Hello, I'm Kirstie Young. Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Disks from BBC Radio 4.

For rights reasons, the music choices are shorter than in the radio broadcast.

For more information about the program, please visit BBC.co.uk.

Radio 4. My cast away this week is An Sansuuchi, leader of Burma's opposition party, the

NLD, she has dedicated herself to fighting for human rights and democracy in her homeland.

A figure of world-renown, she is known in Burma simply as the Lady,

a principled formidable graceful presence,

and a beacon of hope to a nation repressed for decades

by a savage military dictatorship. President Obama calls her an icon of democracy.

Desmond Tutu says she is a remarkable woman, ready to work for the healing

of her motherland.

Her renown has come at significant personal cost, years of house arrest and persecution, exiled from her children and apart from her British

husband who died from cancer in 1999.

She says, it takes courage to feel the truth, to feel one's conscience because once you do you must

engage your fundamental purpose for being alive. You can't just expect to sit idly

by and have freedom handed to you.

Dorsey, we're sitting in your home in Burma's capital,

Napier-Dor, where the Parliament sits

and where you took your seat when you elect an MP

in April 2012. I wonder at this very moment what you make of your

position in Burmese society and if we're Burma is. My position in Burmese

society is simply that of somebody trying to build up the foundations of a

...