The SPECTATOR
Francis Pike
10 October 2020
It’s as ignorant to demonise Aung San Suu Kyi as it was to idolise her
As Perseus was flying along the coast on his winged horse Pegasus, he
spotted Andromeda tied to a rock as a sacrifice to Poseidon’s sea
monster Cetus. It was love at first sight. Perseus slew Cetus and
married Andromeda. Thus began the damsel-in-distress archetype that has
been a mainstay of western culture ever since. Riffs on the archetype
have been used by Chaucer, Shakespeare, Dickens and Wagner. Perhaps it
was these examples that inspired the global liberal establishment (the
BBC, Hollywood and the Nobel Peace Prize committee among others) to
create, in the 1990s, the mythical version of Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma’s
‘imprisoned princess’, the saintly spiritual heir to Mahatma Gandhi, as
Time magazine described her.