Travellers (Written By Aung San Suu Kyi)

Photo: Naytthi.net

(This article was written by Aung San Suu Kyi and was published by Mianichi Shimbun on May 23, 2011 )

Truman Capote's inimitable heroine Holly Golightly, that most worldly of waifs, kept her possessions in suitcases with luggage tags that, in place of an address, bore the single word, "Traveling". I was barely out of my teens when I first came across this original approach to abode and I thought it was wonderful and adventurous and interpreted it purely in terms of physical movement.

This perception was strengthened after I was married as Michael's dedication to Himalayan studies frequently took us to remote parts of the world and kept us on the move. Whenever we came back from our long journeys I was surprised to find that many of our friends were still at their old addresses. The peripatetic way of life seemed, to us, the normal one. Even after both our sons were born, travel remained an integral part of our existence. The last three years before I became caught up in the movement for democracy in Burma, our homes moved between England, Japan and India.

Lives that have been described as journeys are, in general, eventful. The mere passing of ordinary days are not usually seen as worthy of the term "travel." Events that have been smoothed featureless by repetition enter into glacier mode, the slow movement frozen into apparent standstill. It is only stillness itself that sharpens our senses to the ebb and flow of the universe around us.

It was during my years of house arrest that I began to know life as travel rather than travel as life. The sameness of my daily routine heightened my sensitivity to the fleetness of time and to the dissimilarity between every single one of the minutes and the hours that made up the mosaic of each fast paced day. Impermanence ceased to be mere philosophy, it became fact, the stuff of daily life, the appearing and disappearing of moments that turned into weeks and months and years.

Regular practice of meditation no doubt did much to sharpen such awareness. As I consciously crossed over from one state of consciousness to another I began to feel that my permanent address was indeed "Traveling." I learnt to assess my "baggage" from time to time that I might discard whatever should be discarded. Since I knew I would always be traveling, I wanted to travel light.

The sense that I was on a long errantry through time and through samsara, like a character out of a fantasy tale, made me feel I could reach out to fellow travelers despite high gates, barbed wire barricades and endless miles. Surely they who are aware that they are on a journey even if they do not know where it would lead and when it would end are linked to one another by an understanding that transcends language and culture as well as time and space? Those who travel uncharted territory develop mutual empathy based on common experience of the hazards of venturing into the unknown with only faith and daring as shield and armor.

My colleagues and I have traveled a rough road over the last two decades and when we see the people of Japan embarking on the uphill path of one of the most challenging rehabilitation and reconstruction programs the world has ever known, we not only sympathize deeply with them, we fervently wish them all success. We want them to overcome all trials and difficulties as we wish to overcome our own trials and difficulties.

The National League for Democracy has had to ride out many waves of repression. In the worst of times we started each day by enquiring who had been taken away in the night. Mondays were particularly bad as the security forces liked to go about their sinister business during the weekends when it was difficult for the members of our party to contact one another. The telephones at our office and my house had been cut off for years and from time to time the telephones of our most active colleagues were also made inoperative. Those were the days before the advent of the cell phone, may it be many times blessed, and we had to send our young people running around collecting information on those who had been whisked away when by all norms of justice and decency they should have been left to sleep peacefully in their own beds.

What enabled us to get through those days of unrelenting persecution with our sanity and even our sense of humor intact? It was our strong sense of solidarity. It straightened our backs and kept us going however heavy the oppression. We offer our solidarity to the peoples of the devastated regions of Japan, we are with you as you travel the road to recovery and renewal.

Trying to decide on the subject of this month's letter, I asked myself: at such a time is there a place for any writing that is not relevant to the chief preoccupation of Japan today? Or would an article that has nothing to do with the tsunami or its aftermath be a welcome change for weary people? Last month I decided to postpone Animal Talk 2, as I did not think that ruminations on animals would have been appropriate at such a time of crisis. "Next month," I thought. Now that "next month" has become this month, I still hesitate: is it yet appropriate? Then it occurred to me that it would be good if I could have some idea of what the Japanese people would like to read at a time like this. Could my readers let me know how best my letters might be of some help to them? (By Aung San Suu Kyi)