Pluck not the wayside flower

GOOD NEWS flashed around the world this morning. As reported by the New York Times, Burmese dissident Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who has been confined 15 of the last 21 years, was freed after seven and a half years of house arrest. It proves yet again the ancient adage that “The good man [or woman], though a slave, is free; the wicked, though he reigns, is a slave.”

Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi, a delicate flower who has relentlessly spoken truth to power, memorably said, "Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it; fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it."

On political change, she wrote:

“The quintessential revolution is that of the spirit, born of an intellectual conviction of the need for change in those mental attitudes and values which shape the course of a nation's development. 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.”

The world is fortunate to have souls like Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi to enlighten it. It is as Irish poet William Allingham said, “Pluck not the wayside flower; It is the traveler's dower.”