Examine the rhetorical effectiveness of the "Letter from Birmingham Jail." What aspects of the work made it such an effective argument in its own day?
Choose a biblical theme or pattern of biblical allusions that King uses in the "Letter from Birmingham Jail" (such as the writings of Paul, the wanderings of the prophets, the laws of Babylon, etc.). Trace this concept through the letter and show how it supports King's overall argument.
aung san suu kyi
from In Quest of Democracy
[1990]
IN 1 886, the British invaded the Kingdom of Burma and made it part of the massive colonial enterprise known as British India (encompassing present-day India, Pakistan, Burma, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka). During World War II, Aung San Suu Kyi's father and partial namesake, the nationalist leader Aung San (1915-1947), enlisted the aid of the Japanese to expel the British and proclaim independence. However, Aung San soon became disillusioned by Japanese militarism and fascism, and he turned his forces against the Japanese. As the war ended, Aung San negotiated with the British for Burma's permanent independence, and he would almost certainly have been its first prime minister had he not been assassinated by a rival politician six months before the official transfer of power occurred.
Though she was the daughter of Burma's most revered hero, Aung San Suu Kyi (b. 1945) spent most of her life outside her native country. She attended high school in New Delhi, where her mother was the Burmese ambassador to India. Upon graduating, she studied at England's Oxford University, where she met and married Michael Aris, a leading scholar of Tibetan culture. During this time, events in Burma were quickly deteriorating. The country's democratically elected government was overthrown in 1962 by the Marxist dictator Ne Win (1910 or 1911-2002), whose authoritarian regime plunged Burma deeper and deeper into poverty and international isolation. In 1988, Aung San Suu Kyi was doing advanced graduate work at London's prestigious School of Oriental and African Studies when her mother suffered a severe stroke. She returned to Burma in April 1988, five months before massive popular uprisings ended Ne Win's twenty-six-year rule.
In the chaos that followed the revolts, Aung San Suu Kyi emerged as a strong political leader and democracy advocate, but a military junta seized power (and officially, though controversially, changed the English version of the country's name from Burma to Myanmar). Despite promising free elections, the junta had no intention of handing control to an elected government; they scheduled immediate elections in 1990 under the assumption that no opposition to their rule could organize in such a short amount of time. To ensure their victory, they declared Aung San Suu Kyi ineligible to run for office and placed her under house arrest, and the political party that she had formed, the National League for Democracy (NLD), was barred from taking part in the elections in any way. Nonetheless, the NLD won 82 percent of the popular vote, forcing the junta to void the election and rule as an unelected dictatorship. Instead of taking her rightful place as the elected prime minister, Aung San Suu Kyi remained under house arrest. When she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991, her oldest son accepted the award in her stead. She was released in 1995 but was placed under house arrest again from 2000 to 2002 and yet again in 2003. In 2010, she was finally released from house arrest and, in 2012, won a seat in Burma's parliament, where she continues to serve.
In the essay "In Quest of Democracy," a selection from which appears here, Aung San Suu Kyi attempts to answer one of the standard charges made by nondemocratic governments throughout the world: that democracy is a Western form of government and a remnant of imperialism that represents values alien to the non-Western world. To answer this charge, Aung San Suu Kyi argues deductively. First she examines the role of government in Buddhist scripture (nearly 90 percent of the population of Burma/Myanmar is Buddhist). She narrates the story of the original social contract in Buddhist scripture and briefly explains the ten duties of kingship in the Buddhist tradition. She then applies these principles to the present definition of "democracy." The essential elements of democracy, fairness, and respect for human rights, she asserts, have always been present in the Buddhist traditions of her people.
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Opponents of the movement for democracy in Burma[215] have sought to undermine it by on the one hand casting aspersions on the competence of the people to judge what was best for the nation and on the other condemning the basic tenets of democracy as un-Burmese. There is nothing new in Third World governments seeking to justify and perpetuate authoritarian rule by denouncing liberal democratic principles as alien. By implication they claim for themselves the official and sole right to decide what does or does not conform to indigenous cultural norms. Such conventional propaganda aimed at consolidating the powers of the establishment has been studied, analysed and disproved by political scientists, jurists and sociologists. But in Burma, distanced by several decades of isolationism from political and intellectual developments in the outside world, the people have had to draw on their own resources to explode the twin myths of their unfitness for political responsibility and the unsuitability of democracy for their society. As soon as the movement for democracy spread out across Burma there was a surge of intense interest in the meaning of the word "democracy", in its history and its practical implications. More than a quarter-century of narrow authoritarianism under which they had
organizations, but is rejected by prodemocracy forces within Burma because it was not ratified by any elected body. The governments of the United States, Great Britain, and Canada continue to call the country Burma, as does Aung San Suu Kyi.
been fed a pabulum[216] of shallow, negative dogma had not blunted the perceptiveness or political alertness of the Burmese. On the contrary, perhaps not all that surprisingly, their appetite for discussion and debate, for uncensored information and objective analysis, seemed to have been sharpened. Not only was there an eagerness to study and to absorb standard theories on modern politics and political institutions, there was also widespread and intelligent speculation on the nature of democracy as a social system of which they had had little experience but which appealed to their common-sense notions of what was due to a civilized society. There was a spontaneous interpretative response to such basic ideas as representative government, human rights and the rule of law. The privileges and freedoms which would be guaranteed by democratic institutions were contemplated with understandable enthusiasm. But the duties of those who would bear responsibility for the maintenance of a stable democracy also provoked much thoughtful consideration. It was natural that a people who have suffered much from the consequences of bad government should be preoccupied with theories of good government.
Members of the Buddhist sangha[217] in their customary role as mentors have led the way in articulating popular expectations by drawing on classical learning to illuminate timeless values. But the conscious effort to make traditional knowledge relevant to contemporary needs was not confined to any particular circle—it went right through Burmese society from urban intellectuals and small shopkeepers to doughty village grandmothers.
Why has Burma with its abundant natural and human resources failed to live up to its early promise as one of the most energetic and fastest-developing nations in Southeast Asia? International scholars have provided detailed answers supported by careful analyses of historical, cultural, political and economic factors. The Burmese people, who have had no access to sophisticated academic material, got to the heart of the matter by turning to the words of the Buddha on the four causes of decline and decay: failure to recover that which had been lost, omission to repair that which had been damaged, disregard of the need for reasonable economy, and the elevation to leadership of men without morality or learning. Translated into contemporary terms, when democratic rights had been lost to military dictatorship sufficient efforts had not been made to regain them, moral and political values had been allowed to deteriorate without concerted attempts to save the situation, the economy had been badly managed, and the country had been ruled by men without integrity or wisdom. A thorough study by the cleverest scholar using the best and latest methods of research could hardly have identified more correctly or succinctly the chief causes of Burma's decline since 1962.