Is politics Aung San Suu Kyi\u2019s vocation?

Abstract

Western human rights activists saw Myanmar’s prominent leader Aung San Suu Kyi as an embodiment of themselves, for which she was awarded the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize for her non-violent activism. But in the context of the 2017 Rohingya crisis, her international image seemingly changed, from that of Western saint to a demon, because she did not respond to the crisis in the way the Western community expected. Her moral authority was sharply questioned in the international media for her silence on the flight of more than 700,000 refugees from Myanmar to Bangladesh. This paper describes how a conundrum for a crusader of non-violence activism like Aung San Suu Kyi occurred and how a Nobel laureate faced ethical paradoxes between moral conviction and responsibility. It is also an effective way to develop the classical sociologist Max Weber’s definition of a politician from his essay, “Politics as Vocation” to examine whether politics is Aung San Suu Kyi’s vocation.