The Many Images of Aung San Suu Kyi

It has always been difficult to agree on the person and legacy of Aung San Suu Kyi, a figure so polarizing and enigmatic that even her most basic legacy remains fiercely contested. Her image has been painted and repainted by admirers, critics, and opportunists alike: a moral icon, a pragmatic politician, a fallen hero. 

In truth, the real Suu Kyi has always eluded easy categorization. 

One thing is for sure, though: When you set out on the daunting task of writing about The Lady, you’re sure to get strong pushback from one side or the other—and quite possibly from both! To some, Aung San Suu Kyi is the Nobel laureate and human rights champion who endured years of house arrest with unshakable grace—who then faced the nearly impossible task of leading a country scarred by deep ethnic divisions and dominated by an oppressive regime that never fully relinquished control. Her call for a “freedom from fear” (the title of her famous collection of writings) spoke to the political vision of a free country and society finally able to enjoy democracy, out from under the yoke of decades of military oppression, and the many years of colonial rule before that. To her supporters, her ethical stand against the regime echoed core Buddhist values. But to others, Suu Kyi was an unaware person of privilege whose Bamar Buddhist background blinded her to the reality faced by so many of the country’s marginalized communities. During the years of democratic opening, and when she was State Counsellor between 2016 and 2021, she was roundly criticized for not being a strong enough advocate for progressive reforms, democratic structures, and even basic human rights. Perhaps most damaging to her legacy was her defense of the military’s discredited record—most visibly through her 2019 appearance at the International Court of Justice in The Hague during its brutal campaign against the Rohingya—combined with her reticence to speak out at a time when state Buddhism was increasingly invoked to justify nationalist exclusion and systemic oppression.

So who exactly is Aung San Suu Kyi? The icon or the apologist? The inspiring symbol or political failure? Or maybe both . . . or neither? Or maybe just a very talented yet flawed human being trying to do her best? As the founder of the Insight Myanmar podcast, I’ve had the opportunity to speak with more than 600 guests, and of those who in some way knew, or knew about, Aung San Suu Kyi—foreigners and Burmese, ethnic leaders and diplomats, monks and meditators, journalists, political activists, and friends—I have asked that question. What follows is a survey of some of the answers I’ve heard. 

Before I begin, however, a couple of cautionary notes to those seeking a definitive answer. First, just as Myanmar itself resists simplification and is too often misunderstood through the lens of reductionist narratives and binary thinking, so, too, does the story of Aung San Suu Kyi—and perhaps that is only fitting. To really understand The Lady, we must be willing to sit comfortably with contradiction, ambiguity, and nuance. The second caution is a reminder that human beings tend to project their own opinions, desires, hopes, and concerns onto others. People usually see what they expect to see or want to see; if one’s expectations and desires match, the portrait is positive, but if one is disappointed or frustrated, portraits turn negative. Suu Kyi’s visibility and symbolic importance, heightened by her involvement in momentous events, has meant that far more people have projected their hopes and fears onto her—and the more they project, the more tangled and contradictory the image becomes. Her enigmatic and at times contradictory legacy, compounded by the long years of imprisonment, only deepened this dynamic, creating an unusually wide canvas onto which people could cast their own ideals and anxieties.

This cautionary note was summed up well by Nic Dunlop, the acclaimed photojournalist who captured one of the most widely circulated portraits of Aung San Suu Kyi, taken in 1996, shortly after she was released from her first period of house arrest. Though describing her as “charismatic” and “amazing,” he also characterizes her as “very stubborn, very arrogant, [and] intolerant.” He heard her say things that took him aback, adding that she came from a “very privileged, isolated world.” Dunlop wanted to take a portrait that captured this rich complexity; the result, he says, got a fair amount of criticism, especially from Burmese, who found it too “stern.” He explains, “I wanted to show . . . an ambiguous image. . . . I wanted to reflect something of her strength. But also, strengths can . . . be both a positive and a negative thing. And in this case . . . I still think the photograph holds up over time, despite what happened later with the Rohingya crisis and her fall from grace. She’s another classic example of projection. . . . We projected so much on her.”

Another comment along these lines that I find particularly insightful comes from Erin Murphy, a longtime Myanmar analyst, former CIA officer, and now a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. In our interview, we discussed a line from her book, Burmese Haze, that illustrates how in Suu Kyi’s case, people’s projections could quickly turn negative: “None of us knew her at all, or only heard what we wanted to hear from a caged bird. We were too busy telling the story of a woman who couldn’t speak for herself for twenty-five years. Once she could, we didn’t like what we heard.” Murphy goes on to say, “She’s a human being who has biases, who doesn’t fully understand how ethnic minorities were treated. But nobody did, and, in fact, even in Mandalay and Yangon, they’re only now getting a taste of it, as the junta strafes their streets.” Turning to the human dimension, Murphy adds that “to go from being built up to this mythic god, to then being criticized all the time and told what to do, she’s going to be a little ornery for sure. . . . But we created a monster, too. . . . I wouldn’t even say she’s a complicated figure, because we all are. We all have biases and very strong opinions about things, but she has had to deal with things that none of us could even comprehend. . . . At this stage, I just feel very sorry for her.”

Very revealing are the words of Larry Dohrs, one of the first US-based Burma activists, who worked with the Free Burma Coalition and then the US Campaign for Burma. He actually helped shape an idealized narrative about Suu Kyi, in the hopes of encouraging greater international solidarity. It was this portrayal that became so prevalent in pigeonholing her, and the cause of such dissonance when people’s projections didn’t match the reality. Dohrs explains that it was a by-product of his political efforts to draw attention to the country’s plight, at a time when Myanmar was all but off the map and suffering from one of its most repressive years of military rule. “To the extent we could, we kept it simple and as close to black and white. Of course, you had the beautiful and well-spoken Aung San Suu Kyi, and you had the grumpy and uncommunicative and murderous military. It wasn’t that hard to sharpen the lines a little bit between the two. I’ve been in enough meetings in congressional offices that when you begin to describe nuance, that’s when the blackberries come out—and people, you simply lose them. And so if you don’t want to lose them, you’ve got to keep it simple. Does that mean you cut some corners here and there? I think, yes. . . . I plead guilty. But it was necessary under the circumstances.”

This narrative soon became what many Westerners further projected onto Aung San Suu Kyi, turning her into a symbol that carried broader iconographic force, sometimes with Orientalist undertones. She was cast as the slender, graceful woman from the East with a thazin flower in her hair, speaking perfect English and using language that appeared to echo Western democratic ideals. Murphy’s description of her as a “mythic god,” Dohrs’s praise of her as “beautiful and well-spoken,” and Dunlop’s depiction of her as “charismatic” and “amazing” may seem benign in isolation, but together they suggest a persistent tendency to aestheticize Suu Kyi—honored as a symbol rather than acknowledged as a political actor. Derek Mitchell, the former US ambassador, underscores this tendency, remarking that “we have to recognize that Myanmar is a country, not a cause,” and noting that “for some people, [Burma is] an exotic thing . . . it was also wrapped up in this notion of Aung San Suu Kyi—not just her name, but her figure.”

This symbolic projection reached well beyond the activist world. For example, even in America’s hyperpartisan politics, Aung San Suu Kyi transcended divisions, with broad support from such figures as Mitch McConnell and Laura Bush on the right, and Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton on the left. The entertainment world also joined in: Bono dedicated “Walk On” to her, and the 2004 tribute album For The Lady featured Paul McCartney, Avril Lavigne, Talib Kweli, Ani DiFranco, R.E.M., Natalie Merchant, Coldplay, Ben Harper, and others. Reporters, too, were caught up in the spell. Veteran correspondent Dominic Faulder recalled Bangkok bureau chiefs “tearing their hair” because reporters would go in and ask Aung San Suu Kyi “softball questions”—remarking that “she’s a very attractive . . . [figure], and all that plays into it,” which only fed the mystique. Western diplomats lined up for selfies with her at events, and to many observers it seemed she was treated less as a political leader than as royalty or a rock star.

Still, to imply that Aung San Suu Kyi is mostly the product of a fevered, Western imagination misses the remarkable and captivating energy that characterized her early rise, to say nothing of what she has long represented to the Burmese people. Steven V. Smith, who shared a meditation teacher—Sayadaw U Pandita—with Suu Kyi and other National League for Democracy (NLD) members, notes that “[activists] transferred all their respect and love for General Aung San Suu Kyi’s father onto her. And she was willing and able to hold that, and she became the de facto leader of the democracy movement from around the late ’80s.” Faulder affirms this, and still remembers those first days when she came on the scene: “Suu Kyi was a very new phenomenon. She popped up in the middle of August with her great speech at Shwedagon, and that was electric, because probably half a million people saw that firsthand. She’s the [daughter] of Bogyoke Aung San, the great preindependence hero, so she’s living history. Then she decided that she was going to get involved and lend her support to the pro-democracy movement, which was absolutely in its infancy.”

Faulder’s observations are important, because not only do they call attention to her compelling presence and how she could captivate and inspire a crowd but also her revolutionary bloodline, which afforded her instant credibility. One 1988 student activist, Maung Maung Myint, now the National Unity Government representative to Norway, echoes the impact of this formidable combination. He remembers being in the crowd that same day and hearing her famous Shwedagon address. “After the speech, we understood that Aung San Suu Kyi is not just an opportunist,” he recalls. “She has her own wisdom, and she might also have her own ability to lead a political party, so that’s why she got a figurehead role in this coalition.”

Maung Maung Myint’s words point to what gave Aung San Suu Kyi her iconic status among her fellow Burmese, perhaps in a way that few outsiders—especially those from more privileged backgrounds—will ever understand. For example, while acknowledging some of her policy failures, Jack Myint, of the US–ASEAN Business Council, says, “At least in our generation, there’s no one like her. There’s no one at that level of brilliance, sophistication, worldliness, and recognition, really just bringing and keeping Myanmar on the map. . .  So for that, as a person, she will always have my respect. And I apologize to no one about that, because no one will understand what that woman meant to many students, children, young adults, adults, even old people in Myanmar, that have no one else. . . . I wouldn’t have apologized for that.”

For many years, Suu Kyi was seen as the nation’s one and only hope: a leader who could guide it toward the light and away from decades of military oppression. This is illustrated in Nway’s story. He recalls how one day, his mother assembled her sons and demanded that one of them must take on the role of dedicating his life to supporting Suu Kyi and the NLD. Nway volunteered and, starting in the underground, worked his way closer to The Lady and her political mission. That intimate involvement exposed some of the idealism of his mother’s thinking. “People in Burma at this time, to be honest, [didn’t] like the NLD that much,” he explains, “but they [were] taking part in the revolution and also they [were] completely supporting the NLD just because they [didn’t] like [the] military and they [wanted] to get rid of the military completely.” Similarly, Western guests on the podcast have also acknowledged that they were long aware of such imperfections, both in her and the overall party, yet believed this was always far better than the alternative. As former US ambassador Scot Marciel says about the thinking around US policy toward Myanmar in the late 2010s, “The argument, and I believe it to this day . . . was that the NLD needs to succeed.”

In addition to Nway, I’ve spoken to other longtime activists who worked deep underground in the “bad old days,” when the military was in full control. Bobo of Generation Wave is one of them, and he describes how when Suu Kyi ultimately came to office, reversing decades of military rule, he understood how challenging the circumstances were, and he and his peers gave her administration something of a grace period, to show good faith before reigniting their advocacy. But eventually, when he saw signs of Aung San Suu Kyi and her party being unwilling to work on real reform in certain areas, they kicked back into high gear. What he says next has always stuck with me: “Governments are always acting like a government, and activists are acting like activists. The roles are different. So from the role of Generation Wave . . . activists, we always say what we want, and we always say what it should be for the country and also for the people. . . . Sometimes we criticize . . . the NLD government [and by extension, Suu Kyi], especially on the issues of human rights.”

Just as Myanmar itself resists simplification and is too often misunderstood through the lens of reductionist narratives and binary thinking, so, too, does the story of Aung San Suu Kyi.

Toby Mendel, a lawyer at the Centre for Law and Democracy, goes even further, noting that the previous military administration of Thein Sein was far easier to work with than Suu Kyi’s. As he candidly notes, “This may sound a little controversial, but I don’t think that the sort of blood running in the veins of the NLD, including its leader, really were committed to those democratic values. I don’t think they were enthusiastic about having a free and open media which could criticize them. I don’t think they were that willing to tolerate the criticism that is inherent in democratic governance. They had some pretty serious psychological or attitudinal barriers to accepting a proper democracy.” Henning Glaser, a constitutional scholar who directs the German-Southeast Asian Center of Excellence for Public Policy and Good Governance at Thammasat University, frames this dynamic slightly differently. He explains that Suu Kyi operated within a praetorian system in which the military remained the ultimate political arbiter, leaving her with little room to maneuver and forcing her government into compromises that limited democratic reform. At times, in fact, they mirrored authoritarian practices in order to maintain political stability. “Maybe you have to play out a more authoritarian card, sometimes from the perspective of the one who wants to unite,” he says. “And maybe she tried that to a certain degree, justified or not, [given] what was possible back then.” The author Ma Thida, who was close to Aung San Suu Kyi for many years after her rise in 1988, has a slightly different take on those compromises; she believes that Suu Kyi always saw the Tatmadaw as her father’s military, and one that was ultimately capable of being reformed—and that she was the one to do it. “She had so much hope and confidence about her ability to convince [them to change,] but the coup proved that [strategy] was a failure.” 

Even admitting the daunting structural challenges that dogged her and her government during those years, others point to Suu Kyi’s minimal effort at directing her considerable standing toward the bully pulpit, ensuring that her words remained on the right side of history. Ellen Goldstein, the former World Bank country director for Myanmar, says, “I’m not sure that she ever fully understood how much she could influence public opinion around the Rohingya crisis, that if she would start to say the right things . . . that she could have swayed public opinion quite a bit on this issue, and I did not see her trying really to do that. So that was quite a disappointment. . . . What gets messaged from the top is remarkably important, and . . . I felt that Aung San Suu Kyi could have done more in terms of her messaging and her outreach to her people, to shape and to mold public opinion in a way that might have led to better response.” Mendel is even more forceful when he says, “Aung San Suu Kyi held enormous moral authority with the people. Strong political leaders, when they need to, they impact the thinking of the people. They change it in democratic ways. They help their people move in the way that they need to, to be a democracy, to be a successful country, to do those things. . . . And when the Rohingya crisis happened, what I saw was that Aung San Suu Kyi did not use any of that moral authority to try to shift attitudes. None of that happened. She just went along with it . . . and. . .  that is a significant failure as a leader.”

For many, this silence in the face of genocide makes any claim to ethics untenable. Yet others, like author and activist Alan Clements, argue that her lifelong dedication to meditation offers different clues that are just as critical for understanding her, as well as situating the context in which this practice occurred. “I found her to be a dhamma sister,” he says. “She meditates. She’s disciplined. She’s awake,” Clements continues. “It’s a translation of how to live in a meditative dhamma presence by taking the retreat consciousness [and implementing it in] your career. She said, ‘If enough people live in this level of courage to see, feel, and act, one person at a time, the revolution will be successful.’ ” Clements admits, “Where I admire her the most is in the application of dhamma principles in complex circumstances. It’s one thing to be concentrated, peaceful, and joyful in the sanctity of a silent meditation retreat, with everything being covered, and vegetarian food and quiet. But to think about bringing these teachings into incarceration, torture, rape, displacement, malaria, typhoid, the loss of income. . . .” Clements says. “Almost everyone who employed dhamma as [their] priority in [the] revolution went to prison. So their meditation practice, their dhamma practice, had to deal with levels of complexity that no one could [ever] imagine.” 

Steven V. Smith echoes this perspective. Smith emphasizes that the meditation teachings were deeply integrated into both personal and social life. “The same generative and ancient teachings of the Buddha [that were being] applied in their deepest personal, psychological, emotional, spiritual lives, [also] influenced their social and government and business lives as well.” To Smith, this was very much reflected in the influence of U Pandita, who he says embodied the Burmese sangha in its very best form: a calm nobility in standing up for righteousness, creating a ripple effect that impacted all of lay society. He describes his memory of Aung San Suu Kyi, U Tin Oo, and other NLD leaders during meditation sessions: “Their mere presence spoke volumes. They sat with an uprightness that was more than their physical posture. You felt this rising up of goodness . . . of real . . . righteousness, dignity, [and] a profound respect for humanity. And they’re willing to give everything, to give their life for it!. . . Nearly half a century later, I can still feel it, I can still feel the energetic nature of their presence and of their stature.” 

On this topic of Buddhist identity, author Gustaaf Houtman points to the political and pragmatic advantage that Suu Kyi had in attaching herself to a powerful monastic meditation teacher who also resisted the regime. “She worked very much through U Pandita, who was the teacher of women in the Mahasi tradition, and she took advice from him as well on many issues. This is typical, as U Nu had Mahasi [Sayadaw], and he also asked [for] advice in many ways. Every [Burmese] politician needs a guru, and [so] Aung San Suu Kyi also needed somebody . . .  [later military leaders] tried to cultivate different kinds of teachers, or famous or charismatic monks. It’s almost [like,] if you want to be a politician or to be reckoned with, you will need a monk who is outside of the realm of criticism, and it should be a very pure person, not subject to controversy.”

However, Smith mentions a concerning detail that emerged during his time meditating with Aung San Suu Kyi and others: “Even at the monasteries, there’d be talk about the danger of Muslim people coming into Burma and the Buddhist dhamma being lost. . . . I didn’t hear it so much that I became concerned; I just heard it enough to wonder what that was about.” He acknowledges he has no answer to explain Suu Kyi’s actions around the Rohingya atrocities, adding that “unless and until I meet her again, I won’t really know.” Others have posited that her Buddhist worldview may have, in fact, inhibited her understanding of various marginalized communities who also call Myanmar home. Mark Farmaner, director of Burma Campaign UK, offers this observation: “I think [that] Burma is a multiethnic, multireligious country, but a lot of people don’t see it as that. When I met with Aung San Suu Kyi and discussed [this] with her, I certainly got the impression from her that she sees Burma as a Buddhist country with minorities, and that focus then shapes everything.”

In the end, these have all been reflections on Aung San Suu Kyi and her public-facing life. After the 2021 coup, she was sentenced to twenty-seven years in prison on trumped-up charges widely condemned as political; she recently celebrated her 80th birthday in an undisclosed detention site, forgotten by much of the world.  Reports describe her health as rapidly declining, yet requests for treatment have been ignored. Her son, Kim Aris, says she has pleaded for a cardiologist, but the regime continues to deny her care while claiming she remains in good condition. Lorcan Lovett, a journalist and longtime Myanmar observer, was able to access Aung San Suu Kyi’s prison and court records through “a trusted and well-placed source.” These papers included detailed daily logs documenting Suu Kyi’s health, diet, medications, and limited activities while in detention, as well as courtroom footage from August 2022. The logs reveal ongoing health concerns, including heart problems, dental issues, and other medical needs for which she has reportedly received little or no attention. They also document her minimal food rations, prescribed medications, and continued engagement in reading and meditation, offering a rare and detailed window into the physical and psychological toll of her confinement under the military junta.

Like the other guests, Lovett has his own opinions of The Lady. While acknowledging her imperfections and controversies, he stresses that her influence remains unmatched among pro-democracy forces. “The resistance [is] lacking a leader. . . . Suu Kyi has always been that leader, the kind of lighthouse of democracy and hope and guidance, and that’s something that the resistance doesn’t have at the moment.” Lovett further underscores that her imprisonment is entirely unjust, noting that she does not deserve to be detained and expressing hope that she will eventually be freed and able to speak openly about her experiences.

So where does all this leave us?  Maybe in the end, we should view her as just a unique and very talented yet deeply complicated human being who was thrust into a very challenging situation, and tried—unsuccessfully in the end—to shepherd her country out from under the military’s oppressive thumb. In her vulnerability, pride, aspiration, stubbornness, and grace, her legacy never quite added up in the way that either admirers had hoped it would or that critics had insisted upon. We wrestle with the dissonance of someone who embodies both moral courage and painful compromise, a leader whose choices could inspire as much dismay as devotion. And yet perhaps this unresolved tension does not diminish her importance but rather underscores it. Because in a land so fractured and scarred, for many years, she remained the one figure who, for a time, seemed able to carry the country’s fragile hope of unity, who articulated a dream for a better future that could be heard in halls of power everywhere . . . even as the Burmese nation still struggles to come to grips with and reconcile the contradictions she left behind. 

As much as this essay has focused on the singular person of Aung San Suu Kyi, it is clear that she is not the only one now suffering under this current military regime. And so if there is one thing that should matter most in considering Suu Kyi’s story today, it is the country of her birth itself—a nation that has given life to rich spiritual traditions and spawned meditation lineages that have spread globally. Those same traditions are now endangered by the military’s relentless aggression against monks, nuns, and novices, who face raids, disruption, burned monasteries, and a scarcity of food supporting alms rounds; the social and psychological well-being of entire religious communities is at risk. And beyond the monastic community, civilians of all backgrounds are caught in escalating conflict, suffering displacement, scarcity, and trauma.

Just as meditation teaches practitioners to sit with an attentive, open, and compassionate heart in the full awareness of whatever is present, including discomfort, uncertainty, and fear, I believe we similarly consider Aung San Suu Kyi in that same spirit. And not only for her but for the entire nation of Myanmar, which is undergoing so much pain. Readers of this article—especially those who are devoted to a mindfulness practice that has its roots in the Burmese nation—are invited to consider how they might show up with that same compassion: for the Burmese people enduring daily hardships, for the spiritual and ethical traditions under threat, and for the leader whose life embodies both the hopes and the burdens of a nation.