How could I stand the separation from family and friends? It is ironic, I say, that in an authoritarian state it is only the prisoner of conscience who is genuinely free. Yes, we have given up our right to a normal life. But we have stayed true to that most precious part of our humanity-our conscience.
The relentless attempts of totalitarian regimes to prevent free thought and new ideas and the persistent assertion of their own rightness bring on them an intellectual stasis which they project on to the nation at large.
Saints, it has been said, are the sinners who go on trying. So free men and women are the oppressed who go on trying and who in the process make themselves fit to bear the responsibilities and uphold the disciplines which will maintain a free society.
My attitude to peace is rather based on the Burmese definition of peace – it really means removing all the negative factors that destroy peace in this world.
I think it’s time for the Army to understand that power should be enshrined in the people if we are to be a genuine democracy and not in any particular institution or organisation.
We want to empower our people; we want to strengthen them; we want to provide them with the kind of qualifications that will enable them to build up their own country themselves.
![Aung San Suu Kyi Quote - The main aim of the [political] dialogue should be to resolve the problems of the nation, not to find who is the winner and who is the loser.](https://minimalistquotes.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/the-main-aim-of-the-political-dialogue-should-be-t-683x1024.jpg)
