Part 1: Section 1 Summary

This essay first appeared in the 1982 Leaders of Asia series under the title "Aung San of Burma: A Biographical Portrait by his Daughter." As Aung San Suu Kyi notes, her father was assassinated two years after her birth. Unable to know him, she instead researched his life. Aung San was born in a small township on February 13, 1915, thirty years after the Anglo-Burmese War had ended the monarchy and brought all of Burma under British rule. One of his uncles, U Min Yaung, had led one of the first groups resisting the British (he was captured and beheaded). Aung San took pride in this uncle "who had refused to be a subject of the Kalahs ('foreigners from the West')." As a young child, Aung San's fantasies included using magic to dispel the British from Burma. He later attended both the Buddhist and...