Suu Kyi in the UK

Yesterday, on her 67th birthday, Aung San Suu Kyi visited Oxford where she studied and married and raised her children before returning to Burma to nurse her sick mother and then being held under house arrest by the military regime for more than twenty years. Oxford University did her proud, giving her an honorary degree in civil law. At a ceremony at the Sheldonian Theatre the Public Orator told her in Latin: “Your silence has sounded louder that the jabber of politics and the clang of military power. Out of deep darkness your little lamp has shone across the planet, your stillness has moved the world.” Earlier in the day Suu Kyi visited the BBC World Service at Broadcasting House in London and paid tribute to the part it had played in making her isolation bearable: “It kept me in touch with developments in the outside world when I was not allowed contact with anyone outside my house.” But she also asked why the World Service no longer includes programmes like Just A Minute and Bookshelf . Her complaint was justified; the World Service, now following the “rolling news” model of almost continuous and often repetitive news bulletins, lacks the variety in its programming it once offered and has considerably reduced its content of British culture and background. Something the new Director General when appointed, should look at.