Burma’s fragile future

It would be tempting to think of Aung San Suu Kyi’s return to Oxford University today as the end of a long journey — but it is, of course, just the beginning. As the Burmese opposition leader herself said at the Encaenia ceremony after she finally accepted her honorary doctorate — awarded to her 19 years ago — her country’s road is yet unformed and has to be built ‘inch by difficult inch’. She also pointed out that ‘too many people are expecting too much’ from her country.

Decades of house arrest do not appear to have sapped the spirit of Suu Kyi, who spoke, apparently without notes, with humour and charm of her old student days at Oxford. Yet she will be 70 when Burma has its all-important national elections in 2015. Suu Kyi has fallen sick during her current tour of Europe, and collapsed from exhaustion several times during her by-election campaign in March.