Aung San Suu Kyi: Burma's First Lady of Freedom
：自由女神化作肉身
尽管屡遭监禁，仍自认为是幸运儿——不是因为受到民众膜拜，而是因为得到民众爱戴，得到一种源自宽广心灵的情感。“除了爱，我更珍视善意。我一生都沐浴在善意中。爱有生有灭，而善意万古长存”。
Tags：民主 | 缅甸 |
The special branch had chased us across the city for hours, through the haunted, betel-nut-stained streets of old Rangoon, past street-side tailors hunched over ancient sewing machines and open-air bookstalls selling worm-eaten copies of Orwell and Kipling. Unable to shake the latest batch of state security men following us by foot, we jumped into a wheezing taxi of mid-20th century vintage. The young driver's eyes widened at the foreigners who hurled themselves in the back and ordered the car to move — fast. As we lurched into motion, he showed us where he stood by reaching into his shirt pocket and pulling out a laminated picture. It was, of course, of the Lady.
几个小时来，秘密警察一直在仰光跟踪我们。老城大街气氛阴森，路面斑布槟榔渍迹；路边，裁缝们伏在老式缝纫机上工作；奥威尔和吉普林的作品摆在露天书摊上，饱受虫噬。又一批安全部门的人跟了上来。眼见没法通过步行甩掉他们，我们这帮外国人钻进了一辆出租车——那种气喘吁吁的20世纪中期的老爷车——并要求赶快开车。年轻的出租车司机见此情
景，睁大了眼睛。车子开起来后，司机把手伸进上衣口袋，掏出了一张皱皱巴巴的照片，表明了自己的政治立场。没错，照片上正是那位女士。
Aung San Suu Kyi, the 65-year-old Burmese Nobel Peace Prize laureate who was released from house arrest on Nov. 13, was not in the taxi with my two colleagues and me. But she is always carried in the hearts — and her image in the pockets, lockets and secret hiding places — of millions of Burmese. Among the most oppressed and impoverished people on the planet, they draw sustenance from this graceful woman who, armed only with the principle of nonviolent resistance, dares to stand up to the generals who have controlled Burma for nearly five decades. For 15 of the past 21 years, the military regime kept her locked up. But if the generals wished for Suu Kyi to fade into obscurity, they failed. Continued confinement turned her into the world's most famous political prisoner. Emerging from her most recent stint of seven years in detention, she is just as determined to fight for the civil liberties of Burma's 50 million people. "What we are calling for is revolutionary change through peaceful means," she told me when we recently met in Rangoon. "I'm not afraid to say it, and I'm not afraid to ask for all the help I can get."
她就是65岁的诺贝尔和平奖获得者，已于2010年11月13日获释。
出租车中坐着我和两个同伴。她并不在出租车里，却是在数百万缅甸民众的心中：口袋中，匣子中，各种隐秘的地方都藏着她的肖像。这位优雅的女士是缅甸民众，这地球上最穷困、最受压迫的人，活下去的理由。她勇于挑战控制国家
近半世纪的军政府，手中唯一的武器是“非暴力抵抗”原则。过去的21年中，她有15年被军政府关押。军人们若以为凭关押便可让她淡出历史舞台，那他们大错特错了：无尽地关押使成为全球瞩目的政治犯。在最近一次长达7年的关押结束后，依然矢志不渝地为缅甸5千万民众的民权自由而奋斗。“我们要通过和平手段完成革命性变革”，她在近期一次与我们的会面中说，“我从不隐瞒这个想法，也不怕为之实现去争取一切能得到的帮助”。
The extent to which the junta has gone to try to foil the Lady, as Suu Kyi is fondly and universally known in Burma, is remarkable. For refusing to participate in a rigged election in November that the junta's proxy party won, Suu Kyi's party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), was stripped of its political rights. The NLD overwhelmingly won at the polls in 1990, which presumably would have made Suu Kyi the nation's Prime Minister. But the junta ignored the people's verdict then, and a new constitution contains clauses specifically designed to keep her from ever serving as Burma's leader.
由于在缅甸广受民众爱戴，军政府为挫败其政治计划可谓是机关用尽。的政党国家民主联盟（NLD）称11月大选有操纵之嫌，拒绝参加，结果被剥夺了政治权利。结果军政府的代理人赢得了大选。1990民盟年曾以压倒性胜利赢得大选，昂山本该出任总理。然而军政府无视人民意愿，并颁布新宪法使昂山永远无法担任国家领导人。
Since 1962, Burma's battle-hardened generals have faced down communist insurgents, ethnic armies, even the Western governments that impose economic sanctions on the regime. But they still act as if there is no greater enemy t
han this slight woman with flowers in her hair. Their fear of Suu Kyi is not entirely misplaced. "We think our leader is the ideal woman, not just for Burma but for the whole world," says Aye Aye Nyein, a teacher and member of the NLD's youth wing. "We Burmese live in a prison. She teaches us how to fight for our freedom." And the public's desire for freedom, of course, is why security agents were hunting us, snapping pictures with telephoto lenses fit for Hollywood paparazzi. Earlier that day, a total of at least a dozen special-branch officers trailed us, calling in our movements on their cell phones.
1962年以来，缅甸这些久经沙场的军人历经赤匪叛乱、民族分裂和西方经济制裁而巍然不倒。但他们却把这个头带鲜花的纤弱女人视做最大的
敌人。他们的恐惧不无道理。“我们领袖是最完美的女性，无论在缅甸还是全世界范围内”，民盟青年部成员、教师Aye Aye Nyein说，“我们缅甸人生活在一个大监狱里，她教会我们如何赢得自由”。在公众渴望自由的背景下，我们这些拿着长焦镜头、装扮酷似好莱坞狗仔队的人，自然会遭到安全人员跟踪。那天，至少有12名特勤安全人员尾随我们，时刻通过对讲机报告我们的动向。
It took the taxi driver only a couple of minutes to figure out we had a tail. Pointing back at a car practically on our bumper, he grinned and gunned the engine. For more than half an hour, our high-speed chase wound through the streets of Burma's moldering former capital, past the carcasses of Victorian-era government buildings abandoned when
the junta mysteriously moved the seat of power to a remote redoubt five years ago. We circumnavigated the massive golden spire of Shwedagon pagoda, Burma's holiest site, and careened by the hulk of Insein prison, where Suu Kyi was once jailed and where some of the country's 2,200 political prisoners still languish.
出租车司机没花多久就意识到我们被盯梢了。他指指身后一辆几乎贴在保险杠上的车，咧嘴一笑，踩了脚油门。于是，一出高速追逐大戏，在缅甸残败旧都弯弯曲曲的街道间上演。其间，我们路过了一片残破的维多利亚时期政府大楼。五年前，军政府将权力机构从这里迁到一座偏远的堡垒。没人知道为什么。我们绕行缅甸胜地仰光大金塔一圈，歪歪斜斜地从永盛监狱旁驶过——这幢庞然大物曾关押过，并在吞噬着2200名政治犯的生命。
Dusk was falling. Screeching through an open-air market, the taxi finally shook our pursuers. Gratefully, we bid our driver goodbye. He reached into his pocket again, offering me Suu Kyi's picture as a gift. I was touched, but it was his talisman to cherish. I could leave Burma. He needed the Lady to keep him safe.
夜幕降临。出租车呼啸着穿过露天市场，终于摆脱了尾随者。我们心怀感激地向司机道别。他再次把手深入口袋，捧出的照片给我们作为礼物。我被深深地触动了。这是他的护身符。有一天我会离开缅甸，而他需要这位女士来守护平安。
sidselrasmussenan unending struggle
无尽的斗争
Her carriage is regal, her English accent impeccable. The blossoms she customarily wears in her hair never seem to wilt, even as everything else droops in Burma's sullen heat. In the NLD office, with its intermittent electricity and maps of mildew spread across concrete walls, Suu Kyi floats like some otherworldly presence, calm and cool as others are flushed and frenetic. Ever since she was released in mid-November, Suu Kyi's days have been divided and subdivided into one-hour or 15-minute increments, during which she has met a dizzying array of
people: foreign diplomats, AIDS patients, NGO directors, local economists, U.N. officials and the families of political prisoners. She even chatted by phone in December with former First Lady Laura Bush, who had championed the Burmese cause.
她举止端庄，英文流利。即使其他一切万物都在缅甸的闷热中枯萎，她习惯带在头上的鲜花也似乎永远不会凋零。民盟办公室的水泥墙上糊着发霉的地图，电力供应时有时无。同志们激动万分，而面平静，淡定从容，宛若飘自彼岸。自11月中旬获释后，的时间便被细分成了小时甚至15分钟的小段，用来接见外国使节、艾滋病患者、无政府组织负责人、当地经济学家、联合国官员以及政治犯家属等各路人士。本月她甚至还和一直以来支持缅甸事业的前第一夫人劳拉通了电话。
But even as the world watches Burma with renewed interest in the wake of Suu Kyi's release, she has not yet met the people with whom she most wants to talk. The regime has ignored her repeated offers for national reconciliation dialogu
e. Since releasing her, the junta has dealt with Suu Kyi by acting as if she didn't exist, expunging mentions of her from the local press and hoping that, despite her busy calendar and the huge crowds that gather wherever she goes, she will somehow dwindle into irrelevance. "I wish I could have tea with them every Saturday, a friendly tea," Suu Kyi says of the generals, who refused to allow her dying husband one last visit to Burma in 1999. And if they turn down a nice cup of tea? "We could always try coffee," she says wryly.
随着昂山获释，缅甸再度成为全球关注的焦点。然而，却没见到她最想与之交谈的人。她反复要求的民族和解对话被军政府置之不理。军政府将昂山释放后，对其视而不见，在官方媒体中抹去任何关于她的报道。政府笃定，尽管宾朋满座、所到之处应者云集，终会退到舞台边缘。“我希望每周末都能与他们茶谈，非常友好地茶谈”说。她指的是军政府的寡头们——尽管这些人在1999年她丈夫病危时，禁止她去见丈夫最后一面。如果他们拒绝接受茶谈怎么办？“那就试试咖啡”，苦笑着说。
Far from being a simple morality tale of good vs. evil, the Lady against the generals, what happens in Burma carries global significance. Jammed between Asia's two emerging powers, China and India, Burma is strategically sensitive, a critical piece in the new Great Game of global politics. This is no totalitarian backwater like North Korea. Even though many Western governments have imposed sanctions on Burma's military regime for its atrocious human-rights record, a new competition is unfolding in this crossroads nation: regional powers are scrambling for access to Burma's plentiful natural gas, timber and minerals. Already
, resource-strapped China is building oil and gas pipelines across Burma to create another vital artery to feed its economic engine. Beijing's cozy ties with Burma have spooked democratic India, which has exchanged earlier condemnation of the junta for trade missions — a stance that earned President Barack Obama's public disapproval when he visited India in November. For Burma's top brass — who have at their disposal a 400,000-strong military corps and a record of institutionalized rape, torture and forced labor — democratic reform would mean not only ceding political supremacy but also surrendering the opportunity to siphon wealth from ever growing state coffers.
缅甸发生的一切不仅仅是正邪之间的道德较量，不仅仅是一位女子与军政府寡头的较量，而且具有全球意义。缅甸夹在中印这两个亚洲新兴大国之间，战略位置十分敏感，是全球政治大博弈中至关重要的一环。军政府尽管因人权纪录糟糕遭到西方制裁，却不同于朝鲜的独裁政权，因而缅甸远非一潭死水。当地丰富的燃气、木材和矿占资源引来各方垂涎，一场新的争夺正围绕这个处于十字路口上的国家展开。中国由于资源稀缺，已开始在缅甸铺设油气管道，以建立一条新能源动脉为经济发动机输血。而作为民主国家的印度，虽然以拒绝批评军政府换取贸易交往，并因此在奥巴马11月来访时遭到批评，仍然对中缅间的亲密关系感到不安。缅甸的军事寡头们手握四百万重兵，身背有组织、酷刑奴役纪录。对他们来说，民主改革不仅将夺去其政治特权，而且会让他们失去攫取国家财富的机会。
Unlike South Africa's apartheid government when Nelson Mandela was released from prison, Burma's dictatorship is not in its death throes. If anything, because of burgeoning foreign investment in Burma, especially over the past five years, the junta is even more entrenched than when Suu Kyi was last free, in 2003. Two previous attempts at popular pr
otest have ended with the crackle of gunfire and the silence of a cowed populace. The most recent tragedy came in 2007 when soldiers ended weeks of monk-led protests by mowing down dozens of unarmed civilians.
与曼德拉获释时的南非种族隔离政府不同，缅甸军政权尚未到行将就木之时。由于近五年来外国投资生机勃勃，军政府的统治较2003上一次获释时年更加稳固。此前两次民众示威都以林弹雨收场，民众受到恐吓噤若寒蝉。最近一次悲剧发生在2007年，军人如割麦子一般射杀手无寸铁的平民，从而终结了这场由僧侣领导的绵延数周的抗议活动。
The other foiled democracy movement was in 1988, when Suu Kyi found herself literally thrust on the political stage. The daughter of assassinated independence hero Aung San, she spent much of her early life overseas in India, the U.S.,
Japan, Bhutan and England. In the 1980s she was content to focus on academic research and serve as the mother of two sons and the wife of a British academic at Oxford. On picnics in the English countryside, Suu Kyi wore shorts and drank soda; she gave little hint of the democracy icon she would become.
另一次失败的民主运动发生在1988年，那时被推上了政治舞台。在民族英雄、父亲昂山被暗杀后，她在印度、美国、日本、不丹和英国等海外国家度过了早年时光。1980年代，她身为英籍牛津教授的妻子，遇有两子，专注于学术研究。一次英国乡下早餐中，身着短袖，品着苏打水，没有一丝迹象显示她日后将成为民主运动的符号。
In 1988 the dutiful Asian daughter went home to care for her ill mother. That Rangoon summer grew into Burma's version of a Prague spring. The generals' mismanagement had turned what was once one of Asia's breadbaskets into an economic basket case, and students, monks and workers gathered by the hundreds of thousands to call for the regime's downfall. The army fired on the protesters, some of whom tried to fight back. As the child of the revered general who had vanquished the colonial British, Suu Kyi thought she might have the authority to prevent further clashes. In front of half a million people, she made her first public address, mixing Buddhist values with Gandhian principles of nonviolent resistance. Less than a month after Suu Kyi's plea for peace, the army unleashed another crackdown, killing hundreds. Two years later, the electoral victory of the NLD, the party she helped found, was disregarded. It was as if time stopped in Burma.
1988年，这位孝顺的女儿返回缅甸伺候病榻上的母亲。那一年，仰光之夏成为缅甸版的布拉格之春。军事寡头们治国无方，把号称“亚洲粮仓”的缅甸搞得千疮百孔。数万学生、僧侣和工人走上街头，要求终结军政府统治。军队向示威人开，遭到后者还击。考虑到父亲昂山将军曾带领国家摆脱英国殖民统治而广受爱戴，试图利用自己的威望防止冲突恶化。在50万民众面前，她发表生平里第一次公共演说，糅合了佛教思想与甘地的非暴力不合作原则。在发出和平呼吁后不到一个月，军方再度镇压示威，数百人遇害。两年后，创建的民盟赢得选举，军政府拒绝交权。自此以后，时间仿佛凝固了。
Multiple Fronts
危机重重
Today, despite Suu Kyi's release and the influx of foreign investment that has brought the occasional Hummer and day spa to Rangoon, Burma is still a country preserved in amber. Tropical totalitarianism is deceptive. In North Korea, the broad, desolate avenues and drably dressed citizens make for a perfect tableau of authoritarianism. Burma's sprays of bougainvillea, its gilded pagodas and the sway of schoolgirl