LONDON: Even a Nobel Peace Prize isn’t enough to curb the rising Islamophobia among the rank and file of global leadership.
Forget Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and other assorted rightwingers from the Republican Party. This time it’s the Lady of Burma who has raised the hackles for Islamophobes the world over, according to a Daily Mail report.
In a shocking turn of events, a new book on Suu Kyi (The Lady and The Generals: Aung San Suu Kyi and Burma’s Struggle For Freedom by Peter Popham) reveals how the head of the National League for Democracy (NLD), which won a landslide in the recently concluded general elections in Burma, had made a grossly offensive statement about being interviewed by BBC presenter Mishal Husain.
An off-the-record comment by Suu Kyi, just after she was pressed by Husain to make her stance clear on the thorny issue of Burma’s Rohingya Muslims, a minority oppressed by the country’s majority Buddhists, went like this: “No one told me I was going to be interviewed by a Muslim!”
When Husain asked if the now 70-year-old Suu Kyi condemned the anti-Muslim persecutions and massacres, the Lady became defensive and said: “I think there are many, many Buddhists who have also left the country for various reasons. This is a result of our sufferings under a dictatorial regime.”
The controversy is likely to dent Sui Kyi beatific image, that of a champion of human rights, exactly where it hurts the most.