Time_23Mar2020

Time March 16–23, 2020

1991 | COURAGE TO SPEAK

ANITA HILL

BY TESSA BERENSON

As The chorus of The #meToo movemenT reAched

a crescendo, with women everywhere speaking out about

abuse they had endured at the hands of powerful men, one

voice from the past seemed to echo into the present.

When Anita Hill testified before Congress in 1991 and

accused Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas of sex-

ual harassment, she did so nearly three decades before the

start of the movement that might have supported her, and

spoke alone as a black woman in front of an all-white, all-

male Senate Judiciary Committee. Poised in her delivery,

the attorney detailed ways she said Thomas had harassed

her when he was her supervisor at two government agen-

cies. But with a cynical reception from the committee and

a forceful denial from Thomas, he was confirmed.

1990

Aung San Suu Kyi

Arrested hope

A revolutionary spirit engulfed Myanmar in
the summer of 1988. The daughter of Aung

San, the country’s independence hero, caught
the fever. Aung San Suu Kyi joined the op-
position, lending her status as political roy-

alty to the fight against the military dictator-
ship. The uprising ended in bloodshed; the

military killed thousands and put the upstart
National League for Democracy (NLD) activ-
ists in prison or, in Aung San Suu Kyi’s case,

under house arrest. But her fight for democ-
racy persisted. In 1990, the NLD won a land-
slide in an election swiftly invalidated by

the junta. It would be another 22 years, 15 of
them spent in confinement, before Aung San

Suu Kyi could claim a seat in parliament.
Then in 2015, Myanmar’s first civilian
government in more than half a century took

power with Aung San Suu Kyi at the helm. She
became the de facto head of state in the newly
crafted role of state counselor. But the Nobel

Peace Prize laureate soon disappointed her
supporters abroad when her Administration,
which still shares power with the military, de-

fended the army’s brutal campaign against
the Rohingya Muslim minority. In December

2019, Aung San Suu Kyi personally traveled to
the International Court of Justice at the Hague
to deny allegations of genocide. Her rejection

of the claims delighted her domestic base, but
further cemented her descent from demo-
cratic icon to international pariah.

ÑLaignee Barron

1990s

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