they would have loved to keep me out, I ran around the corner and secured a plain acceptable-to-pompous-parliamentarians shirt and tie &#8211; you know, the style that\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com\/Diary-of-a-Divorced-Delhi-Male\/entry\/removing-the-colonial-knots-from-around-our-necks\">many ex-colonial countries refuse to wear because its the dress of the colonisers<\/a>. Luckily Burma wasn&#8217;t colonised&#8230; oh, hang on.<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, now in and with Suu Kyi sat down, we had the surprise pleasure of listening to\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.parliament.uk\/business\/news\/2012\/june\/Speaker-addresses-Aung-San-Suu-Kyi\/\">an excellent speech from John Bercow<\/a>\u00a0in which he stated that she was &#8220;the first figure other than a Head of State, the first woman from abroad and the first citizen of Asia to [speak here].&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Thankfully, he did not mince his words and came our with real repproach to the Burmese government: &#8220;I can myself attest, this is a cabal guilty of rape as a weapon of war, extra-judicial killings, compulsory relocation, forced labour, deployment of child soldiers, use of human minesweepers, incarceration of opponents in unspeakable conditions, destruction of villages, obstruction of aid and excruciating torture.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Suu Kyi&#8217;s speech, which you can watch below, was beautiful in it&#8217;s peacefulness, grace and even spots of parliamentary humour.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_46623\" style=\"width: 210px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/aung-san-suu-kyi-uk-parliament-at-its-best-and-at-its-worst\/burma-parliament1-oliver-spencer\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-46623\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-46623\" class=\"size-full wp-image-46623\" title=\"burma-parliament1-oliver-spencer\" src=\"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/burma-parliament1-oliver-spencer.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"200\" height=\"130\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-46623\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">When I came out of parliament, worse was the poor Burmese demostrators standing outside in the rain.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>What stood out for me however was that looking around, I saw oodles of celebrities and aged Lords, but almost no activists. When I came out of parliament, worse was the poor Burmese demostrators standing outside in the rain.<\/p>\n<p>The UK parliament did what it does well &#8211; it provided Suu Kyi with the praise and value that she deserves. Unfortunately at the same time, it did what it does worst &#8211; creates a world of exclusion and elitism.<\/p>\n<p>I just hope that those protesters who stood outside in the pouring rain for three hours will forgive them.<\/p>\n<p>Courtesy\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.article19.org\/\">Article 19<\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?feature=player_embedded&amp;v=Uo1MHK1FBic#!\">httpv:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Uo1MHK1FBic#!<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p> [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":46634,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,39],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-colombotelegraph","category-video"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.3 - 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