Dear Suu, would you like to come for dinner?

Do you know those questions, ‘who would you most like to have dinner with’?

Well, Aung San Suu Kyi is at the top of my list.

Today, being International Women’s Day seems to be a perfect day to tell you why!

Yangon Street Art

Having just returned from a holiday to Myanmar we have got to know, Suu, the most famous woman never to have held office, a lot better than we would otherwise have done. Aung San Suu Kyi is the leader of Burma’s National League for Democracy (NLD) and between 1989 and 2010 spent fifteen of those twenty-one years under house arrest in Rangoon (Yangon).

She is a charismatic figure, loved by her people, hated by the military regime who have been running the country. Recent democratic elections have given hope of a change. But the world waits to see how this might be.

I am drawn to Suu for many reasons, and I guess the bottom line is that I can’t help wondering at every stage of trying to understand her life, would I have been strong enough to make the same choices? Her life shows the lottery of birth; her commitment and dedication to her Country are up there with the Dalai Lama and Nelson Mandela, with the added complication of Mother’s love.

Would you leave a comfortable existence as an ordinary Oxford housewife in the United Kingdom, for a life of certain danger, possibly even death, for your birth country, the country that assassinated your Father?

Would you leave your husband and two small boys to be brought up on the other side of the world without a Mother so that you could be with your people, even when that meant being locked away under house arrest?

If your husband was dying of cancer and you could visit him for one last time, but it meant leaving your Country and your people and never returning, would you do it?

Aung San Suu Kyi bags for sale in Mandalay

Aung San Suu Kyi’s is one of the world best-known exponents of non-political resistance. She may be a petite, fine-boned lady but she’s clearly as tough as they come, both mentally and physically. Not only is the world in awe of her leadership but her people are hanging out for the day the newly elected Government takes power. She is constitutionally barred from being President, as she was married to a non-Burmese person, the Military regimes final attempt of control.

There is no-one better that sums up International Women’s Day than Aung San Suu Kyi.

Who would you like to have dinner with tonight?