Mishal Husain’s 2013 interview with Aung San Suu Kyi. It’s Trump’s ‘many sides’.

Click on the embedded video. Have a listen for yourself. Four years ago, BBC journalist Mishal Husain interviewed Aung San Suu Kyi about the plight of the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar.

Ms Suu Kyi pre-viewed US president Donald Trump’s “many sides” moral equivalence about the neo-fascist march in Charlottesville.

She said that all the trouble was caused by “the fear felt by both sides (Buddhist and Muslim)”. She makes a vague but fairly suggestive reference to Muslims’ “global power”, which she says is feared by many (Buddhists as well as everyone else).

And at a time when 140,000 Rohingya Muslims had been forced to leave their homes, Ms Suu Kyi said: “Muslims have been targeted, but Buddhists have also been subjected to violence”.

Like President Trump, she created a troubling moral equivalence.

It may be pragmatism — the Burmese military is very powerful — but principle is what made Ms Suu Kyi a shining symbol for the world.

Originally published at www.rashmee.com on September 9, 2017.