The Mother Who Was Overlooked

The respected 87-year-old author and poet Dagon Tayar noted a significant parallel in the thinking of father and daughter—“Whatever Ko Aung San said, he had one condition: ‘if

Burma

restores independence.’ Like her father, Daw Suu always has one condition: if Burma restores democracy.” In a phone conversation from his home in Shan State, Dagon Tayar summed up Khin Kyi’s character in one word: “integrity.”

Suu Kyi decided to enter Burmese politics in 1988 when students initiated a nationwide pro-democracy movement against the authoritarian regime. She was then living in London but visiting Rangoon to look after her ailing mother. She decided instinctively that not only her mother needed her—so did Burma.

Khin Kyi had only months to live—she died in December 1988—but the poet Tin Moe believes Suu Kyi consulted her before taking up politics and obtained her mother’s approval. A huge crowd of mourners, estimated to number 200,000, gathered to pay their last respects at Khin Kyi’s funeral.

One large gap remains in this family story—a biography of Khin Kyi. Tin Moe says the ever-modest Khin Kyi turned down a biography proposal by one of Burma’s most popular writers. Perhaps the time has come for Suu Kyi to attempt the task—she is, after all, the person most qualified to profile a woman who so shaped her life and who has been overlooked by posterity.

A biography of Khin Kyi by her daughter would not only provide a fascinating version of the Aung San family story but also throw much light on the politics of post-colonial Burma.