5. A Revolution of the Spirit
Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma’s imprisoned Nobel peace laureate, and leader of her country’s nonviolent struggle to overcome dictatorship, explains the essence of liberating freedom.
“A revolution which aims merely at changing official policies and institutions with a view to an improvement in material conditions has little chance of genuine success. Without a revolution of the spirit, the forces which produced the iniquities of the old order would continue to be operative, posing a constant threat to the process of reform and regeneration.
It is not enough merely to call for freedom, democracy, and human rights. There has to be a united determination to persevere in the struggle, to make sacrifices in the name of enduring truths, to resist the corrupting influences of desire, ill will, ignorance, and fear.
Among the basic freedoms to which men aspire that their lives might be full and uncramped, freedom from fear stands out as both a means and end. A people which would build a nation in which strong, democratic institutions are firmly established as a guarantee against state-induced power must first learn to liberate their own minds from apathy and fear.”