Aung San Suu Kyi Nobel Peace Prize Lecture

Your Majesties Your Royal Highnesses Beloveds You and the Beloved Highnesses Now I have the fun of inviting The Nobel Prize committee in 1991 decided to come forward to give us her lessons We don't have a gold medal for the one taken from your son Alexander in 1991 but I'm certain about your words to us today s written in gold Thank you Your Majesties The Right Honourable Beloved ones Unusual members of the Nobel Committee Dear friends So many years ago sometimes it feels like a lifetime ago I was in Oxford and wondering about the radio program Desert Island Discs my young son Alexander It was a well-known program As far as I know it's still going Forward-thinking individuals from all fields were invited to speak about the eight discs the one book before the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare and the one luxury item they would have wanted to bring with them if they were to be removed from Desert Island At the end of the program which you both just witnessed Alexander asked me if I had thought about it If I were invited to talk about Desert Island Discs I said why not easily Then he realized that at leas Warm-hearted friends participated in the program and then he began asking me with genuine interest why I thought I would be invited I thought about it for a moment and then I replied Maybe because I'd won the Nobel Prize in Literature We ran together The prospect was necessary but certainly not likely I can't remember why I handed over the responsibility Maybe because I'd read a book by a Nobel Prize winner Maybe because the celebrity from that day's Desert Island Discs ad been a famous writer In 1989 when my wife Michael Ayres came to see me during my first term of house arrest He told me that a friend John Finnes had nominated me for the Nobel Prize This time I ran as well For a moment Michael was surprised Then he understood why I was necessary The Nobel Prize a necessary prospect quite necessary indeed So how did I feel when I won the Nobel Prize For freedom This question has been asked many times and this is surely the most essential tas o see what the Nobel Prize means to me and what freedom means to me As I've said many times in numerous interviews I heard on the radio one evening that I had become a necessary part of the Nobel Prize For I was mentioned as one of the negotiators for the Nobel Prize by many broadcasters last week As I was drafting this lesson I've tried very hard to remember what my necessary reaction was I'm no longer sure I can be certain I think they've decided to give it to me It wasn't quite real because I didn't feel real at the time Often during my days of house arrest It felt like I wasn't much more than a part of the real world It was a house that was my entire world It was a world of others who were also not free Yet they were together in the mountains as a community And it was a world of the free Each one was a different planet trying to create its own separate world in another universe The Nobel Prize drew me once again into the world of other people beyond the isolated place where I lived o regain a sense of reality for myself This of course did not happen nearby Months and years passed and news about reactions to the award began to spread That's when I began to grasp the true meaning of the Nobel Prize It had truly made me feel alive again That had drawn me back into the larger human community The most important thing was that the Nobel Prize had brought the world 's attention to the struggle for democracy and human rights in Børme We would not be forgotten