Aung San Suu Kyi and Hillary Clinton, new hope for 2012

Here we are, few days and 2001 will be gone forever, a very bad year for several reasons, especially for Europe, which suffers because old age and pays the price for decades and centuries of unrestrained capitalism.
A year to forget for Italy which is now facing an empty future without purpose, without ideas, not worthy to be lived and dreamed off.
Fathers are seeing today their children living much worse off them even after many sacrifices, without a family plan, surviving the day without a goal.
An entire continent, but Italy is the Vanguard, is throwing away the best with over twenty millions of unemployed.
This led in 2011 the death of many, too many, dreams.

But looking carefully the dark horizon of 2012, announced like an apocalyptic year, we can see more.
Each time, after an end, there is a new beginning and glimpses of sun seem to come out timid.

The Arab world seethes and structure itself, the movement of protest against this American capitalism and the finance sterile and devastating Wall Street is not giving up.
Europe, as mentioned, regretfully is listening to his Requiem Mass, but something will inevitably arise.

One thing that struck me most this year has come up, finally, in early December.
One of the images that will remain with me, is certainly the 2011 meeting between U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Aung San Suu Kyi.

In Myanmar, a country that I have just visited and loved, the ” National League for Democracy,” the formation of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi was allowed by the Electoral Commission to run at the next election.

The announcement was made the official newspaper “New Light of Myanmar”, the “National League for Democracy” is now ready to present candidates, including for the first time Aung San Suu Kyi, Nobel Peace Prize.
A meeting delicate, unexpected, complex and difficult, but I’ve seen very heartfelt and sincere.

An historic meeting, the first official American presence in Burma since 1955.
It was Aung San Suu Kyi to suggest to the U.S. President Barack Obama to accept the invitation of the authorities of Naypydaw, the new capital built by the military junta of Myanmar.
Obama wrote that the U.S. is ready to open a “new era” in relations with the leaders of Myanmar, but it will always be on the side of Aung San Suu Kyi.

The U.S. secretary of state has visited Aung San Suu Kyi’s house where the leader of the National League for Democracy has spent the last twenty years under house arrest.
Clinton also met the president Thein Sein and some ministers, urging them to cut ties with North Korea, and saying that the measures introduced for human rights are relaxing but not enough yet.

This is the official content; politically U.S. have a strong interests to have a competitive presence in Asia to stand against Chinese hegemony in the area, and Myanmar always relies on China.

However was fantastic to see these two women together in the same places I visited last September, it was really exciting.

I want to start this 2012 cultivating that image inside me, this historical meeting, if things can really change in Burma, much more is possible.