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| 昂山素季 |
在诺贝尔和平奖颁奖典礼上的演讲
昂山素季
挪威 奥斯陆 2012年6月16日
尊敬的陛下、诸位皇家成员、社会贤达、挪威诺贝尔委员会委员、亲爱的朋友们：
很多年前，或者说有时感觉似乎是几辈子之前，我在牛津和我的幼子亚历山大一起收听广播节目《荒岛唱片》。这是一个非常著名的节目（就我所知如今依然是），在节目中，来自各行各业的著名人物受访，要求他们谈谈如果他们被放逐到一个荒岛上，那么他们会随身携带哪八张音乐唱片，以及除了《圣经》和《莎士比亚全集》之外的一本书，和一件奢侈物品。我们俩都很喜欢这次的节目。在节目结束的时候，亚历山大问我，我是否想过自己会被邀请参加《荒岛唱片》的访谈。我回答道：“为什么不呢？”他知道一般受邀人士都是明星人物，因此他带着孩子天真的好奇心，继续问道，我认为自己会因为什么原因受到邀请。我思考片刻，回答他说：“也许是因为我获得了诺贝尔文学奖”。然后，我们俩都开怀大笑。这样的愿景令人高兴，但几乎是完全不可能实现的。
（现在我不记得当时为什么这样回答他的问题，也许是因为当时刚好读了一本诺贝尔文学奖作品，或是因为那天《荒岛唱片》的名人嘉宾刚好是一位著名作家。）
1989年，在我第一次被软禁期间，我的丈夫迈克尔・艾瑞斯在探望我时告诉我，我们的朋友约翰・费尼斯提名我为诺贝尔和平奖候选者。那次，我同样对此一笑置之。当时迈克尔似乎感到有点惊讶，但他很快明白我为何对此看得如此轻松。诺贝尔和平奖？体听起来很不错，但基本上不大可能！那么当我最终真的获此殊荣之时，我是如何想的呢？我曾多次对自己提出这个问题。毫无疑问，今天在此地，正是检讨诺贝尔奖对我以及和平对我而言意味着什么的最好场合。
正如我在无数次受访中所说过的，我是在某个夜晚，透过广播获悉自己获奖的消息的。当时这个消息并没有让我感到惊讶。因为在此之前的数星期内，已有好多次新闻报道提到我是最有希望获得该奖的候选人之一。在撰写今天的演讲稿的时候，我努力回忆当时自己对获奖消息的最直接的反应是什么。我想，其实我不太确定，当时我的反应似乎是：“噢，他们决定把这个奖给我了”。当时并不觉得这是真的，因为那时在某种意义上，我甚至并不觉得自己的存在本身是真实的。
在我遭受软禁期间，我感觉自己似乎不再是真实世界的一部分。我所住的房子就是我的整个世界，但他人的世界同样并不自由，他们所共同生活的世界就像是一个更大的监狱。在此之外，则是一个更大的自由的世界。这些不同的世界，似乎每个都是这个冷漠宇宙的不同星球，运转在各自彼此不相连的轨道上。而诺贝尔和平奖所带来的，是再一次将我与软禁区域之外的世界的人们连接起来，从而使我重获一种现实感。当然，这一切并不是即刻发生的，而是随着时间的流逝，更多关于这次授奖决定的反应的新闻报道，透过过电波纷至沓来，那时我才开始理解和平奖的重大意义。它使我再次变得真实；它将我再次拉回到更为广大的人类共同体之中。更为重要的是，诺贝尔平奖把全世界的目光引向缅甸民主和人权斗争的事业。我们不会被世界遗忘。
法谚有云，分别意味着我们的一部分死亡了。被遗忘同样意味着我们的一部分死亡了。它意味着失去与周遭人类世界的联系。在我最近访问泰国的时候，许多在当地务工和避难的缅甸人对我大声呼喊：“不要忘记我们！”他们实际是在说：“不要忘记我们的苦难，不要忘记尽你所能帮助我们！不要忘记我们同样是这个世界的一部分！”诺委会授予我和平奖的时候，实际上他们是在向这个世界表明，那些遭受压迫和孤立的缅甸人民同样是这个世界的一部分，他们同样是在向这个世界宣称，我们拥有普世的人性。因此对我个人来说，获此殊荣意味着我对民主和人权的关注超越了国界。诺贝尔和平奖在我的内心打开了一扇门。
缅甸文化中的和平概念，可以被解释为一种因为消除了那些会破坏和谐和有益事物的要素而带来的幸福感。nyein-chan这个词在字面上的意义可以被理解为紧随火焰熄灭之后而来的令人愉悦的清凉之感。苦难和冲突的火焰正肆虐整个世界。在我的祖国，仇恨在最北部地区远未停息；在西部地区，就在我此次出访前几天，导致纵火和谋杀的不同社区之间的暴力冲突仍在发生。关于其他地区暴行的新闻充斥我们的世界。关于饥饿、疾病、流离失所、失业、贫困、不公正、歧视、偏见、压制异见的报道时有所闻，所有这些都是我们的日常遭遇的一部分。一切地方都存在破坏和平基础的消极因素。一切地方都可以发现对创造世界和谐和福祉之对话必不可少的物质和人力资源的无谓浪费。
第一次世界大战带来了令人恐惧的对青春和才智的浪费，对我们这个世界的积极力量的残忍毁灭。那个时代的诗歌对我来说意义非凡，因为当我第一次读到这些诗歌的时候，我与那些面临含苞待放却即刻就要枯萎的人生前景的青年们处于相仿的年纪。一位参与法国外籍兵团作战的美国士兵，在1916年的一次战斗中牺牲之前，他这样写道，他即将面对自己的死亡，“在某个争斗的要塞”，“在某个瘢痕累累的激战的山坡上”，或是“在大火纷飞的小镇的午夜时分”。青春、爱和生命，为了夺取无名的、不会被人铭记的地方而作无谓的战斗，永远地凋谢、毁灭。这样的牺牲意义何在？一个世纪以来，我们依然需要为此找到令人满意的回答。
即便是不那么暴力的层次上，难道我们就不应当为我们自己在关涉到我们的未来和人性的问题上所采取的轻率和无远见的立场和行为而感到罪恶吗？战争并不是唯一毁灭和平希望的方式。只要人类所遭受的苦难被漠视，那里就埋下了冲突的种子，因为苦难使人沮丧、积累仇恨和愤怒。
生活在与世隔绝状态中的一个积极方面，是我因此有非常充裕的时间来反复思考我这一生所知和所接受的一些词语和概念。作为一个佛教徒，我在自己还是个小孩子的时候就已经听说了dukha(苦)这个概念，字面上可以理解为苦难、痛苦。在日常生活中，我们周围的人，无论是年老的还是不那么年老的，当他们遭受身体上的疼痛的时候，或遭遇一些人烦恼的小事的时候，他们大多会抱怨“痛苦，痛苦”。但是，只有在处于软禁状态的时候，我才开始真正的思考六种苦难的本质。这包括：被欺骗、衰老、生病、死亡、与所爱的人别离、被迫与所厌恶之人共存。我仔细考察了这六种痛苦，这种考察并不是宗教意义上的考察，而是日常生活意义上的考察。如果痛苦是我们的存在中不可避免地一部分，那么我们就应当以切实可行的、世俗的方式来尽最大可能地减轻这些痛苦。我仔细研究了产前和产后瑜伽练习项目的效果以及母亲和幼儿护理问题；为老年人提供的设施服务问题；内容广泛的保健服务；以及具有同情心的护理和收容所问题。我尤其对最后这两种痛苦具有好奇心：与所爱的人分离以及与所厌恶的人共存。是什么样的生活经历使得佛祖将这两种痛苦状况放入人类所遭受的最大痛苦之列呢？我所想到的是囚犯和难民、流动工人和人口贩卖的受害者，以及流离失所的无根的人民，所有这些人都被迫与他们的家园、家人和朋友分离，被迫生活在不总是那么友好的陌生人之中。
我们很幸运地生活在社会福利和人道援助不仅被视为是所需的且是必需的时代。我自己很幸运地生活在这样一个良心犯的命运被一切人所关切的时代。在这样一个时代，民主和人权被广泛（即便不是得到普世的认同）视为一切人天生不可剥夺的自然权利。在软禁期间，我曾经常从《世界人权宣言》序言中我所喜欢的段落中汲取力量：
鉴于对人权的无视和侮蔑已发展为野蛮暴行，这些暴行玷污了人类的良心，而一个 世界人权宣言人人享有言论和信仰自由并免予恐惧和匮乏的世界的来临，已被宣布为普通人民的最高愿望，鉴于为使人类不致迫不得已铤而走险对暴政和压迫进行反叛，有必要使人权受法治的保护……
如果有人问我为何投身于缅甸的人权事业，上述引文就是我的回答。如果有人问我为何投身缅甸的民主事业，那是因为我相信民主制度及其实践是人权的基本保障。
在过去的一年中，种种迹象显示那些笃信民主和人权的人们的努力开始在缅甸开花结果。情况正向积极方向扭转；当局采取了一系列的民主化举措。如果说我的乐观态度是审慎的话，那不是因为我对未来没有信心，而是因为我不想鼓励盲信。没有对未来的信念，没有这样的信念——民主价值和基本人权不仅是必要的，而且在我们的社会中是完全可能实现的，那么，我们的事业就不可能在过去的这些艰苦岁月里得以保持至今。我们中的一些斗士在他们的岗位上倒下，一些离开了我们，但是我们中最核心的一群依然保持着强有力的信念和使命感。我时常想起过去的这些年，许多人在最艰苦的环境下依然忠贞不渝，这样的坚持令我感叹不已。他们对我们事业的信念不是盲目的，而是建立在对自身的坚毅力量的明智的判断以及对人民智慧的深刻尊重的基础之上的。
正是由于我国近期发生的一些变化，我才能有机会今天在此与诸位共聚一堂。而这些变化之所以发生，正是因为有你们，以及其他热爱自由和正义的人们，努力推动国际社会意识到我们的处境。在提到我的祖国之前，请允许我为我们的良心犯说几句话。在缅甸，依然有许多这样的良心犯。有人担心，因为最著名的被软禁者已被释放，其他的人，那些不知名的人士，将会被遗忘。我今天站在这里，正是因为我曾经是一位良心犯。当你们看到我，听我发表演讲之时，我恳请诸君记住常被人说起的一段至理名言：良心犯一个都嫌多。那些尚在囹圄中的人们，那些在我国尚不能获得正义权利的人们，远远不止是一个。请记住他们，并竭尽你们所能尽早促成他们的无条件释放。
缅甸是一个多民族国家，对国家未来的信念只能建立在真正的团结的精神之上。自从我们1948年获得主权独立以来，整个国家从来没有一刻处于真正的和平之中。我们没能建立起基本的信任和谅解，以此来消除导致冲突的原因。从1990年代早期到2010年，停火协议极大地增加了人们对国家和平的希望。但2010年这些协议在短短几个月的时间内被彻底打破。一个没有经过审慎考量的做法，就足够彻底毁灭长期以来达成的停火协议。最近几个月，政府和少数民族武装之间的谈判已经取得了一定的进展。我们希望，停火协议能够带来以人民意愿和统一精神为基础的政治和解。
我的政党——全国民主联盟，以及我本人已经做好准备，并且愿意在全国和解的进程中发挥积极作用。吴登盛总统领导的政府所采取的改革措施，只有在与国内各派力量（军方、各民族、政党、媒体、公民社会组织、商界、以及最重要的——公众）合作的前提下，才能持续下去。我们认为，改革只有在人民的生活得到改善，以及在此方面国际社会能够发挥关键作用的情况下，才能算是有效的改革。发展和人道援助，双边协定和投资，应当加以协调和调整，以确保这些措施能够促进平衡的和可持续的社会、政治和经济增长。我国的发展潜力巨大。这些潜力应当得到支持，并进一步发展，目的不只是为了创造一个更加繁荣的社会，同样是一个人民能够在和平、安全和自由中安居乐业的更加和谐、民主的社会。
世界和平是不可分割的。只要任何地方存在损害积极力量的负面力量，我们所有的人都生活在风险之中。也许有人对是否能够彻底消除所有的负面力量表示怀疑。对此的回答很简单：“当然不能！”人性在本质上就包含了积极的和负面的方面。但是，同样在人性之中，人类有能力努力巩固积极要素，同时将负面要素最小化或使之中性化。实现世界的完全和平是一个难以企及的梦。但是，这应当是我们矢志不渝的目标，我们的双目应坚定地锁定这个目标，正有如荒漠中的旅人双眼凝视那可以引导他走向救赎之路的星辰一般。即便我们不能实现完全的世界和平，因为这个世界并不存在完美的和平，但一般的追求和平的努力行动，也将通过信任和友谊把不同的人们和国家联合起来，从而使得我们的人类大家庭变得更加安全和友好。
我使用了“更加友好”一词，是经过深思熟虑的；甚至可以说是经过了许多年的思考。在各种不同的表达美好之意的词汇（我要说的是这些词汇并不是特别多）中，我发现最美好的、最珍贵的，就是我从友好的价值中所了解的东西。对人友好或与人为善，就意味着带着敏感和人性的温暖来对他们的希望和需求做出回应。即便是最简单的友好接触，也能在一颗沉重的心中点燃希望之光。友好之意能够改变人们的生活。挪威在此方面是一个典范的例子：为世界上流离失所的人们提供庇护，为那些在其母国失去安全和自由港湾的人们提供避难所。
难民遍布世界各地。在泰国Maela难民营的时候，我遇见一群勇于献身的人，他们努力奋斗，目的是要尽最大可能减轻那些难民所遭受的生活艰辛。他们提到对“捐助匮乏”的担忧，这同时也可以被理解为是“同情心匮乏”。“捐助匮乏”最直接的体现是资金的减少。而“同情心匮乏”则不那么直接的表现为关心的减少。一个是果，一个是因。我们能够容忍同情心匮乏吗？满足难民需求的代价，难道比让一只冷漠的（如果不是完全无视的）眼睛看到他们的痛苦所要付出的代价更大吗？我在此呼吁全世界的捐助者们，帮助这些处于流离状态的人们实现他们的需求，对这些人来说，他们寻求避难的努力似乎是没有任何希望的。
在Maela难民营，我与不少难民营所在的Tak省的泰国政府官员进行了富有意义的谈话。他们向我介绍了难民营中更加严重的一些问题：丛林法则的侵犯、非法毒品使用、自酿的烈性酒、控制疟疾、肺结核、登革热病以及霍乱问题。管理当局对这些问题的关注，与难民自身对这些问题的关注一样是合情合理的。在解决与其责任相关的困难方面，接受难民的国家同样应该得到关注和实际的帮助。
我们的终极目标应当是创造一个不受流离、无家可归和没有希望之苦的世界，一个任何一个角落都应当成为能够让自由自在、安居乐业的人民居住的庇护之地的世界。能够增进积极有益事物的每个想法、每个词语、每个行动，都是对世界和平的贡献。我们每个人都有能力作出这样的贡献。让我们携手努力，创造一个人人都能够安然入睡、快乐醒来的和平世界。
诺委会在1991年10月14日的颁奖声明最后提到：“将诺贝尔和平奖……颁给昂山素季，挪威诺贝尔委员会希望向这位女性的不懈努力表达敬意，同时也向全世界通过和平手段为民主、人权和民族和解而奋斗的人们表达支持”。当我加入缅甸民主运动之时，我从未想过有一天我会获得任何奖项或者殊荣。我们为之奋斗的最大的奖赏，是一个自由的、安全的、正义的社会。在这样的社会中，我们的人民得以实现他们全部的潜能。荣誉在于我们的勇气和不竭的努力。历史给予了我们这样的机遇，使我们能够为我们所坚信的事业贡献最美好的一切。诺贝尔委员会选择向我表达敬意的时候，我凭借自己的自由意志所选择的这条道路就变得不再那么孤独了。因此，我必须感谢委员会，挪威人民，以及全世界所有支持我的人们，通过他们的支持，我更加鉴定了对我们所共同追求的和平的信念。谢谢你们。
The Nobel Peace Prize 1991
Aung San Suu Kyi
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Nobel Lecture
Nobel Lecture by Aung San Suu Kyi, Oslo, 16 June, 2012
Your Majesties, Your Royal Highness, Excellencies, Distinguished members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Dear Friends,
Long years ago, sometimes it seems many lives ago, I was at Oxford listening to the radio programme Desert Island Discs with my young son Alexander. It was a well-known programme (for all I know it still continues) on which famous people from all walks of life were invited to talk about the eight discs, the one book beside the bible and the complete works of Shakespeare, and the one luxury item they would wish to have with them were they to be marooned on a desert island. At the end of the programme, which we had both enjoyed, Alexander asked me if I thought I might ever be invited to speak on Desert Island Discs. “Why not?” I responded lightly. Since he knew that in general only celebrities took part in the programme he proceeded to ask, with genuine interest, for what reason I thought I might be invited. I considered this for a moment and then answered: “Perhaps because I’d have won the Nobel Prize for literature,” and we both laughed. The prospect seemed pleasant but hardly probable.
(I cannot now remember why I gave that answer, perhaps because I had recently read a book by a Nobel Laureate or perhaps because the Desert Island celebrity of that day had been a famous writer.)
In 1989, when my late husband Michael Aris came to see me during my first term of house arrest, he told me that a friend, John Finnis, had nominated me for the Nobel Peace Prize. This time also I laughed. For an instant Michael looked amazed, then he realized why I was amused. The Nobel Peace Prize? A pleasant prospect, but quite improbable! So how did I feel when I was actually awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace? The question has been put to me many times and this is surely the most appropriate occasion on which to examine what the Nobel Prize means to me and what peace means to me.
As I have said repeatedly in many an interview, I heard the news that I had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on the radio one evening. It did not altogether come as a surprise because I had been mentioned as one of the frontrunners for the prize in a number of broadcasts during the previous week. While drafting this lecture, I have tried very hard to remember what my immediate reaction to the announcement of the award had been. I think, I can no longer be sure, it was something like: “Oh, so they’ve decided to give it to me.” It did not seem quite real because in a sense I did not feel myself to be quite real at that time.
Often during my days of house arrest it felt as though I were no longer a part of the real world. There was the house which was my world, there was the world of others who also were not free but who were together in prison as a community, and there was the world of the free; each was a different planet pursuing its own separate course in an indifferent universe. What the Nobel Peace Prize did was to draw me once again into the world of other human beings outside the isolated area in which I lived, to restore a sense of reality to me. This did not happen instantly, of course, but as the days and months went by and news of reactions to the award came over the airwaves, I began to understand the significance of the Nobel Prize. It had made me real once again; it had drawn me back into the wider human community. And what was more important, the Nobel Prize had drawn the attention of the world to the struggle for democracy and human rights in Burma. We were not going to be forgotten.
To be forgotten. The French say that to part is to die a little. To be forgotten too is to die a little. It is to lose some of the links that anchor us to the rest of humanity. When I met Burmese migrant workers and refugees during my recent visit to Thailand, many cried out: “Don’t forget us!” They meant: “don’t forget our plight, don’t forget to do what you can to help us, don’t forget we also belong to your world.” When the Nobel Committee awarded the Peace Prize to me they were recognizing that the oppressed and the isolated in Burma were also a part of the world, they were recognizing the oneness of humanity. So for me receiving the Nobel Peace Prize means personally extending my concerns for democracy and human rights beyond national borders. The Nobel Peace Prize opened up a door in my heart.
The Burmese concept of peace can be explained as the happiness arising from the cessation of factors that militate against the harmonious and the wholesome. The word nyein-chan translates literally as the beneficial coolness that comes when a fire is extinguished. Fires of suffering and strife are raging around the world. In my own country, hostilities have not ceased in the far north; to the west, communal violence resulting in arson and murder were taking place just several days before I started out on the journey that has brought me here today. News of atrocities in other reaches of the earth abound. Reports of hunger, disease, displacement, joblessness, poverty, injustice, discrimination, prejudice, bigotry; these are our daily fare. Everywhere there are negative forces eating away at the foundations of peace. Everywhere can be found thoughtless dissipation of material and human resources that are necessary for the conservation of harmony and happiness in our world.
The First World War represented a terrifying waste of youth and potential, a cruel squandering of the positive forces of our planet. The poetry of that era has a special significance for me because I first read it at a time when I was the same age as many of those young men who had to face the prospect of withering before they had barely blossomed. A young American fighting with the French Foreign Legion wrote before he was killed in action in 1916 that he would meet his death: “at some disputed barricade;” “on some scarred slope of battered hill;” “at midnight in some flaming town.” Youth and love and life perishing forever in senseless attempts to capture nameless, unremembered places. And for what? Nearly a century on, we have yet to find a satisfactory answer.
Are we not still guilty, if to a less violent degree, of recklessness, of improvidence with regard to our future and our humanity? War is not the only arena where peace is done to death. Wherever suffering is ignored, there will be the seeds of conflict, for suffering degrades and embitters and enrages.
A positive aspect of living in isolation was that I had ample time in which to ruminate over the meaning of words and precepts that I had known and accepted all my life. As a Buddhist, I had heard about dukha, generally translated as suffering, since I was a small child. Almost on a daily basis elderly, and sometimes not so elderly, people around me would murmur “dukha, dukha” when they suffered from aches and pains or when they met with some small, annoying mishaps. However, it was only during my years of house arrest that I got around to investigating the nature of the six great dukha. These are: to be conceived, to age, to sicken, to die, to be parted from those one loves, to be forced to live in propinquity with those one does not love. I examined each of the six great sufferings, not in a religious context but in the context of our ordinary, everyday lives. If suffering were an unavoidable part of our existence, we should try to alleviate it as far as possible in practical, earthly ways. I mulled over the effectiveness of ante- and post-natal programmes and mother and childcare; of adequate facilities for the aging population; of comprehensive health services; of compassionate nursing and hospices. I was particularly intrigued by the last two kinds of suffering: to be parted from those one loves and to be forced to live in propinquity with those one does not love. What experiences might our Lord Buddha have undergone in his own life that he had included these two states among the great sufferings? I thought of prisoners and refugees, of migrant workers and victims of human trafficking, of that great mass of the uprooted of the earth who have been torn away from their homes, parted from families and friends, forced to live out their lives among strangers who are not always welcoming.
We are fortunate to be living in an age when social welfare and humanitarian assistance are recognized not only as desirable but necessary. I am fortunate to be living in an age when the fate of prisoners of conscience anywhere has become the concern of peoples everywhere, an age when democracy and human rights are widely, even if not universally, accepted as the birthright of all. How often during my years under house arrest have I drawn strength from my favourite passages in the preamble to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
……. disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspirations of the common people,
…… it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law . . .
If I am asked why I am fighting for human rights in Burma the above passages will provide the answer. If I am asked why I am fighting for democracy in Burma, it is because I believe that democratic institutions and practices are necessary for the guarantee of human rights.
Over the past year there have been signs that the endeavours of those who believe in democracy and human rights are beginning to bear fruit in Burma. There have been changes in a positive direction; steps towards democratization have been taken. If I advocate cautious optimism it is not because I do not have faith in the future but because I do not want to encourage blind faith. Without faith in the future, without the conviction that democratic values and fundamental human rights are not only necessary but possible for our society, our movement could not have been sustained throughout the destroying years. Some of our warriors fell at their post, some deserted us, but a dedicated core remained strong and committed. At times when I think of the years that have passed, I am amazed that so many remained staunch under the most trying circumstances. Their faith in our cause is not blind; it is based on a clear-eyed assessment of their own powers of endurance and a profound respect for the aspirations of our people.
It is because of recent changes in my country that I am with you today; and these changes have come about because of you and other lovers of freedom and justice who contributed towards a global awareness of our situation. Before continuing to speak of my country, may I speak out for our prisoners of conscience. There still remain such prisoners in Burma. It is to be feared that because the best known detainees have been released, the remainder, the unknown ones, will be forgotten. I am standing here because I was once a prisoner of conscience. As you look at me and listen to me, please remember the often repeated truth that one prisoner of conscience is one too many. Those who have not yet been freed, those who have not yet been given access to the benefits of justice in my country number much more than one. Please remember them and do whatever is possible to effect their earliest, unconditional release.
Burma is a country of many ethnic nationalities and faith in its future can be founded only on a true spirit of union. Since we achieved independence in 1948, there never has been a time when we could claim the whole country was at peace. We have not been able to develop the trust and understanding necessary to remove causes of conflict. Hopes were raised by ceasefires that were maintained from the early 1990s until 2010 when these broke down over the course of a few months. One unconsidered move can be enough to remove long-standing ceasefires. In recent months, negotiations between the government and ethnic nationality forces have been making progress. We hope that ceasefire agreements will lead to political settlements founded on the aspirations of the peoples, and the spirit of union.
My party, the National League for Democracy, and I stand ready and willing to play any role in the process of national reconciliation. The reform measures that were put into motion by President U Thein Sein’s government can be sustained only with the intelligent cooperation of all internal forces: the military, our ethnic nationalities, political parties, the media, civil society organizations, the business community and, most important of all, the general public. We can say that reform is effective only if the lives of the people are improved and in this regard, the international community has a vital role to play. Development and humanitarian aid, bi-lateral agreements and investments should be coordinated and calibrated to ensure that these will promote social, political and economic growth that is balanced and sustainable. The potential of our country is enormous. This should be nurtured and developed to create not just a more prosperous but also a more harmonious, democratic society where our people can live in peace, security and freedom.
The peace of our world is indivisible. As long as negative forces are getting the better of positive forces anywhere, we are all at risk. It may be questioned whether all negative forces could ever be removed. The simple answer is: “No!” It is in human nature to contain both the positive and the negative. However, it is also within human capability to work to reinforce the positive and to minimize or neutralize the negative. Absolute peace in our world is an unattainable goal. But it is one towards which we must continue to journey, our eyes fixed on it as a traveller in a desert fixes his eyes on the one guiding star that will lead him to salvation. Even if we do not achieve perfect peace on earth, because perfect peace is not of this earth, common endeavours to gain peace will unite individuals and nations in trust and friendship and help to make our human community safer and kinder.
I used the word ‘kinder’ after careful deliberation; I might say the careful deliberation of many years. Of the sweets of adversity, and let me say that these are not numerous, I have found the sweetest, the most precious of all, is the lesson I learnt on the value of kindness. Every kindness I received, small or big, convinced me that there could never be enough of it in our world. To be kind is to respond with sensitivity and human warmth to the hopes and needs of others. Even the briefest touch of kindness can lighten a heavy heart. Kindness can change the lives of people. Norway has shown exemplary kindness in providing a home for the displaced of the earth, offering sanctuary to those who have been cut loose from the moorings of security and freedom in their native lands.
There are refugees in all parts of the world. When I was at the Maela refugee camp in Thailand recently, I met dedicated people who were striving daily to make the lives of the inmates as free from hardship as possible. They spoke of their concern over ‘donor fatigue,’ which could also translate as ‘compassion fatigue.’ ‘Donor fatigue’ expresses itself precisely in the reduction of funding. ‘Compassion fatigue’ expresses itself less obviously in the reduction of concern. One is the consequence of the other. Can we afford to indulge in compassion fatigue? Is the cost of meeting the needs of refugees greater than the cost that would be consequent on turning an indifferent, if not a blind, eye on their suffering? I appeal to donors the world over to fulfill the needs of these people who are in search, often it must seem to them a vain search, of refuge.
At Maela, I had valuable discussions with Thai officials responsible for the administration of Tak province where this and several other camps are situated. They acquainted me with some of the more serious problems related to refugee camps: violation of forestry laws, illegal drug use, home brewed spirits, the problems of controlling malaria, tuberculosis, dengue fever and cholera. The concerns of the administration are as legitimate as the concerns of the refugees. Host countries also deserve consideration and practical help in coping with the difficulties related to their responsibilities.
Ultimately our aim should be to create a world free from the displaced, the homeless and the hopeless, a world of which each and every corner is a true sanctuary where the inhabitants will have the freedom and the capacity to live in peace. Every thought, every word, and every action that adds to the positive and the wholesome is a contribution to peace. Each and every one of us is capable of making such a contribution. Let us join hands to try to create a peaceful world where we can sleep in security and wake in happiness.
The Nobel Committee concluded its statement of 14 October 1991 with the words: “In awarding the Nobel Peace Prize ... to Aung San Suu Kyi, the Norwegian Nobel Committee wishes to honour this woman for her unflagging efforts and to show its support for the many people throughout the world who are striving to attain democracy, human rights and ethnic conciliation by peaceful means.” When I joined the democracy movement in Burma it never occurred to me that I might ever be the recipient of any prize or honour. The prize we were working for was a free, secure and just society where our people might be able to realize their full potential. The honour lay in our endeavour. History had given us the opportunity to give of our best for a cause in which we believed. When the Nobel Committee chose to honour me, the road I had chosen of my own free will became a less lonely path to follow. For this I thank the Committee, the people of Norway and peoples all over the world whose support has strengthened my faith in the common quest for peace. Thank you.
Copyright © The Nobel Foundation 2012
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