This past summer while most of us took a break, UVA English professor Steve Parks persevered day and night to bring noted Burmese political prisoner and democracy activist Myo Yan Naung Thein to Grounds as a visiting researcher for the fall semester. Thein, who escaped arrest in Myanmar after the military coup earlier this year, arrived in Charlottesville a few weeks ago and will be with us through December, with the support of the Democracy Initiative, to study the challenges to democracy. He will also interact with students and faculty in multiple venues including on a panel during Global Week.
As UVA grapples with the tarnished legacy of a founder who was an enslaver, and a troubling history of racism and exclusion, Thein’s story is a powerful reminder that our not fully realized ideals still inspire activists around the world to make gains in the cause of human freedom – and can still light UVA’s own way in overcoming a difficult past.
Thein shared with Parks that when Burmese authorities shut down universities in the 1980’s, he pursued his education in part by visiting the U.S. Embassy library, where he began reading the works of Thomas Jefferson, driven by his own interest in architecture. As Thein’s political consciousness grew, Jefferson’s writings on the right of people to govern themselves inspired him to organize protests against Burmese police brutality and repression. Those protests led to Thein’s arrest and imprisonment for seven years in solitary confinement, during which he had little access to outside information. During his time in jail, he came across a short article about UVA and Jefferson’s role in its founding. According to Parks, the article set Thein to dreaming about someday coming to UVA to walk the Grounds and experience firsthand the values that Jefferson had popularized.
Decades later, Thein’s dream has now come true. As he told Parks, finally arriving to walk the Grounds that he read about in a prison cell so many years ago, and which today remain a place that is passionately engaged with the great questions of democracy, has recharged his commitment to continue the struggle for a democratic Myanmar. The University is grateful to English Department chair John O’Brien and Professor Parks for bringing Thein to Grounds. It is UVA’s honor to give Thein refuge; may his story and presence here recharge our own commitment to live up to the ideals our imperfect forebears set in making UVA a place that is both great and good in the world.
Stay global!
