Aung San Suu Kyi speaks at U of L’s Mcconnell Center

“ Life… is not all black and white there are many subtle shades of gray” said Nobel peace prize winner and recipient of the congressional gold medal Aung San Suu Kyi, in her speech at the McConnell Center on U of L’s campus Monday. Senator Mitch Mcconnell introduced Suu Kyi and sat beside her the whole speech.
Suu Kyi, an activist and politician from Myanmar, received the Congressional Gold Medal on Sept. 21. She also received the Nobel Peace Prize on June 16. Suu Kyi actually won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2008 but couldn’t receive it then because she was under home incarceration for speaking out against the government. Suu Kyi received the awards for being an advocate of democracy and a activist of human rights especially for her home country of Myanmar. Suu Kyi is now part of the National League of Democracy (NLD) which is a Burmese based political party that stands for the rights of freedom. She is also a member of the Burmese house of representatives.One of the main points of Aung San Suu Kyi’s speech was about helping Myanmar, also known as Burma, right now while it’s on the road to becoming a democracy.The first part of the speech was about uniting Burma with other countries so that they can support each other to achieve their goals. “I hope we do not need a common language to reach out to one another because our aspirations are very much the same” said Suu Kyi.Another main point of the speech was Suu Kyi’s intolerance of human rights violations. She believes that human rights violations should never be overlooked. Suu Kyi exemplified this as she referred to the violence in her own country from this past year due to retaliation of illegal immigration in her own country “Wherever there has been human rights violations we must take action against those communities” said Suu Kyi. “There are people who want to encourage this violence…people who get caught up in their own anger and hatred”. Suu Kyi also believes that human rights and rule of law are the same and that human rights should be protected under rule of law.

Suu Kyi  dedicated part of the talk to audience questions, answering how Burma’s journey to democracy was unique and how the power of nonviolence had reformed her life.She was as detailed as possible when came to answering questions. Some of the questions were asked in Burmese.

A video of the speech can be found here. http://www.courier-journal.com/article/ … ightbb.com

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