He’s the man behind the brilliant, blindingly quick goal that sent this country into a paroxysm of joy at the 2010 Olympic Games. It was, without overstating, the goal that defined the Games themselves, so vivid is its memory, and so deep its impression on the national psyche. As challenging as 2010 has been—with its wars, natural disasters and political upheavals—“the Goal” resides on a higher plane, dwarfing among other things Sidney Crosby’s other achievements, which include a Stanley Cup and a host of personal awards.
When, on the evening of Nov. 13, Aung San Suu Kyi suddenly appeared from behind the red iron bars surrounding her house, her lonely prison for most of the past two decades, her ecstatic supporters erupted into cheers; many were reduced to tears. Thousands had rushed to Suu Kyi’s crumbling white villa on Rangoon’s Inya Lake after security forces began taking apart the compound’s barbed-wire barricades: a clear signal the world’s most famous political prisoner would finally be freed from house arrest.
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