For about ten years now, the struggle for democracy and the respect of human rights has been in the focus point - if not a commodity - of political groups aiming to rise to power.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
The struggle for democracy and human rights in Burma is a struggle for life and dignity. It is a struggle that encompasses our political, social and economic aspirations.
Since 1990, we have been building up the idea that democracy is the best way for sectors that feel socially excluded from politics to win power.
The human rights community has focused very narrowly on political and civil rights for many decades, and with reason, but now we have to ask how can we broaden the view.
Slowly but surely, we are acquiring that famous culture of democracy, which is our objective.
For centuries, the world has heard the oppressed, the downtrodden and the vulnerable cry out for their freedoms, for their rights and for a chance to emerge from the shadows of the tyranny and bloodshed that they had lived with.
From the beginning of our history the country has been afflicted with compromise. It is by compromise that human rights have been abandoned.
There is a broad movement that has been holding companies accountable on human rights for a long time.
Humanity has experienced many revolutionary changes over the course of history: revolutions in agriculture, in science, industrial production, as well as numerous political revolutions. But these have all been limited to the external aspects of our individual and collective lives.
The work of the political activist inevitably involves a certain tension between the requirement that position be taken on current issues as they arise and the desire that one's contributions will somehow survive the ravages of time.
Democracy is not something you put away for ten years, and then in the 11th year you wake up and start practicing again. We have to begin to learn to rule ourselves again.