BBC Radio 4 Reith Lectures: Aung San Suu Kyi and Baroness Manningham-Buller

The annual BBC Reith Lectures are an absolute treat this year with a theme of “Securing Freedom”. Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi has given her two lectures on ‘Dissent’ and ‘Liberty’ in the last number of weeks, with the former Director-General of MI5 Baroness Manningham-Buller set to deliver her lectures in the latter part of September.

Freedom is a bit like everything isn’t it really; in the eye of the beholder. At its purest it reflects that  human desire to be without the tyranny of another. Its antithesis by its denial is so ingrained in Western Political Thought that it demands defending, or perhaps more appropriately, when it is convenient for expedient’s sake. Yet Freedom is not a purely Western thought; for generations upon generations of humankind, peoples have longed for political freedoms and a seeking of a better life. Suu Kyi is another example of this desire and persistence to be free.

People dream big to rise above their circumstances and like the little woman with a lion’s heart, they change the world.

 

 

The Fairies’ Siege

Rudyard Kipling

I have been given my charge to keep–
Well have I kept the same!
Playing with strife for the most of my life,
But this is a different game.
I’ll not fight against swords unseen,
Or spears that I cannot view–
Hand him the keys of the place on your knees–
‘Tis the Dreamer whose dreams come true!

Ask him his terms and accept them at once.
Quick, ere we anger him, go!
Never before have I flinched from the guns,
But this is a different show.
I’ll not fight with the Herald of God
(I know what his Master can do!)
Open the gate, he must enter in state,
‘Tis the Dreamer whose dreams come true!

I’d not give way for an Emperor,
I’d hold my road for a King–
To the Triple Crown I would not bow down–
But this is a different thing.
I’ll not fight with the Powers of Air,
Sentry, pass him through!
Drawbridge let fall, ’tis the Lord of us all,
The Dreamer whose dreams come true!