Aung San
(1915–1947), Burmese resistance leader. Aung San is popularly remembered in Burma as principal leader of the resistance against foreign occupation, as hero-martyr in the struggle for independence, and as unifier of modern Burma.
Educated at a monastic school and a national high school, he joined Rangoon University in 1932. By 1935, after being elected to the Students' Union executive committee and becoming editor of the union magazine, he was expelled from the university for not revealing the name of a contributor. He joined U Nu, who had also been dismissed, in leading the 1936 university strike. The same year, after getting his B.A., he left the university and joined the nationalist Thakin movement. He started a Marxist study group, then with Ba Maw, he cofounded the Freedom Bloc and became its general secretary, leading resistance against the British in 1939. He approached the Japanese and, as lead member of the Thirty Comrades trained in Japan, then became founder and first commander of the Burma Independence Army that spearheaded the Japanese invasion of Burma in 1941. Unhappy with Japanese intentions toward Burma, he cofounded the Anti-Fascist Peoples' Freedom League (AFPFL) in 1943 to resist the Japanese.
Aung San negotiated the 27 January 1947 Attlee– Aung San Agreement that was to secure Burma its national independence in 1948. However, he was assassinated on 13 July 1947 along with six other colleagues while in charge of the Constituent Assembly engaged in writing a constitution for independent Burma. His functions in the AFPFL were taken over by U Nu. As a hero and martyr, to whom postindependence civilian politicians and army chiefs alike look back for inspiration, Aung San provided the basis for U Nu's political path. His speeches and slogans also influenced the declared ideology of the Burma Socialist Programme Party after the 1962 coup. However, after 1988 his political legacy became problematic under the State Law and Restoration Council–State Peace and Development Council regimes, when Aung San Suu Kyi challenged military control over the country in the name of her father, claiming that he had stood for democracy and not for military control. Aung San continues to be an inspiration to generations of Burmese students and the Burmese in general.
Further Reading
Aung San Suu Kyi. (1991) Aung San of Burma : A Biographical Portrait. 2d ed. Edinburgh: Kiscadale.
Aung San, U, and Silverstein, Josef. (1972) The Political Legacy of Aung San. Ithaca, NY: Southeast Asia Program, Cornell University.
Kin Oung. (1993) Who Killed Aung San? 1st ed. Bangkok, Thailand: White Lotus.
Maung Maung, U. (1962) Aung San of Burma. The Hague, Netherlands: Published for Yale University, Southeast Asia Studies by M. Nijhoff.
——. (1962) A Trial in Burma: The Assassination of Aung San. The Hague, Netherlands: M. Nijhoff.
Naw, Angeline. (1988) "Aung San and the Struggle for the Independence of Burma." Ph.D. diss. University of Hawaii.
Sutton, Walter D. (1948) "U Aung San of Burma." South Atlantic Quarterly 47, 1 (January): 1–16.
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